I home sew in deepest Suffolk in the small market town of Beccles on the edge of the Norfolk Broads.
Virtually all fabrics are remnants, recycled or donated. All my makes are practical and have love and care included in their creation. I have a desire to replace people’s lives with sustainable everyday products that don’t include, and can be a replacement for, single-use plastic.
About Two Pins: At the beginning of Covid, I decided to support the NHS by joining a local sewing group that were making scrubs for medical workers. I watched the recommended tutorial after having a stack of pre-cut tops and bottoms dropped off at my house. The fabulous demonstrator mentioned that two pins were all anyone should need when making clothes, or indeed most sewn products. If you have more, you may forget that they were in the garment. A bit of a shock for the recipient when they go to put it on! Since then I have started teaching children to sew on four wonderful hand crank Singer sewing machines and sharing the sewing love. Every time I decide to make something new, the fabric choosing, pattern choice, cutting, piecing together, trouble shooting and end product are such a joyous process that I just can’t stop! Two Pins is now the extension to this process.
About Me: My mother and my grandmother both sewed. Luckily my mother didn’t mind mess and so I spend much of my childhood making things and not tidying up. Rarely, even maybe never, did my mother go and buy new fabric or crafting products when we were young. We made glue from flour and water and used newspapers. I cut up and changed old clothes and torn and worn out bedding into small toys and dresses for dolls. From this I progressed to a small selection of new haberdashery: sequins sewn onto a denim jacket, trim added to t-shirts. Finally, as I hit my teens I started to make my own clothes and my mother fuelled my passion by finally buying material for me. By the time I was at sixth form, I was designing ball gowns for the Christmas Ball and at university, I’d be cramming my coursework and essay writing around making more ball gowns for more events. For one event, I had to sew the dress onto me on the way out, and cut it off when I got home as adding the zip was just going to take too long! Through my careers in teaching and catering, sewing has always been a necessary distraction and release from work. Every new home needs curtains, soft furnishings and every day life needs bags. I drive myself to trying to be tidy and the only realistic way to do this is to have a bag for everything. And then embroider the label so you know what’s in the bag. And then the fabric has to be a delight. And so on. Now, I home educate my son, I have my husband retired and at home with us full time and I live in a great part of the country full of creative and wonderful people. And I make LOTS of bags.