Fabric Subscriptions

What do you do with all the those craft magazines that arrive every month?

Do you treasure them forever or keep them for a while and then just recycle them? I know I do!

Just imagine receiving the gift of fabric every month instead, whether you use it straight away or add it to your stash for that perfect project you will use it one day!

With our monthly fabric subscriptions we will send you fabric each month in the post - you don't even have to leave the house!

Choose from Gold, Silver or Bronze and receive either 6, 7 or 8 fat quarters a month. The fabrics will always co-ordinate and of course if you love a particular selection you can always top up your order from our webshop.

I think we all have a long "making" wish list and adding ideas to it wont get the projects done, my Pinterest board has over 1000 pins and those are just the ones you can see - not the ones hidden away on secret boards. If I just dedicated the time to making rather than browsing for more ideas I would be so much happier...

Is someone you know approaching a special birthday or perhaps their retirement?

One of our fabric subscriptions would make an awesome present for someone who loves to sew or do patchwork, why not club together with your friends or workmates to give them an amazing gift that lasts and lasts..

A patchwork quilt in a day

I know a lot of my customers work full time and don't always want to come to evening classes so I thought I would compress one of our most popular workshops into a one day workshop to make a mini patchwork quilt.

I have had my eye on this charm pack from Moda since it arrived in the shop so I decided to make the cutting part a bit quicker by using some of the pre-cut squares in this pack. I chose the pink, yellow and turquoise squares, leaving 22 other more blue and green ones for another project later on.

I had to pick some co-ordinating fabrics for the two borders - but this was easy as I have loads of pinks and turquoises in the shop at the moment.

There is always time for a quick tea break when I am sewing!- I love that my tea and teacup match the project in hand!

I was even wearing co-ordinating clothing on that day

It took a bit of fiddling to get all the seams and corners matching up but it had to be perfect as the workshop sample.

A bright pink binding ties it all together.

It took me about 4 hours from start to finish to put this together and I will be running a workshop on 8th March 2016 to teach you how to make one for yourself - why not book a place and join us?!

You will learn how to piece together the patchwork top,layer with wadding and a backing, quilt and finally bind the mini quilt.You may need to finish the binding off at home but we will aim to get the majority of the quilt finished during the day.

You will need to be competent at using a sewing machine to attend this workshop.

See you soon!

Ali

x

#Yoghurtgate!

I have to say this has been one of the most surreal weeks of my life!

It all started with a frightening incident with a yoghurt pot and a simple tweet -

The Western Gazette then duly printed a story about my ordeal after asking me for a quote

The Central Somerset Gazette also printed the story on their website

before I knew it the story was being picked up by more and more journalists, bloggers and celebrities who re-tweeted and shared the increasingly bizarre headlines.

The Telegraph talked about the "drive-by-yoghurt chucker" and named me as the "West Country haberdasher"

Friends in London started texting me pictures of the article printed in the London Metro - a paper I used to read every day on the way to work in the City.

The "Drive-by yoghurt attack" headline also started a host of Bugsy Malone style attack tweets, almost as many as the tweets correcting their geography as of course Sherborne is in Dorset not Somerset as they stated.

A lovely student from the Bournemouth Buzz called me for a further interview and published another story promptly afterwards

Yahoo news picked up on the story adding their spin on the events calling it "drive-biotic"

First thing Monday morning I was interviewed live on the BBC Devon breakfast show by the charming Simon Bates who was very sympathetic about my experience. I was also interviewed by a journalist for Radio Somerset who was most insistent I should have called the police by now.

It was rather extraordinary that Andy Comfort's (@andycomfort) Radio Humberside drive time show was dedicated to the event on Monday, asking listeners to send in their suggestions for songs relating to the incident.

Celebrity bloggers added fuel to the fire with @panoparker getting over 2.5k retweets for calling it "The most British headline ever"

@ReporterBoy's vote for "headline of the week" brought much amusement to many

 - even the boys at BuzzFeed where

Alan White upped the anti and went straight for "Headline of the Year"

Simon Singh (author of The SImpsons) @SLSingh voiced his concern about an upcoming trip to Sherborne!

and so it went on....

Although all of this media attention has been quite amusing it doesn't take away from the original act of nonsense that started all of this.

Being targeted by anyone with anything when you are alone in the dark at night is really frightening and I would urge anyone who knows anything about this incident to come forward to ensure the idiots at large are brought to heel asap.

I would like to thank the two boys from Sherborne School who stopped to ask if I was OK at the time and all of my lovely customers, contacts and friends for their messages of support this last week

I am still waiting for my advertising deal with Petits Filous but until then it's time to get back to my crochet!

Many thanks

Ali

The West Country Haberdasher!

It seems I now have a few more updates to make to this article!

on 3rd Feb 2016 actually included this darstedly crime in an article entitled "21 WTF Crimes that could only ever happen in Britain" - I made it to no 12!

finally on 22 February 2016 it was mentioned on "The Poke" Facebook page - it attracted one or two comments and several likes too!

Will this story ever end?!

Workshops in 2016

I think we all have a long "making" wish list and adding ideas to it wont get the projects done, my Pinterest board has over 1000 pins and those are just the ones you can see - not the ones hidden away on secret boards. If I just dedicated the time to making rather than browsing for more ideas I would feel so much more rewarded.

So many customers of mine say they don't have time to start let alone finish a project - but if you come to a workshop you will get results faster than staying home and constantly putting your crafting time to the bottom of the pile of things to do.

We have taught hundreds of people over the years and nearly every one admits they would never have done the project in their own time and they are always so thrilled with what they have produced.

Whether it is sewing, crochet, patchwork, embroidery, knitting, drawing, dressmaking or needle felting we are sure to have something to interest you more than netflix.

So, stop what you are doing, book a day off, arrange a babysitter, do whatever it takes just book a workshop and find some "me time" to do what you have always said you would do!

Today is the tomorrow you talked about yesterday - just do it!

Churn Dash Quilts

I am a huge fan of modern versions of the churn dash quilt design. I am forever adding new ideas to my Churn Dash Pinterest board hoping to one day find the time to make one!

I really love this pastel rainbow design by CrazyMomQuilts

and this one by Mixiheart

We are starting a course to learn this quilt pattern on Tuesday 19th January, during the 4 week course we will learn how to sew half square triangles, create the blocks, add sashing and a border, and then layer with wadding, quilt and finally bind the finished quilt.

Here is another lovely example by Material Girl Quilts

The course would be suitable for beginners as we will teach you everything you need to know about cutting fabric and sewing up the patchwork top.

To get 10% off the Churn Dash quilt course use code "churn10" at the checkout.

There was a brilliant article in Country Living website this week about how "crafting is good for you" and we can't agree more!

Our workshops are going from strength to strength with lots of customers signing up to learn new crafts in 2016 and we look forward to teaching more and varied crafts as the year goes on. I have heard so many customers say how they "don't have time" to do craft but then they come on a workshop and find the time and don't look back.

We also have regular craft groups each week, Crochet Club meet on a Wednesday night from 7.30-9.30 and we also run a free YarnBee each Friday morning from 10am-12pm.

We look forward to seeing you soon!

Jane Makower - Wildlife fabric collection

We have recently started stocking Jane Makower Fabrics and we just had to get this fabulous Wildlife collection in!

The Rabbits and Hares print has a bit of "Watership Down" about it - a childhood favourite of mine and I think this would be lovely used in a project for any age group.

We have this print in a brighter green colourway too:

You could pick out the red flowers using a mini print in the same colour

As well as the striking "wildflowers" design

We have several filler fabrics to go with this collection and some of the other Jane Makower collections that we have on the way!

View our range of the Wildlife collection here.

Jennie Maizels Sketchbook Club training day

On thursday I spent a truly amazing day at Jennie Maizels' studio near Winchester!

Jennie was hosting a franchise training day for new tutors to run her amazing sketchbook club.

Firstly it was an honour to be in the presence of such an incredible lady after following her on social media for so long, check out Jennie's inspirational Instagram feed here. I have always admired Jennie's work and after being tempted to join her online sketchbook club I was thrilled when the opportunity came up to actually go to her studio for a day to get tuition from her directly.

I love the idea of being able to draw and paint but haven't ever had the confidence or knowledge on where to start!

Jennie takes all the fear away firstly talking us through all the materials we might use on our sketchbooks, from paints and pencils to newspaper and old maps. We are surrounded by materials all the time and really anything goes.

The whole studio is so inspirational too with sketchbooks, drawings, books and clothes plasters decorating every available wall and surface. We barely stopped for lunch as we were so keen to try out all the different modules for the first term starting in January (although we much appreciated the freshly made salmon sandwiches and other delicious offerings!).

So now we are all prepared to host one of the first of Jennie's franchised "Sketchbook Clubs" here in Sherborne, Dorset.

As you know we will be in new premises from January and the beautiful new surroundings will be the perfect place for launching Sketchbook Club in 2016

Why not book your place now!

If you would like to watch a video about Jennie's sketchbook club please do visit her website, the video describes the online version of the sketchbook club but we of course will be hosting the club and providing all of the materials that you need including a sketchbook, pens, paints and pencils and of course the printed materials for each week's module. Working with a group often provides the encouragement and support that a lot of people desire when it comes to having the confidence to try something new!

The course will be 10 weeks long, with a two hour session each week during the term, with a break for school half term. Modules are all different to the online course so even if you have done the online version this course will be different.

I am going to start by offering a day time course but if you would be interested in an evening course please do email me at handmade@butterflybright.com

You know what to ask Santa for now!

Book your place here: January 2016 Sketchbook club