The embroiderer from Maxhöhe

Created: 02/20/2022, 08:51

By: Sandra Sedlmaier

The embroidery workshop in the basement: Thanks to her embroidery work in her grandfather's and father's old workshop, Sophia Fröhlich turns everyday objects into special pieces.

© Andrea Jaksch

Sophia Fröhlich set up her own business in her father's basement with an unusual business idea: The 25-year-old from Berg embroiders.

At the moment the Berger coat of arms is the hit in her workshop.

Berg

– 11,720 stitches and 17 minutes: That's how long it takes for the Berger coat of arms to be embroidered in blue, white and gold on the dark blue polo shirt.

Above the coat of arms is "voluntary fire brigade", below "mountain".

The machine will embroider the coat of arms 100 times – the Berger fire brigade has given “Sophias Stickstube” a large order.

"My best employee," says Sophia Fröhlich about her embroidery machine.

The device is significantly larger than a sewing machine - and also much louder.

The 25-year-old met her “employee” more or less by accident, and one can actually say that the chemistry was right from the start.

The embroidery machine was the first step in "Sophia's embroidery room".

Actually, Sophia Fröhlich wanted to become a dirndl tailor.

"But I couldn't find an apprenticeship," says the young Bergerin.

Today she considers it fate that nothing came of her dream.

She sits in the former workshop in her father's basement on Maxhöhe at the computer, next to her sewing machine and with the embroidery machine behind her.

Two thirds of the room is made up of the embroidery room with a large table, brightly colored threads and colored fabrics, the rest refers to its former use as a watchmaker's and woodworker's workshop.

It is actually due to the corona pandemic that Sophia Fröhlich found her purpose.

After her hotel management apprenticeship and a stay in the USA as an au pair, she returned to Lake Starnberg and initially worked in a café.

That job ended with the pandemic.

"My cousin asked me if I wanted to sew masks," she recalls.

She wasn't really interested, but the demand was there and also a few large orders, for example from the Reiser company in Höhenrain.

While looking for fabrics, she came across the embroidery machine.

"I knew then that I wanted to do it," says Sophia Fröhlich.

She cautiously went into self-employment and kept her job in a bakery in Schäftlarn for the time being.

"The most important things are paid for with the part-time job and I have a clear head." On the one hand, your work in the embroidery shop is technical when it comes to digitizing a logo, preparing the embroidery frame or cutting the embroidery stabilizer to size stability of the fabric to be embroidered.

The embroidery machine receives its instructions via USB stick and then works almost by itself.

But only almost: The letters of "voluntary fire brigade" were too far apart at the first attempt, so Sophia Fröhlich had to correct it.

Embroidery width and density have to be set separately.

A professional did the preparatory work for embroidering the Berger community logo.

"It's complicated, I had it digitized by someone who has special software," says the young woman.

You also have one that cost 1,500 euros.

"The professional software costs 10,000 euros - that's not possible for me at the moment." The first customer for the Berger coat of arms was Mayor Rupert Steigenberger.

He now has a laptop case in gray felt with a blue crest.

The other side of the work in the embroidery room is the creative side.

Sophia Fröhlich thinks up products or gets ideas from the Internet, for example for towels for babies that are provided with the child's name, for lavender or cherry stone pillows.

"I only use Bioware for these things," she says.

Things are going well.

To do this, she sits down at her sewing machine, a Pfaff model from 1960, “the first electric one from Pfaff, I bought it on the Internet”.

A small backpack in the shape of a rabbit is very cute, perfect as a bag for kindergarten children.

Embroidered coats of arms or lettering are more common than you might think.

FC Perlach always contacts Sophia Fröhlich when it welcomes a new member.

She has the coat of arms for the black FCP polo shirt in stock, as well as the name of the new member.

Her first customer was a doctor's office in Starnberg.

"I digitized their logo and simply embroidered it," says Sophia Fröhlich, laughing.

"It's worked out."

So far, the young entrepreneur has had almost nothing but good experiences.

"People are always very nice," she says.

Which is certainly largely up to her – in the conversation it becomes clear that Sophia Fröhlich has found her purpose.

This is reflected in their friendliness and cheerfulness.

It's going so well at the moment that she's considering downsizing the bakery job.

She would like to have an embroidery shop in her own rooms, but the apartment in Farchach, where she lives with her boyfriend and two cats, is too small.

And the dream of dirndl tailoring?

“I did a course last summer, six Saturdays long.

That's when I realized this wasn't for me – so much blunt work and so much detail.”