Back to my roots

Posted by Fabric Godmother on 1st Jan 1970

Back to my roots

Moving back to my home town of Malvern for 6 months while I have been getting Fabric Godmother off the ground has been a real trip down memory lane and an insight into what is important, I mean really important to me.

There have been some good things -Mum and Dad round the corner, Mr Fabric Godmother getting me the bunny I wanted. Some bad bits -It has been the wettest spring in years and I was planning long walks on the Malvern Hills. Some ugly -Missing all of my lovely London friends and realising how many wonderful people in Malvern I had lost touch with.

But while I have been here I have received a huge number of amazing emails, letters and comments from customers thanking me for setting out to provide fabulous dressmaking fabric that is becoming so hard to find these days. Some of them asked me what drove me to leave my job and my old life to do this, so I started looking back at the passion that brought me to where I am today.

It started with Mum teaching me and my brothers to sew with scraps of fabric from her sewing box, I made clothes for her old Sindy dolls, the boys made cuddly guns! By the age of 12 I was hooked.

(Me at Mum’s old Elna machine)

At 16 I got a job in a local fabric shop, but was disappointed that my school wouldn’t let me take textiles, it was a hugely unpopular subject then and not enough students opted for it. It didn’t stop me though and I carried on making my own clothes at every opportunity. I loved sewing and made everything from my own design elephant cushions to the Sixth form leavers ball dresses for me and my friends.

(6^th form leaver ball in a catsuit ‘inspired’ by Gucci)

(another ball, another handmade dress)

Being in London, travelling, building a career and an exciting social life meant that for the last few years sewing has not been top of the agenda for me. However, falling out of love with my job, learning that my real friends would always stand by me and meeting an inspiring man made me realise the one part of my life that wasn’t quite right, and that was the lack of sewing!

So that is how it all started, a huge thank you to all those who have supported me, listened to me talk about fabrics, come to visit me in the country etc, I couldn’t have got this far without you. As for the future for Fabric Godmother, well watch this space....