Publisher

Ever wondered about us at www.wizardknits.com? Who are we? This is the story behind Hobbie's House of Wizard Wear - and how we built it. Hogwarts® style school uniforms were very familiar. We wore them through nearly a decade, attending British "public schools". Not just any school uniforms...exactly the same style as seen in the Harry Potter® movies! The uniforms included button down shirts and ties, with our choice of cardigan, sweater or vest. Hobbie's House opened its doors for business late in 2002, as a "niche" of a long-standing custom-knitting business. The owner's son, an avid reader of the J.K. Rowling books, needed a Hufflepuff© sweater and scarf set. Katsucon 2003 was a few short weeks away and as an Anime fan, his costume of choice was that of a Hogwarts© student. A photo of the scarf was posted on the web and within days, several of his friends placed orders for various Hogwarts© scarves, all to be worn at the same event. The following week, we received an email request to supply a Katsucon vendor with "as many wizard scarves" as possible. In a matter of a few short weeks, we were officially in the "wizard wear", school uniform business. It was like stepping back in time - only now we had the opportunity to make the uniforms rather than wear them. The Hobby Becomes A Business During the 60's, it was all about handcrafted items. Everything revolved around sewing and knitting. Sewing came out of necessity. We lived in countries where it was close to impossible to buy garments off the rack. On the other hand, fabulous fabrics were easy to find so sewing became the hobby of choice. Drafting custom patterns and custom sewing were the logical next step in the crafting process. Knitting was already a well-established hobby - a craft passed down by a patient great-grandmother. Beautiful yarns were also easy to find so it was only natural to pick up the needles and knit a sweater or cardigan. Fast forward to the early 70's...Why not combine both crafts to dress your firstborn? The focus turned to building a knit wardrobe for a little girl. Born during a sweltering North Carolina summer, Mom had time to knit cabled hoodies, turtlenecks, and cardigans. These custom made knits soon became the envy of friends and neighbors and, before too long, the knitting hobby turned into a mini cottage industry. To keep up with an ever growing demand, the majority of the knit pieces were hand loomed and finished. The business followed when we moved to Virginia where it turned into a full-fledged, custom sewing/knitting business. Children's knitwear was still a specialty but before too long, customers expressed an interested in learning "how to" knit. As a result, the knitting business résumé also includes : A Brother knitting machine dealership, Individual and group machine knitting lessons, Sample knitting for knitwear designers, Production of unique knit fabrics for custom-made designer suits. Custom Knitting In A Virtual World Site Build It! The leap of faith came when we decided to take our local custom knitting business with local clients and go "virtual". It was a daunting task, given the very nature of a custom service, especially after years of conducting this one-on-one business the old-fashioned way. The primary question was "how to provide a personal service online". It proved to be more of a challenge than actually creating a website for that purpose. It was easy to envision going virtual but why just build a simple website, when we could in fact transfer our local success and build another business...online? SBI was the ideal solution. Site Build It is a complete web hosting/marketing system, which fit our established business also allowed us to focus on the custom knitting while the system took over the time consuming task of maintaining a web presence. As a result, Harry Potter© fans around the world quickly heard about us and Hobbie's wizard wear products are now worn by fans in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Our knitwear products also found their way across the United States and Canada thanks to our participation in various well known Anime conventions and simple word of mouth "advertising". In fact, SBI is a perfect solution for any aspiring entrepreneur interested in establishing a successful home-based business or doing what we did at Hobbie's House of Wizard Wear...which is expand from brick and mortar to virtual. Many friends and family members, envious of our success online, marveled at the incredible variety of marketing tools available to us, which made it possible Hobbie’s House to succeed on the Internet in a relatively short period, remain a viable business success, and more importantly, continue to grow – in a niche market! Hobbie’s House of Wizard Wear is still here, still growing...and since 1998, we have helped several of these friends and family members launch their own successful Internet business ventures. Imagine the possibilities: A retired human resource executive took his consultancy online. A young mother with a high-stress, full time career started a home based scrapbooking business, literally as a stress-relieving outlet. An empty nester now promotes a catering service and her 10 year old, Baltimore farmer’s market “business” online. A local repair person now advertises the various services he provides through his new virtual storefront and provides newcomers with reviews of other local services. Another retiree opened a gourmet cheese and gift shop. Yes, the possibilities are endless - what is your business? Rest assured, you could take it online - and make it work! We all did. If you would like to know more about us, just send us an email.