So this is the Made Just Sew team! I may do the hard graft behind the sewing machine, but I wouldn’t be here without the love and support of my husband and kids. After all, it was after having my first daughter, Lucy, that I rekindled my passion for sewing and started making things for her room.

Soon I was making more and more and with the encouragement of my amazing friends and family Made Just Sew came to life! 

It all started with keepsakes. Having a young family at the time, I instantly connected with the need to hold on to special outfits that my children were rapidly growing out of. Soon after making my first keepsakes, my passion for quilts grew. With sewing, you definitely fall into categories of what you like to do. Give me a dress pattern, and I would be lost! But give me a quilt pattern, and you could lose me for days while I source fabric and work my way through the design.

In 2020, during the pandemic, while I was stuck between never-ending on-line lessons with my kids home-schooling, I designed my first quilt pattern, the Retro Metro Quilt. It was a way I could channel my creativity when life wouldn’t allow much time behind the sewing machine. Since then, I have immersed myself in the quilt designing world and have featured my work in Love Patchwork & Quilting magazine, The Quilters Planner, Caterpillar Cross Stitch and justhands-on.tv videos.

One of my quilting highlights has been winning the Big Janome Skill Share in 2021. I entered the competition as a mentor and found my student, Zoe, through Instagram. The premise of the competition was to teach someone to make a quilt who had never made one before and pass on the passion of quilting. This was during the thick of the pandemic, while we were all in lockdown here in the UK - and even though we both had a young family to entertain and navigate through this difficult time - we somehow did it, and Zoe made the most beautiful quilt with the most incredible story behind it. You can read all about it here, as we blogged our story.

And here we are, meeting in person for the first time earlier this year in 2022 with Jenni Smith, who ran the competition with Janome UK. What has been the most rewarding part of this competition are the friendships that have been formed - all through the love of quilting.

I didn’t realise this then, but entering The Big Janome Skill Share gave me so much confidence in passing on the skills of a craft I love. Because of this experience and the friendships and encouragement I have gained along the way, I have now launched online workshops to Made Just Sew.

I intend to continue to share what I have learned and get as many people as possible to fall in love with quilting!