Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year everyone! I'm a bit late to the party with 2013 reflections really. I read a lot of blogs online and I feel like the end and beginning of the year seems to be a bit of a time for reflection and looking ahead at what coming up so I'm joining in too!

When I think back to this time last year things we really different for me. Pre Sewing Bee madness, pre shop opening, pre workshop-arama, pre book writing.......I was in the midst of painting the interior of the shop and studio......

All day, everyday, Ayaz and I (well mostly me to be honest!) doned our scraggy painting clothes and painted....and painted....and painted...and painted.....you get the idea! It was such a mission! We got there in the end though.

Then after almost a year of dirty building work like rebuilding walls, relaying floors, fixing beams, re-roofing, plastering etc etc we started putting the finishes on the shop.

Choosing flooring, getting cabinets and tables built, figuring out layouts....and painting stuff pink!

It felt like a close call but we managed to pull it together in the end for the most amazing opening day I could have ever dreamed of!

The place was packed out...there was ques down the road....

....and my new Sewing Bee friends joined me too which made the day even more special!

It didn't stop there though, I've had a ball teaching countless sewing and knitting workshops meeting so many amazing people.....

In the meantime I scored a book deal to write my very own beginners sewing book and worked on that over the last half of the year, designing and creating my own projects.

It was hard work but soooo much fun! From fabric shopping and collecting swatches to developing garment patterns, then experiencing the process of photographing the projects and meeting so many amazing creative people who are all part of putting the book together. The book is now in the edit stage and won't be out until Autumn this year but I'll keep you up to date on that!

We've had lots of fun events too.....

Our Autumn 'yarn tasting' event where everyone got a chance to sample lots of new and different yarns.....

Our Fashion show event...were I managed to convice Ayaz to strut his stuff on the catwalk too.....

We went on a road trip to the Thread festival of textiles in Farham in Surry.....

And we had a super duper amazing time at our Christmas party....

So a huge thank you to everyone who came along and supported us on those nights, and a huge thank you to everyone who has visited the shop and come along to a workshop too! It's you guys that make it all worth while!

I hope you all enjoyed the Sewing Bee Christmas Special too! It was such great fun to see everyone again!

In case you missed it, I've also now got my own column in Sew magazine!

Looking forward to 2014, there are lots of exciting things I've got in the pipeline! As well as lots of new additions to the workshop calendar I'm planning a super duper launch party for when we start stocking Liberty Art Fabrics in February! Can't wait!!

I'm always happy to take requests too! What would you guys like to hear about on the blog this year?!