About

The only thing I ever stole was a reel of thread. It was a wooden reel of bright pink Sylko and I found it while secretly looking in a cupboard in my best friend’s downstairs toilet. It was no ordinary cupboard - it was floor to ceiling and double doored, the kind in which a Victorian butler might have stored his silver polish.  One day, with the toilet door safely locked, I opened the cupboard and found hundreds of cotton reels, neatly layed out in low cardboard boxes. They took my breath away - all that potential wound up so tidily and waiting to be undone. I would feel the same today were I to find such a cupboard though now, of course, I would resist slipping one up my sleeve. I kept my cotton reel and my guilt for years, and never used it lest the world should fall on my head.

Some of my favourite things

My first foray into business was aged 9 when there was a run on demand for my handmade pencil cases. Half the class wanted one and I was sewing all weekend. I made a killing. If only it were always so easy to make money out of hand sewing.

I made my first whole outfit, complete with pink tucks and gathered sleeves in 1974 (aged 12) using Laura Ashley fabric. I tried to get my own daughters to make themselves clothes but by the time they were twelve, Topshop was a cheaper option than a length of fabric. Only now that they can do their own pattern cutting are the outfits pouring forth.

I have a first class degree but I have to say that what I have learned about textiles, clothes, business and following one’s dream were not learned in University.

My business is three years old. Some days I feel as though it’s put 10 years on me. On others I feel like I could fly.