Happy Valentine's

I just wanted to share with you the projects for the month of March from my book 'A Year of Sew Much Fun!' The patchwork heart is a great favourite in class as is the sqeaky dog bone. Here featuring our wonderful dog Mozart, who unfortunately is no longer with us but much missed by me, Florence, Georgia and Geoff.

Twelve Makes of 2015!

To celebrate returning to my blog I have a creative interpretation of the Twelve Days of Christmas! all made at Sew Much Fun with a little help from me!

Twelve Makes of Christmas 2015

Twelve trolls as angels!

Eleven Christmas puddings
Ten snowmen swinging
Nine Santa’s Grottos
Eight decorated Christmas trees
Seven holly leaves and ivy
Six baubles shining
Five Christmas stockings .........
Four reindeer hoodies
Three door stops
Two tasteful wash bags
and a very large colourful London Bus !

Happy New Year !

My second Sew Much Shop and Studio!

I do apologise for not posting a new blog for a while but I have been rather busy growing my Sew Much Fun business! Last summer I spotted this rather lovely shop for sale in Windermere in the Lake District and decided it was the ideal spot for my second Sew Much Fun Shop and Studio. Over the next few posts I will show you the progress of getting it ready for its opening on 25th July 2013.

I finally owned the shop in February this year and the first goal was to restore this charming hut! to its former glory when it belonged to the local railway in Victoria Park.

I particularly loved this lovely row of windows down one side which gives the shop lots of natural light making it a great place to work and create. We are still surrounded by Victoria Gardens so we feel we have plenty of space around us.

Inside we had a bit of work to do changing the layout and of course introducing our signatory pink back wall!

To go along with the opening of the Lake District Shop I designed a sheep motif! which is now available in kit form to either make a summer dress or as a motif to add to a tee-shirt or it is available in our most popular comfort cushion sewing project kit. All of which have been popular in both the London and the Lake District shop and available in several colours.

The Onesie!

I have a feeling this item, or similar versions of this item is going to be this Christmas's must have gift from Sew Much Fun! We have now tried and tested our All-in one PJ or 'Onesie' patterns for 9/10 year olds, (see below) 12 year olds, 15, 17 and 19 year olds with great success! we can offer a guarantee that once made it will be worn every day for relaxing at home, walking around to the local shop and of course going to bed in! They are easy to wash and care for and personalise as you see fit!

Proud makers and owners Eva (age 10) and Stella (age 9)!

Here (below) are the selection of fabrics we are working with at the shop and I feel they will be a great favourite at this Christmas Sewing Machine Holiday Class.

Web site will be coming very soon......I promise!

Happy Halloween

Our jolly pumpkins lighting up the doorway!

Chalcot Road seems to be the centre for all trick or treating in NW1! In an hour and a half we got thru 400 sweets! but it was lovely to see everyone in their costumes and especially well done for all of you ho made your own costumes. Next year I promise to come up with even more ideas!

I was commissioned to design a fun but not too frightening bunting for halloween and I am delighted with the result. I decided to use orange 3mm check and design 6 different shapes for each flag co-ordinating the felt colours. The bat, the ghost, the black cat, the pumpkin, the witches hat with green hair and the moon with a rather sinister dark grey cloud all add to the halloween spirit without scaring any member of the family too much! there is lots of work in it but once made it can come out again every year. This design with its instructions and materials will be available next year in the shop ready for next halloween!

Location,Location,Location

For those of you who were vigilant watching Location, Location, Location last Thursday at 8pm you will had seen a brief glimpse of the shop window and some arty shots of me teaching sewing through the window! Not quite my 15 seconds of fame but it did remind me to post up my ideas for an Autumn decoration that I now have hanging in the window. Last Autumn was beautiful in Regents Park and I picked up my favourite leaf shapes, conquers and mushrooms to inspire my Autumn Bower.

I then made patterns from these shapes.

I then cut out the shapes in a variation of Autumnal colours in felt and then grouped them together in an attractive way using a strip of calico to attach the shapes on to.

Then I also used stitching lines to accentuate the leaves shapes and add movement and energy to the whole piece. I made an across row and two down rows as if it would hang around a fireplace.

You could use this principle to make all sorts of bower decoration and the great thing is you can put them away and easily get them out again next year.

Happy creativity! 

Here are my favourite Echino seasonal fabrics available in the shop today.

Olympic Fever!

At risk of upsetting the Olympic ring police my Olympic window is going down very well with the locals and all the Olympic visitors walking along Chalcot Road. We couldn't resist using our penguin kit as our Olympians and adding three gold medals and a sewn Olympic Stadium. Yesterday we had a hand sewing party and they all made the mini penguins with mini gold penguins! The opening ceremony has gone down brilliantly! and I think we can all say we are proud to be British! Good luck to everyone!