Goodbye 2017, Hello 2018!

Looking back over past years often surprises me. It might be the residual baby/toddler brain fog that still lingers, but on one hand I struggle to remember what happened and on the other, time seems to have passed so quickly as I was so busy the whole time!

So here is a summary of the things that happened in g&g in 2017 and a taster of what is to come in 2018!

g&g events

This year, for the first time, we attended 3 of the big sewing shows – The Knitting & Stitching Show in Olympia and Edinburgh and the Sewing Bee Live at Excel.

They were really great fun, it was lovely to be able to meet lots of new and online customers.

This was us back in March, Sophia has changed so much!

I loved them all for different reasons but my favourite one was the Sewing Bee Live. It was so nice to meet up with old friends and familiar faces again and I had a blast giving demos in the theatres.

We also had some great events happening at the shop too! The Sew Many Resolutions Party last January kicked things off with 30 of you coming along over the course of the day to get some moral support to finish off those projects!

Our Easter Event was really fun with our very own Moseley Egg hunt, demonstrations in the studio and mini make and take workshops for the kids.

Our summer event inspired lots of you to try new skills in our mini techniques workshops as well as getting inspiration from our colour palates and mini capsule wardrobe.

SewBrum was as crazy and amazing as ever! About 120 of you lovely lot cam along to hang out, chat about sewing, eat cake and shop. We raised over £400 for The Eve appeal in the sewing themed charity raffle and raised over £80 to sponsor a village in the Republic of Congo who didn't have one.

And finally The Festive Bee was a lovely way to finish things off – especially the special visit from Santa – all the way from Austria!

Our amazing window Displays

Our resident window display designer and stylist Jo, created more gorgeous displays in our big bay window!

In March we had a beautiful Spring window full of delicate pastel florals and lovely details like the tissue flowers, crochet petals and fabric covered wire butterflies.

In May we had our fun and bold oversized haberdashery accessories with the classic navy and mustard colour combo!

In July, the summer window showcased the garments featured in our Mini Capsule Wardrobe blog series and came complete with fabric ice creams!

In September things got cosy and warm with lovely mustards and maroons. I loved all the little details - the scrap leather acorn garland, fabric pumpkins and a huge, oversized ball of yarn!

Our Christmas window this year was beautiful and elegant with navys and greens. I loved the mini fabric tree forest and the shimmering curtain on paper stars hanging down.

On the blog in 2017

Making garments and sharing ideas on the blog is one of the things I love most about having my own shop!

Thank you so much for all the positive feedback on the mini summer capsule wardrobe series that was released back in June. I really enjoyed putting it all together and the sewing kits we made to accompany them were super popular – so expect to see more of that in 2018! You can check out all the posts in the series in this link.

I also loved making cute mini clothes for Sophia, and now that she will fit into her clothes for more than a few months, I plan on making her lots more things in 2018!

My top makes for the year were defiantly the Closet Case Patterns Ginger Jeans and Kelly Anorack! Both projects are a lot more involved that the things I usually make and I just loved the challenge of it so much – and I hope I have inspired some of you to push the boat out and try something new too!

The g&g team

As some of you will know already, our General Manager, Claire and our sales associate Rosie have now left the g&g team. They have both made tremendous contributions to the business during there time with us and we are really sad to seem them go but wish them well on their new career journeys. You’ll still see Claire in the workshops as she is staying on as a freelance tutor.

At the beginning of the month we welcomed Abi, who is our new Operations Supervisor. We know Abi loves sewing as much as the rest of us we can’t wait to show her the ropes and settle her in as our new team member. Meg has now been promoted to Retail Manager and will also be helping me out with the blog, social media, and generally keeping you up to date with all the exciting things we have planned! And last but by no means least, Ben will now be working full time on the shop floor which we are really excited about!

2018, here we come!....

With the changes to the team, I’m looking forward to finding new ways to work and organise ourselves that will give me lots more time to work on brand new things!

You can come and visit us at two shows this year – The Knitting & Stitching Show in Olympia 1st– 4th March and The Sewing Bee Live at Excel 8th - 10th June.

It’s our 5th Birthday at the end of April and what a 5 years it has been! We’ll keep you posted on our party and celebration plans!

Those who are close enough to visit our Moseley shop regularly will have noticed some changes to the shop layout as we have moved our yarn stand to make way for even more fabric and a dedicated pattern area. It's made a huge change to the shop and I'll be sharing more about it over the next few weeks!