I have been nominated by my lovely, and much missed, friend Andi Barnes of Heirs Interiors to tell you a bit about me, my business and how it all started! Similar to Andi, my passions started with grandparents! Both if my grandmothers were, of course because that was the world they were born into, big make do and menders, wonderful cooks( I never could get over how they made the most wonderful cakes without a set of scales between them!), knitters and dressmakers but it was my mothers parents that had the biggest influence on me. While I adored trying to copy my nanny with knitting needles, it was the trips to the market on a Saturday afternoon with my grandad, to spend my pocket money on stamp collecting, Goss china pieces and small, delicate cups and saucers that I couldnt get enough of. That and the occasional trips(school holidays allowing!) on the back of my grandads motorbike, to collect the honey from the beehives he had dotted around the local counrtyside. I will never forget him slicing the fresh honeycomb for me and me chewing it until all the honey was gone, the taste was amazing, sheer bliss to a little girl who was amazed and beguiled by such things!! The collecting bug grabbed me first but by my late teens and in possession of a second hand sewing machine, I started making my own clothes. Unlike lovely, talented Andrea, I almost always needed a pattern to do this and while that was fine, the time it took to get to the end result started to wear a bit thin! And then one day my mom appeared with a bag of fabric and a how to Laura Ashley Soft Furnishing book, pointed to the festoon blind page and announced.....Id like 4 of those please! So like the dutifull daughter that I am, I got down to it and a strange thing happened...... I fell in love with curtains and soft furnishings!!... The bag of dress patterns and fabric disappeared to the back of the wardrobe and soft furnishings took over! That was over thirty years ago, and while on several occasions for the first twenty of those years I tried to make a living at this , circumstances would mean that I was compelled to get employment-regular paid work! and give up the curtain making. That was until ten years ago when I met my now wonderful husband Steve who had enough belief in me and useful knowledge to get me on the right road and here we are now. We have a lovely little shop in Balsall Common making curtains and blinds combined with my love of all things vintage, faded and french, painted furniture and pretty china, and the icing on the cake is our gorgeous 4 year old son Gabriel to go with my big 26 year old son William!! Life is hectic and hard sometimes, especially when Gabriel gets fed up with being dragged to yet another car boot or vintage fair, but I wouldnt change a thing!....... except moving Holmfirth within walking distance of Balsall Common maybe?!!........xxx
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 22:04:10 +0000
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