Pattern 1: Let's Rock'n'Roll for the Pencil Roll!

I think it is no great generalisation to say that all members of the species homo sapiens fall into one of Two Camps.

Camp 1: People who would laugh their heads off, if not give themselves a mirth induced hernia if you ever suggested they might like to try and sew something.  Yes, you know some of these homo sapiens?  I have lots of friends like this.  Literally guffaw if I ask them if they sew.  Snort, maybe even dribble a little with hilarity.  And thank goodness for them, the lovely gorgeous lovelies, for they are my customers!  Hello you all!  Hello!  Come and buy something?  Yes?  I'll see you in a mo, at the till.

Camp 2: People who see lovely fabricky things in the shops and say, oh isn't that lovely, oh I really like it, ooh I'd love to buy that, oh darn it and [insert expletive] I could make that myself!  Oh for heaven's sake.  Oooh, expletive and curse, I can't buy that, can I, seriously.  I really could probably make it myself for far less.

Well and hello to you too!  You are my loyal bloggy audience, and we are very excited to announce that we are going to be selling our 'recipes' as we like to call 'em, over at the OriginalStitch shop.

We take enormous pride in our recipes - they take up a huge amount of brain space in our bonces, and are developed with the utmost of pernicketty, pedantic, detail-seeking, maddeningly accurate obsessiveness, with the pure aim that they are easy peasy lemon squeezy to follow.   Each one has been dreamed up, researched, and tested - for each pattern several prototypes are made until it is just right.  Then they are painstakingly written up, and lovely little diagrams drawn, by me, with a great amount of concentration (you should see my drawing frown - it is quite awesome.  Sometimes I even poke my tongue out).


So we ask for a little for them, because without wishing to sound like a shampoo advertisement, they are worth it!  They're nice and reasonable - the Pencil Roll, as one of our more straightforward designs, is a mere £2.95, and it's downloadable, right there and then in your confirmation email.

We will also shortly be launching The OriginalStitch Cafe, at the moment an online social network for our Stitchers - but it will soon be open to anyone who wants to make one of our recipes.  As well as all the information our Stitchers need to make our products, it will feature video tutorials for any tricky techniques in our recipes, as well as some light-hearted bits of advice on how to avoid revolting fabrics, or combine colours - stuff that might be helpful to any beginner sewing folk out there.  In time, it will become a repository for lots of lovely sewing hints and tips.  We would love to invite guest article writers in too - people who know what they're talking about!  Once we've got some friendly faces in there we'll see what people would like.

So don't delay - hop on over to the shop and buy the Pencil Roll Pattern; it makes a fab gift for kids and friends' kids - I must have made about 12 last year! 

We will be launching the recipe for each product in our collection, but need to go through the checking processes with all of them first - next up will be the Backpacks, which are just gorgeous to make, with some lovely neat techniques for fab finishing.  We'll make sure we send a newsletter out to announce each launch - so if there is one in particular you're looking out for, just sign up for the newsletter at the shop and you'll be the first to find out.

Oh, and we're on Twitter too - oh it's such fun - come and follow me!  Look there's my Twitter button just up there on the left.  Lovely.

But never mind that - there is a small person bellowing at me from a toilet, I believe, so I dread to think what that might involve.  At this point shall I stop sharing?!