I live in Leeds, UK with my husband, a very energetic
and precious little boy, my 2 kitties and pretty much wall-to-wall quilts and fabric! Working full time and being a Mum cuts down
my sewing time but I do manage to squeeze quilting into just about every waking
moment.
I have been sewing on and off for most of my life which was
inevitable being the daughter of tailoress and dressmaker. It's in my genes. My
first sewing machine was a Holly Hobby
wind up one that I got one year for Christmas and I would get that out whenever
Mum got hers out. I (badly) made handbags and Sindy clothes and was never very
satisfied with how they turned out.
I got my first "grown-up" sewing machine for my 21st
birthday while studying for a degree in Textiles at Huddersfield
Uni and had marvellous fun sewing bits of knitting, paper, masking
tape, lumpy handmade felt and anything else that would fit under the foot. Not
surprisingly that sewing machine is now dead!
I had been itching to make a patchwork quilt for what seemed
like forever and finally I bit the bullet about 7 years ago, never imagining that it would
suck me in and lead to the biggest obsession I’ve ever had!
I participate in Flickr swaps and quilting bees (as flossyblossy) as often as
I can find the time.
In April 2010 I co-founded Fat Quarterly which is an e-zine
(electronic magazine) for modern sewers published quarterly. The e-zine
contains a mix of quilt patterns, small project patterns, articles and design
challenges, and in 2011 the Fat Quarterly crew released our first book:
Other than published patterns in Fat Quarterly and the Fat
Quarterly book, my pattern designs have been published in a number of
collaborative books and I have taught classes at the Festival of Quilts in
Birmingham, at the Fat Quarterly Community Retreats held in London each year
and at my local quilt shop The Skep.
I collect fabric like others collect Lladro figurines and
already have more quilts and fabric than I know what to do with, but the more quilts
I make and the more I want to make. I
will most likely just stack them up and stroke them!