Industrial Seamstress

Do you spend a lot of time studying patterns, hand-sewing Christmas gifts for everyone in your family, and making your children’s clothes? Do you love the power of sergers, have nimble fingers, and revel in the creation of a functional product from nothing more than thread and cloth? If so, you should consider a job as a Seamstress.

Be aware, though, as an Industrial Seamstress, you don’t spend your days attaching buttons to blouses and designing wedding dresses. No, the job of an Industrial Seamstress is the Rambo of seamstressing. Also known as an Industrial Sewer, an Industrial Seamstress wrangles 50-pound rolls of heavyweight material from one project to the next.The equipment looks like it belongs on a construction site rather than a sewing facility, and the products created are anything but dainty.

Although the technique is much the same as the one used by your mother’s sewing circle, your materials and equipment are industrial strength. You use sergers and sewing machines with needles as thick as your pinky finger, heavy-duty thread, and scissors capable of cutting leather.

Once you’re done laying out patterns, cutting the materials, and using machines to stitch it all together, the end result is ready for testing. And it’s put to the test—by families, soldiers, or commercial consumers. Imagine a circus tent, a motor home’s 16-foot awning, or a massive military-grade tarp, and you’ll know the type of strength, precision, and know-how that the job requires.