She left her NYC teaching job to open a sewing studio. Here's how she did it.

• Kate Saffady left teaching to manage her Brooklyn sewing studio full-time.
• Brooklyn Stitch Studio offers sewing classes for kids and adults.
• Saffady had to navigate NYC's business costs, balancing expenses and income to make it work.

Tucked in a brick building in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, is a studio with four white walls with highlights of blue and purple furniture, where children go to sew.

At the Brooklyn Stitch Studio, kids ages eight and up dedicate 90 minutes after school to working on self-directed projects — coming out with sweatshirts and zip pouches.

The more sew-savvy kids help out those still trying to get over the learning curve — in the meantime, they form tight-knit groups, and although the shop's owner, Kate Saffady, encourages it, it seems to happen organically as they share the space, she said.

This spring, Saffady saw that the studio was bringing in more revenue than her preschool teaching job, and in June, the 50-year-old left the classroom to run the studio full time.

In 2025, she earned almost $110,000 with her studio while working as a teacher. Year to date, Saffady has earned around $190,000 in revenue and expects additional income in November, when she begins booking the winter session.

In addition to the after-school courses, Saffady also offers private sewing events, birthdays, and one-off adult workshops. She has done everything herself, from building her website to the business's accounting.

"This business is kind of hyperlocal, very specific to this area, so that's why I wanted Brooklyn in it," she said in reference to the studio's name.

Saffady is one of the business owners Business Insider has interviewed for our Cost of the City series, where we report on what it takes to make it work in New York City, one of the most expensive cities in the country.

The Albany-born small-business owner moved to NYC in 1994. She has lived in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, for 25 years.

Her mom was a quilter, and as an adult, Saffady practiced sewing on and off. Yet, it was only in 2019 that she picked it up again. This led her to open a four-week crafts summer camp in a rented classroom during the summer of 2022. Seeing how kids really took to the sewing section, the camp focused solely on sewing the next year. By January 2025, she opened a physical studio and started hosting classes there.

The cost of growing a small business in NYC

To furnish the space, she bought chairs and tables from Ikea and Walmart and spent thousands on sewing machines and materials, putting the expenses on a credit card that she is still paying off. By spring of 2025, she was breaking even on the studio space.

In April 2026, she moved to a larger room in the same building, where rent, maintenance, and utilities total $2,587 a month. The additional space allowed her to host larger events and build more momentum.

"My rent increased a lot, but I'm also able to do so many more things that I couldn't do in my old space," she said.

After-school classes cost $60 to $80, while workshops run $90 to $110. With 12 machines, she typically caps most classes at 12 students, though there are some exceptions for bigger events. Five or six attendees typically cover a class's costs, though she will run smaller classes of four students to build word-of-mouth demand.

She also pays around $55 in monthly liability insurance and over $200 in materials a month. Fabric is the biggest burden, since wholesalers require large upfront bulk orders. For Saffady, that meant spending around $3,500 on initial orders with two different fabric suppliers.

"You have to bite that bullet and make that first large order," she said.

Saffady pays over $2,400 a month out of pocket for health insurance for herself, her husband, and her three children. She also has to pay New York City's unincorporated business tax, a 4% tax on qualifying business income. Yet, fluctuating revenue makes it difficult to estimate in advance how much she will have to pay in taxes, meaning she has to build a savings cushion for those taxes.

"That's just the cost of doing business in New York," she said.

Saffady has made some sacrifices to offset these expenses. She has yet to install internet and has given up street visibility for a studio in a larger complex — she said the lower rent, the building's services, and nearby businesses make the trade-off worthwhile.

"Ideally, I would have wanted to be in a retail storefront, in a more visible foot traffic area," she said.

Leaving the classroom

Her experience as a preschool teacher has also helped her transition into her new role.

"My pace is naturally slow, and I'm used to breaking it down. It comes easily to me to soothe someone when they're frustrated or upset," she said. "It's very similar to the scenarios that happen in preschool."

To prepare for the switch, she saved all the money that came in from the studio and, with her husband, decided to be more financially conservative as the business grows. Although she gave up a stable income, she has gained a more balanced life.

"The more events I booked, the more momentum started to build, and I felt like I couldn't turn things away," she said.

For a 90-minute sewing class, it's at least 2 hours of prep time. Now, Saffady spends most of her day preparing for prep work for the kids — something she used to have to do at night after her teaching job.

"I'm just on the cusp of realizing how much more balanced my life can be," she said.

Living in NYC is costly, but it is key to how Saffady runs her client-based business.

"There's such a large pool of potential customers in New York. As difficult as it is with the costs here. It must be so much more difficult to do something like this in a smaller area."

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