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Wednesday 28 October 2015

A visit to Fabrications in Hackney, London



When I was asked to be bridesmaid for one of my oldest school friends I was over the moon to say the least. My friend and husband-to-be are the perfect match and I cannot wait to see them happily married in a couple of months. One of the main bridesmaid duties is organising the hen do. If any of you have organised a hen-do before you will know it is pretty daunting......will people come, what shall we organise, I hope no-one gets bored, and most importantly, will the bride-to-be like it and enjoy herself?! 

There were three of us bridesmaids on the organising committee and you know what, I think we did a great job. Once reason for this was our brilliant morning activity at Fabrications in London. Fabrications is located on Broadway Market in Hackney, a street dedicated to independent traders (and delicious coffee!). Fabrications is an independent gallery, shop and studio, dedicated to textiles and design. 

We had a session booked to make vintage fascinators for our night out that evening. Barley, the founder of Fabrications, was incredibly warm and welcoming, providing a relaxing atmosphere for us to unleash our creative side. Some of us hadn't sewn since school and Barley was wonderfully patient and we all left with stylish (in our opinion!), wearable (and we did wear them- all evening!) fascinators. 

Here are a few pictures of Barley's studio and beautiful shop. I would highly recommend a visit if you are in the area. 







Tuesday 13 October 2015

Blogging in Autumn



Exactly a month ago to this day I posted my 'Ideas for Autumn' which you can read here. Looking back on it this evening I think I've done pretty bloody well, which if you have been reading my blog a while will know that my crochet and blogging is littered with unfulfilled promises (I won't say empty, I really do want to do these things), both to myself and you readers. Keeping up a blog, crochet designing and making to sell on top of working a full-time day job is really really hard work. I always have the best of intentions, I truly do but sometimes I just cannot fit it all in. I get back from work, go to the gym, eat and am sat down at my computer or working on some crochet from about 7.30 til bed time. I know a lot of other bloggers do all of this, plus have kids or other dependants so I can't really moan one bit. However, it does mean that some things inevitably fall by the wayside. In Autumn this tends to be blogging.

Why is this? As I alluded to on my Facebook page earlier this evening, one word. Christmas. This seems to be a recurring theme for me- this being my third Christmas in the blogosphere-blogging in the run-up to Christmas just doesn't happen. One reason for this is that as a crocheter who makes to sell, Christmas is huge. And I mean huge! I can make more in one week in the run up to Christmas than in 3 months in Spring time. Therefore running out of stock is not an option. I start making Christmas items late July, early August. Ideally it would be earlier but I really really don't want to be crocheting wreaths in February! Do you want to see blog post full of Christmas decorations in August? I don' t think so. Neither do I, which results in another problem- a lack of photos of my work. Then onto another- I just don't have the time this time of year with all the crochet......but I also need photos to promote my work.......but if I spend time on this I won't have the crochet done............a viscous cycle that if I let it gets me as stressed as anything!

So to tie this jumbled-up-bordering-on-an-essay-post, I'll go back to my Autumn ideas....


  • Make 'enough' Christmas items to stock 2 shops and also sell on Facebook- yup! maybe not at the Facebook stage though yet but still have a little time
  • Draw up 3 crochet submissions- DONE :-) fingers crossed they like my designs
  • Take photos of all my designs/makes as I go- Mmmmmm
  • Design and release the pattern for a sister hat to go with my recently released 'Alice Hat'- definitely still a 'thought in progress' but still hanging in there....
  • Update/tidy up this blog (with photos mentioned above)- another mmmmmm


Not too bad, though you can definitely see the areas that are lacking i.e. this old blog of mine here. All I can say is that I'm doing my best, and will be back shortly with a few snippets of what I have been up to. 

SSxx