My husband and I have been self employed for over 25 years now. I agree with the start small and grow slow philosophy. Also, keep overhead to a minimum. Don't invest in rental space until you absolutely have to. Work out of your house, no rent, utilities or phone service to pay for. Also, the county probably won't find you and want you to pay property taxes that way. Etsy or eBay are great ways to start accumulating capital. Don't take out a loan. Just keep reinvesting the money from your company back into the company for the first few years. If you need an income, keep working and do the fabric as a sideline so you can build some capital in the business. As someone mentioned, you probably won't have any profit the first years. Good luck! PM me if you want to talk. I'm the money person in our company and I'm pretty good at it! (yeah, modest too) lol