As the hard-working owner of Creative Upholstery, Najiyyah Shamsid-Deen knows the meaning of multi-tasking. An average day in her shop will see Ms Deen doing everything from answering phones, meeting with clients, sewing draperies and ordering fabrics to trying to juggle an interview with The Royal Gazette in between it all. Such is the nature of running a small business.

Ms Deen's passion for sewing dates back to her youth. "I have always sewn," she said. "I was always at a sewing machine. I used to make all of my own clothes and I came to be known for sewing. I have been known for sewing since I was very young."

The former BHS student said she was born into a very entrepreneurial family and her father ran his own construction business. She began her working life by helping out around his office but soon branched out, starting her own business.

Ms Deen met an upholsterer who was due to return to England but was not quite ready to go home. The two decided to open up a shop doing upholstery and draperies.

"In the beginning, we were doing the work in my apartment," she said. By October of 1981, their fledgling business had found a home, however, at 100 Middle Road in Warwick. In the beginning, Creative Upholstery rented one floor of the building from the Lodge that used to own it.

"Some of my family were lodge members," she said. "I asked my grandmother whether I could come here."

In 2010, the store will celebrate 30 years of operation at the location. The business expanded to take over the entire location and eventually bought out the property.

"We just kept growing and expanding from upholstering into draperies and car work and boat work," Ms Deen said. "Now we do a full complement of whatever is needed in the upholstery trade."

Ms Deen admits it was a leap of faith when she started the business. "I think that, had I known what was involved in the business before I actually got into the business, I don't know whether I would have actually done it. I think I might have been frightened by it," she said.

"But I grew, and grew along with the business. It's been a growing process from stage to stage." To meet clients' upholstery needs, Ms Deen employs two full-time, skilled upholsterers — her original partner has long since returned to England — and a number of part-time and casual seamstresses. She still personally does most of the draperies work — visiting clients' homes to make, made to measure custom window treatments.

She is proud of her current team, which she said is the best she has had. "They give me a very high standard and quality work," she said. "They are such a dedicated group. All the upholsterers have ten-plus years of experience. They can do a little bit of everything but specialise in auto work, furniture upholstery and boat work.

"They really take pride in their work for themselves as well as from a company point of view. They are a very special team. They are the 'last of the Mohicans'."

Over the years keeping enough skilled staff to meet demand for their services has been one of her biggest challenges. One of the most common misconceptions about the upholstery business is how truly specialised and labour intensive the work is, Ms Deen said, which is reflected in the cost.

"Sometimes people really do not appreciate how much labour goes into the work," she said.

"The upholsterers must be very skilled. It is more like buying a tailored suit versus something off the shelf. Oftentimes the trade is not appreciated for what it really is. You have to learn, you have to study. Sometimes in Bermuda, people take it like a hobby. It's not."

Another challenge has been finding time for herself; as a single mother raising her daughter and running a business left little time for anything else.

"There was no personal life," she said. "That is the shortfall. I was not been able to establish that kind of a healthy personal life because the business had become my life."

This is an aspect she is now trying to change by prioritising personal time. "Now that my daughter is grown and my grandson is older, I need to be able to balance it off to maintain a sense of energy to be able to continue to go forward," she said. "If I don't do that, I feel, it could affect the business."

Ms Deen is also the caregiver for her 83-year-old mother, however, so the demands on her time continue to be many. "I still don't quite have that personal time unless I insist on the importance of it and manage and organise myself in a way to take it and that I have to take it," she said. "I realise that now."

Being a Muslim woman running a business was also occasionally challenging but Ms Deen said she felt it was important to conquer stereotypes and show that a Muslim woman could be out working without compromising her values.

"I thought it was important to represent the Muslim world and to let people know Muslim women do have the right to actually operate and run a business and that we can run businesses and be involved with businesses at a managerial level," she said.

"People used to see me driving around in this big truck with my little scarf on."

Sadly, the labour-intensive nature of the business may make it less attractive to young Bermudians, Ms Deen said. Attitudes toward time-intensive, hands-on labour have changed.

"I remember that I would sit at a sewing machine from sun up to sun down, all day, making an outfit till it was finished for Cup Match or any occasion," she said.

"I had no problem doing that and enjoyed every minute of it and was pleased to see the outcome afterwards. Knowing you made it with your own hands and having people compliment it. Now we are in a quick fix, microwave world."

For her part, the business has given her much satisfaction and she feels it can offer a wonderful career for someone willing to give it time and determination. Ms Deen said the feeling of truly providing a good service to customers and seeing how pleased they are with the end result is the ultimate reward. "I have been blessed," she said.

The shop is currently running a customer appreciation special until the end of December. Ms Deen said it is their way of giving back to customers for continuing to support the business through the recession.

"I am very grateful that through the recession and the hard times that people have been having, we're still able to get business and function," she said. "We have survived a few recessions."