I haven't been inactive

I haven't been inactive


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I have been very busy over the last couple of months.
My time has been taken up researching and buying fabric, then designing things to make. Then building and launching my online shop.
Researching fabric was hard, have you seen how many fabric types there are available. Then to find the right supplier, then what to have. The decisions were endless, and extremely hard for me as I am Piscean.
Hopefully I have now found the right fabrics and suppliers and can bring some great things to you; whether that be through my classes, at my Saturday market or, on my online shop.
At the top of this page you can see that next to the home button is a shop button, click on this and it will bring you to an almost blank page, This page has a button with Shop Now on it. This will take you to my online store. Not everything is on at the moment, but I am updating weekly, so please come along every now and then and check it out.

Discount


To help launch my online shop, I am giving a 10% discount to all my customers. For every £25.00 you spend you get 10% discount, use the code Summer18 online and this is valid until 31st August 2018. (This does exclude the cost of lessons.)

Tutorial


Over on my tutorial pages I have put the instructions on how to make this quilt:


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A very simple quilt to make and it measures 44" x 49.5". Great weekend project and great gift to give away.

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Welcome to December

Life has been pretty hectic and although I am in the middle of two weeks off, nothing seems to be slowing down.

With most people thinking now of Christmas, I had forgotten about it, thinking more of what I could sell on my stall in the spring. Lead times for making things running into months. Hubby was great last week looking after my market stall, but he came back with lots of requests. These included Christmas ribbon, and gifts for Christmas.

I have now duly purchased some ribbon, and made a few Christmassy things. Along side my normal things I have fairy lights, Santa sacks, Christmas bunting, large decorated pinecones and some Christmas trees. Hopefully my stall will look Christmassy tomorrow.

My new van has finally arrived, and I really don’t know how I coped with my small car. Everything fits so much better in larger boxes. Packing and unpacking her is a breeze and she was a really lovely ride over to the coast yesterday.


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Discount

I am running an offer in December. Anyone buying something from either my market stall or classes will get a discount card for 10% off purchases in January, and February 2018. This excludes the purchases of lessons. So come down to my stall and see some of the wonderful things I have to offer.

Next Years Classes

To see what classes I am running in January through to March pop over to the community page.

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When Patchwork goes wrong!

Don't we all love to buy fabric? I do. So when I asked to develop a beginner’s patchwork course I was on the hunt. I have used Dashwood Studios before and loved them. The ones I have used successfully have been September Blue and Pettite Street. But these are very pink and girly and I was in the mood for something grey and black, also in my mind was mustard. When I came across Bloom I thought I had the perfect collection.


To check the colours I arranged them and took black and white photographs, wow they were stunning!

Planning was next underway and I had designed the mini quilt.

The first couple of blocks looked great, but I soon got to realize that something was wrong.

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The block patterns were disappearing in the beautiful patterns of the collection. My fault. I should have bought some solids to mix it up.

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DSC_0315Lesson learnt and I pulled out another fat quarter bundle from my stash. Funny how that happens – that we sewers just seem to happen to have some “spare” fabric. But with this I added some solids and the results were so much better.


As for the Dashwood Bloom, I’ll put it in the UFO box and finish it when I fancy. Or is that just Claire speak for never, or frogged?

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The finished Bags

Last night the girls came to St John's Community Centre and finished their bags.

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Don't they look great!
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Busy Week

The events of my busy week have continued. I have certainly been kept busy and with my holiday coming up I am trying to keep in front.

My workroom is finished, well almost. Tony and I went shopping to Ikea and bought another cupboard to match the others and I also got two large chest of drawers. My aim is not to have anything on the floor. At the moment everything is still in the spare bedroom, but daily I am bringing things down. I will be very brave and sort through and have a keep, sell, give away and bin pile. I know the keep pile will be the biggest.

To keep me organised I have numerous books. I have a book that stays on my sewing table. In this I write the date, the project I want to start with notes of pattern and material and there is a column for finished date. All the projects in this book are bagged and put into shopping bags. I have many Tesco Orla Kiely bags and they go in there. It is these bags I want to get rid of, they are filled with lots of delicious material and patterns, which is the reason for keeping my project book on my sewing table, hoping I will get the projects done. I have my general shorthand book; I make notes in this, of things I make and shopping lists. The designs from this book then go into my design book. Written in long hand and with notes, diagrams and photos. These are then typed up when needed. My latest one is the Denim Tote Bag. My favourite one is my journal. It is very tatted now and not the pristine white it was when I bought it. I stated this way back in 2010, as a way of looking back on my creativeness. I was finding that I couldn’t remember what I had made, or even knew how much I had made, so I started my journal. At the time of writing this I have completed 185 sewing projects and had their creation written in my journal. I have now added a fifth to my collection. This one goes with me everywhere, and I will make it a cover. This has become necessary as I have lots of ideas when I am out and I scribble them on bits of paper. Surfing the web in Costa Coffee during my meal break is a very creative time for me and their napkins aren’t very strong!

In the photo of me in the Chronicle, you will see me “sewing” something. This is a commission for some cushion covers. I really underestimated how long it would take me to make them. I needed to make 30 yards of piping and that took the 3 hours I had assigned for their making. My trusty overlocker was great and did the job perfectly, but it took me over 12 hours to make them. They were huge. But the client loved them and I have learned a valuable lesson or two or three.

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Today I will mainly be making up the Tote Bag kits for my lesson in three weeks. I am working my day job this week, teaching Tuesday night and then off skiing on Sunday. So today is the day for forward planning – who would have believed it?

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