Welcome!

I have been sewing on some level for a number of years but mostly for practical reasons, I would sew curtains or cushion covers for example.  That was until my 40th Birthday when I think my parents were struggling to think of a gift and somewhat randomly asked about buying me a sewing machine.  I jumped at the chance and was gifted a fabulous sewing/embroidery machine which is still my day to day machine.

And so it began......

At first I tried out the embroidery function, as my birthday is in November everyone got an advent calendar with varying levels of success attached.  Some had Christmas Carols embroidered on them and working pockets that could be used year after year.  They were different characters, a snowman, Santa, a Christmas tree and a very questionably shaped angel.  All were made up with no patterns or teaching involved (which most likely accounts for the varying degrees of success).

Then I started to dabble in dressmaking and became reasonably competent, eager to learn I became a pattern tester and worked with different fabrics, I invested in an overlocker which I absolutely love.

Then I discovered quilting, after dreaming of the pretty fabrics for quite a long time I finally invested in a quilt kit, full of pretty Anna Maria Horner fabrics and involving curves (gulp!), I sat down to read the instructions like the well behaved quilter I was destined to be.  One of the first sentences was 'ease is not a term used in quilting' or words to that effect.  I felt that I was destined to fail, closed the instruction booklet and made myself a hoodie instead.  That quilt kit remains un-made to this day.

However, I began watching some online demonstrations and started trying out different techniques, applique, foundation paper piecing, free motion stitching on my domestic machine.  On one fateful day I saw a demonstration of a huge shiny machine referred to as a longarm, I instantly fell in love with the idea, and, having never actually quilted an entire quilt booked my ticket for Festival of Quilts to go and try out one of these beauties for myself. With it being such a long way my dad agreed to come with me and share the driving, he was given strict instructions to make absolutely sure I did not buy a machine, I was there purely to learn what they were and do some research.  He completely failed at his one seemingly simple task and I took delivery of my Handiquilter Simply Sixteen with a 6 foot frame shortly afterwards.  This also involved building a new room to house the longarm but that's another story! I then learned that quilty me only makes massive quilts and so less than 2 years later upgraded to an Amara 20 on a 12 foot frame (which may have involved the construction of another cabin....)

I took some classes, watched a lot of YouTube and found my purpose in life.  I absolutely love to quilt.  So, now 'I' am about to start building a new 'forever' studio to house a Handiquilter Infinity with a 14 foot frame which will be my first computerised system. Until then I am happily providing custom hand guided longarm quilting.

Along the way I often think back to that first experience of reading a quilt pattern and feeling that I was not the right kind of person to be a quilter, it got me thinking that there are likely other people out there just like me who want to try a bit of everything to truly discover what they love and not be afraid of making mistakes along the way, I decided that I would like to try to prevent others from having a similar experience and that led me to pattern writing and the desire to teach classes on all aspects of quilting.  

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Now you know a bit about me, I look forward to getting to know you too and seeing all of the fabulous things we can do with fabric and thread!

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