Episode 38 : Happy Stitchmas 2021! The Making Stitches Podcast Christmas Special & Review of the Year 2021 (Part 1)

It’s Christmas Eve, so here’s my Christmas gift to you dear listener! This year I’m splitting my Christmas Special into two halves, the first one is here for you today, and the second one will be out one week from today on New Year’s Eve.

In Part 1 I look back at a few of my personal highlights of the year so far on Making Stitches and feature little snippets from interviews with Sara Huntington – Editor of Simply Crochet Magazine, Louise Armitage aka Gini’s Dorset Buttons, Great British Sewing Bee 2021 contestant Adam Brooks, Heather Griffith from HGDC Crochet & Louise Murray from Hooked by Lou. You’ll also hear from Tracy, Julie and Lucy from Black Sheep Wools in Warrington and Kate Blackburn from Katie Did This UK hand-stitched cards.

You can find links to all my guests below. My thanks to everyone who spoke to me for the Podcast this year – I couldn’t have done it without you!

I hope you enjoy listening to this special festive episode and I very much look forward to sharing Part 2 with you soon! Have a great Christmas! You can listen to it here.

Sara Huntington – Editor Simply Crochet Magazine & @crochetdeli on Instagram
Louise Armitage aka Gini’s Dorset Buttons
Hayley Shelton aka DotCraftStudio
Adam Brooks
Matthew Downham Art
Heather Griffith from HG Designs Crochet
Louise Murray from Hooked by Lou
Tracy, Julie & Lucy from Black Sheep Wools
Kate Blackburn from Katie Did This UK on Etsy & Instagra
The music featured in this episode is Make You Smile by RGMusic from Melody Loops.
The Making Stitches logo was designed by Neil Warburton at iamunknown.

You can support Making Stitches Podcast with running costs through Ko-fi.
Making Stitches Podcast is supported by the Making Stitches Shop which offers Making Stitches Podcast merchandise for sale as well as Up the Garden Path crochet patterns created by me & illustrated by Emma Jackson.

Episode 36 : Crafting a Dream Sewing Business with Sarah Wadey & Freya Gilbert of Crafty Sew and So

Sarah Wadey (L) & Freya Gilbert (R)
from Crafty Sew & So

When Freya Gilbert and Sarah Wadey met at a sewing workshop in 2014, they knew they had met a kindred spirit. Within months they followed their dreams of setting up a sewing business and opened their bricks and mortar shop Crafty Sew and So in Leicester selling fabric haberdashery and offering award-winning workshops. They used their skills gained in retail and the fashion industry to build their business which included a variety of craft workshops as well as dressmaking patterns and kits.

When Covid forced the shop to close, undeterred, Freya and Sarah moved to the Crafty Sew and So workshop and put their business online. During the past 18 months they have not only continued to sell sewing essentials but have run online workshops attracting participants from overseas as well as closer to home. Now that Covid restrictions have eased they are beginning to offer in-person workshops too.

I’m thrilled that Freya and Sarah were able to share their story with me for Making Stitches. You can hear their episode here.

If you would like to find out more about Crafty Sew and So, you can do here. You can also find them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

If you would like to take part in the Christmas episode of Making Stitches with your own ‘stitch story’ please get in touch with me via social media or email: makingstitchespodcast@gmail.com
The music featured in this episode is Make You Smile by RGMusic from Melody Loops.
The Making Stitches logo was designed by Neil Warburton at iamunknown.

Episode 33 : The Patchwork Girls with novelist Elaine Everest

For many of us, our crafts take a back seat as we concentrate on our careers and creativity can be stifled by everyday life. For novelist, Elaine Everest, a childhood growing up with a mother who made clothes and sewed for friends and family, that creativity stayed with her. From dressmaking as a young girl to making designer garments on a knitting machine for London boutiques to then setting up her own business sewing raincoats for dogs, Elaine achieved a lot before she embarked on yet another creative career as a novelist.

Sewing is a theme which runs through Elaine’s series ‘The Woolworths Girls’ and is centre stage in her latest book; The Patchwork Girls. The story, set in World War II, sees a group of women form a sewing circle making patchwork quilts and other items for the war effort. Elaine drew on her own experience of crafts to write the story which shows the healing effects of both friendships and creativity.

Elaine says that although her interest in crafting had waned over the years, the events of the past 18 months have reacquainted her with sewing, crochet and other crafts and that they have ‘saved’ her during lockdown. She spoke to me about her life, her love of creativity and how she ended up writing a string of novels.

You can listen to Elaine’s episode here.

The Patchwork Girls is published by Pan MacMillan.

You can find out more about Elaine on her website, Facebook, Instagram & Twitter

The music featured in this episode is Make You Smile by RGMusic from Melody Loops.

You can support Making Stitches Podcast with running costs through Ko-fi.
Making Stitches Podcast is supported by the Making Stitches Shop.

Making Stitches Podcast is presented, recorded and edited by Lindsay Weston.

Episode 30 : Sew on the Go with Mary Jane Baxter

Mary Jane with her new book in ‘Bambi’
Photo credit: Thomas Skovsende

Back in the days before Covid, when the notion of being able to pack up a camper van and do a road trip of Europe was a thing, former BBC Brussels Correspondent Mary Jane Baxter did just that. She did it in style in a 1986 Bedford Bambi van adorned with vintage wallpaper. Taking just a few possessions with her, including her hand-crank sewing machine and a collection of her own hand-made hats, she set off on a voyage of creativity and adventure calling in on former work colleagues and discovering new textile inspired destinations.

On her return from her tour of France, Belgium, Italy and Scotland, Mary Jane set about recording her travels in the form of a book; Sew on the Go. In it you find a travel journal, a number of creative craft projects you can have a go at as well as a searingly honest document of the highs and, at times, painfully lonely lows of solo traveling. From driving down a black run in the Alps (during summer) and camping next to a Cathedral in France to browsing flea markets and hosting craft pop-ups to help fund the trip, Mary Jane’s account of her travels is warm, emotional and utterly inspiring.

My grateful thanks to Mary Jane for sharing her adventures with me for Making Stitches.

You can listen to Mary Jane on Making Stitches here.

Mary Jane looking for bargains at a brocante (flea market)

You can find Mary Jane’s website, where you can order her book; Sew on the Go here and her Instagram account here.

The music featured in this episode is Make You Smile by RGMusic from Melody Loops.

You can support Making Stitches Podcast with running costs through Ko-fi.

Episode 29 : From sewing scrubs to Sewing Bee 🐝 with Adam Brooks

I don’t know about you but this year’s Great British Sewing Bee was just what the doctor ordered for me. After a spring of lockdowns, isolation, burst bubbles and home schooling, the creativity, colour and humour of GBSB was so uplifting.

The standard of the contestants this year was really high, and many of them could have gone all the way to final had it not been for one bad day when things didn’t go exactly according to plan. The camaraderie of the 12 sewing competitors, the friendships you were able to witness developing and the fabulous garments that were created made it a fantastic series.

One of those contestants was Adam Brooks, an Entertainments Director on a cruise ship, who used his time during the pandemic while stuck on dry land, to get creative and reacquaint himself with his sewing machine. He created beautiful garments on the show from a stunning 1950s style button down dress to a Frida Kahlo inspired playsuit and won the transformation challenge twice! Unfortunately a child’s raincoat got the better of him in week 5 and saw him saying goodbye to his fellow contestants.

Another of Adam’s passions is knitting by hand & machine

You can listen to Adam’s episode here.

I’m absolutely thrilled that Adam agreed to speak to me for Making Stitches and really grateful he shared some of his behind the scenes experiences from Sewing Bee. I hope you enjoy listening to our chat as much as I did recording it. You can find Adam on Instagram.