How I began

Hello again, today I have decided to tell you a little bit about myself.

I started sewing as a very young child; taught by my mother; and I began my first quilt at the age of 13. This was in the traditional hand piecing method, of hexagons. It was during a period of 3 concurrent illnesses, Chickenpox, Measles and German Measles; when I was off of school for a number of weeks; and banned from seeing my friends to reduce the risk of spreading infection. I was as you can imagine, very bored, hence the beginning of a very time consuming project.

This quilt; made from old favourite clothes and remnants from my mum’s dress making; was picked up and put down a number of times, but was eventually finished, and took pride of place on my mum’s bed; sadly it was not found after her death. This is not mine, but shows the type of design I worked on.

This is where my adventure began – I went on to learn sewing on a machine, and hand knitting (also taught by my mum), and later crochet (taught by my God mother). I have crocheted blankets in the traditional ‘granny squares pattern, and even crocheted my first child’s baby shawl, (I unfortunately no longer have that either); but this picture shows the style of it

I briefly explored machine knitting, and while this was brilliant when my children were little, it didn’t feel creative enough for me so in the early 90’s a friend and I decided to do a few ‘away weekends’ to try some other crafty things. Firstly we went to West Yorkshire and tried Lace Making; and this was followed by a trip to Whitby (very close to) to do Patchwork with Maggie Martin (who still offers great weekends – accommodation and sewing).

http://www.maggiemartin.co.uk/

                          

 Both of these became favourites of mine, and I later joined a local Lace making class, and continued with the patchwork at home.

I very rarely make lace these days, due to time constraints, but have followed the patchwork route very closely.

I launched my website in late 2009 (www.perfectpatchwork.co.uk ), and have recently opened a Folksy shop (http://www.folksy.com/shops/PerfectPatchwork ) and joined Twitter(http://twitter.com/#!/PerfecPatchwork  ) and Creative Connections. In my travels I have met some wonderful people, and have some good friends on Facebook and Creative Connections.

Recently I have become involved with Creative Connection’s CRAFTfest; I took part in the first one, and have become a team leader (Lilac team) for the upcoming one in November. The teams have been set up to help support new members of the site, and for mutual promotion. I love this involvement and will soon be posting a blog on my team members and their crafts. Creative Connections has an amazing site, with blogs, forums, groups, and the most superb online magazine which is absolutely free; and even a chat room for when you are work avoiding, or having a brain freeze. There is usually someone to chat too, or to help with any little problems; for all you crafty  people out there it is well worth checking out, (and free to join) http://creative-connections.ning.com/ 

My plans are to further explore creating one off designs and in particular I’d like to create some landscape quilted wall hangings incorporating hand painted fabrics; a skill I have just begun. I would like to incorporate a range of fabrics and techniques including embroidery, fabric painting, appliqué and of course patchwork.

I will keep you updated with how this progresses, but in the more immediate future I have been asked to create some bags by upcycling T-shirts (100% cotton of course), and my brain is overflowing with ideas, and I have even been and bought some chains! – watch this space to find out what they are for! I will post photos when they are finished.

Hope you enjoyed the little insight

Signing off for today

F xx