There haven't been many times in my life when I haven't been surrounded by fabric, yarn, needles, pins and thread. My great-grandfather was a tailor, my grandmother a needlework teacher and my mum made all our clothes as children as well as doing patchwork. Despite all that stitchy heritage, I ended up working in advertising in London although it's true what they say about apples never falling far from the tree; my stress buster was to go into Liberty and look at the fabric! During that time, I didn't pick up a needle or fire up a sewing machine but about 10 years ago, I moved to Cornwall and when, one day, I saw some lovely fabric in a local shop, I knew I wanted to make something. Quite quickly I was making most of my own clothes and my passion for textiles, crafting and sewing has grown from there. I love working with tweed and wool scraps as the colours are beautiful and the textures so rich. Quilting cottons come in such a range of stunning prints it's sometimes hard to choose and I love the extra dimension hand and machine embroidery brings to an item.
