Ever since a small child I have always been making things. My first memories of knitting are of when I was about four years old sitting on my Mother's lap, with a pair of red plastic children’s knitting needles and some green wool making little square shapes. By the time I was eight, I was making doll's clothes, I’d learnt to crochet and from there my love for knitting, sewing and crochet developed and has played a major role throughout my life ever since.

 

On leaving school, I studied Fashion in London and qualified in Design, Pattern Cutting, Garment Production and Textiles. I also gained a love for historical costume and I’ve since qualified in Millinery. 

 

I then worked for Berman's and Nathan's, who were at the time the largest film, TV and theatrical costumiers in the world. I worked on costumes for films, theatrical productions and made replica-historical costumes. I’ve also worked in pattern-cutting and size grading for Wallis (ladies fashion) before working for both Elna Sewing Machines and Brother Sewing Machines and Knitting Machines, where I gained an in-depth knowledge and understanding of sewing machines and at the time ended up with 3 knitting machines myself as well!!

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Throughout the years of bringing up my family, dressmaking and sewing has taken me along various paths, depending on the current trends at the time and knitting and crochet has remained as part of my life throughout.

The main focus of my work in the eighties was the “meringue” style wedding dresses and bridal gowns. By the nineties the trend of Laura Ashley had hit the UK and I was continually making Austrian blinds, festoon blinds and swags and tails. After the millennium, the noughties was a period where I made a lot of historical costume for re-enactment, theatre and living history, some of which was worn at Stately Homes, National Trust Properties and Museums.

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 I eventually started teaching workshops which then led to a period of regular guest presenting on a couple of the major TV Shopping Channels, where I co-hosted knitting, crochet, sewing machine, embroidery machine and knitting machine shows and produced my own "Learn to Crochet' DVD. I also demonstrated at the Knitting and Stitching Show at both Alexandra Palace and Olympia, London.

I then moved down the South-West of the UK and am now based in Cornwall, where I have continued to teach knitting and crochet workshops and groups. My sewing will always have a dressmaking/soft furnishing approach, as I’m too "matchy-matchy" to ever be a patchworker or a quilter!!

 

I’ve just completed a Degree in “Sport and Health Science” which has taken up a chunk of my time over the last three years. The course had a strong focus on the prevention of health related diseases and it has given me an understanding of how to prevent risk of repetitive strain injuries, through exercise, stretching and alternative methods of holding crochet hooks, knitting needles and yarn. 

 

I am now producing instructional videos and my own patterns and charts, will continue to teach in the future and always look forward to meeting other knitting, crochet and sewing enthusiasts. Creating things will always be a part of me and the satisfaction of creating a finished article from an assortment of materials has never left me.

 

Whether it be a garment that has taken hours of work or simply a cake I've baked, is still the same - I made it. . . .