Tales from my kitchen table...

Once upon a time there was a girl... I don't know when I started to like, even love, to sew. I do know that I hated it at school. Needlework for the girls and woodwork for the boys. I remember that we had to choose a pattern - mine was a Butterick pattern of a smock top. I was clearly a style icon back then. I chose colourful flowery pattern on a navy background in a polyester fabric. Yes I said it out loud - polyester. Choice. But at school needlework was beyond boring! I just wanted to go outside and run around or cartwheel across the playground (I was champion cartwheeler in my class I'll have you know). All that cutting and pinning and marking and more cutting and the tacking! I never finished making that smock. I also failed needlework. And I still hate tacking. Hey ho.

I'm not one of those crafty people who can't wait to get on the sewing machine to see what amazing creations I can whip up. Truthfully I sometimes go for weeks on end without so much as a pinprick. Then I beat myself up mentally for not being more focussed and driven. But then I remember that I work...hard (teaching at a boys school. Say no more), and I run a household (when I say run I mean 'gentle stroll' but you understand don't you?) that currently is host to my two gorgeous growing-up daughters. I have social life of sorts, places to go and people to see. My life is fairly full, trust me.

What I do know is that when the bug takes me I am well and truly hooked. If I get a germ of an idea about a new design or something I can transform then there's no stopping me and I cover my kitchen table with fabrics and findings. Since my mother taught me to use her Singer over thirty years ago I have surprised myself (and her to be honest) at the creations I've made. I do a couple of craft fairs a year and I try to sell some of my bags online. I'm hardly setting the world alight.

But there's a smouldering on the horizon...