Personalised Stockings Special - 12 Months of Christmas Deals!

Customer pic of little Tomaso getting ready for Father Christmas!

We are launching our ridiculous but like-honest-guv'nor-for-reals
12 Months of Christmas Promotion!  To help us plan the Stockings better, and give you all a stonking good deal, we are offering silly prices on Stockings made throughout the year.

A personalised patchwork stocking is normally £36.50, but we are offering them starting at £25 in January!
Every month, the price will go up by £1 until normal pricing resumes in December.  This is a great way to get one for all the family - as one of our customers, Claire said "They are so beautiful, and I love that we will be getting them out year after year after year; they are a real investment."

We were hyper-super-majormongously busy with our lovely Christmas stocking orders in the weeks before Christmas - but we still had time for one of our favourite games - texting photo updates to the customers awaiting them.  Time to share - here's a montage of those pics, and the happy responses.  To order your stockings for £25, simply head over to the website now - but hurry - this is the all-time lowest price!

7 Reasons to buy our Sewing Patterns

We love our Sewing Patterns, and we're simperingly proud of them.  Shall I tells you for why?  Shall I?  Hm?

We've been doing lots of nice PR things lately, and people often ask what it is about our Sewing Patterns that makes them different, or special or easy or unique; and being a little slow on the uptake, it only occurred to me after the fifth person asked this, that I ought really to have answered this question already.

Like, duh...

Both Amanda and I have followed many, many sewing patterns in our time.  Some difficult, some head-bangingly impossible to follow, some wonderfully simple, some kinda in the middle, ish, somewhere.  Some nearly made me cry.  Some were joyous.  So it was from our experience as beginner users that our Patterns were born, and for this reason we have always fiercely defended the 'beginner' nature of them, in that easy patterns are nice for everyone, not just beginners.  My mother is an extremely experienced dressmaker (she made both me and my sisters' wedding dresses) but I can remember her frustration at the pattern she was using - it was tortuously written and omitted enormous chunks of information.  She found herself groping her way blind through vast tranches of tulle, netting, interlinings, stiffenings and other masses of froo in order to figure things out.  It wasn't pretty.  And the swearing was a little colourful.  And I nearly always came out the worse for it because I then had pins stuck in me during fittings.

Anyhoo, armed with all this history, here are the things we love about our patterns, and which we guarantee you'll get in each and every one.

1) No Wordy Cutting Lists!
Don't know about you, but honestly I find written lists tricky - I'm a very visual person, so I mean no offence at all to patterns which use them, but I likes pictures.  So we always use cutting list images - you can see literally every single piece you're going to need.

2) Consistently Named Pieces
When you sew from a pattern, you start off with lots of pieces, and halfway through you have half-constructed bits....I often got confused in patterns because there didn't seem to be the halfway house names; patterns often stated "Now take this piece" or worse, omitted the noun entirely - "Turn over and stitch along sides"  Turn which bit over? The bit I've just done or the thing I had to do before that?!!
We always make sure that once a construction is completed, we tell you what it will now be called, and when it comes up again in the pattern, that's how we refer to it.  Sounds basic - helps in the long run!

3) Integrated Seam Allowances
When you cut out our patterns, you won't be expected to add seam allowances.  I know this can in some cases be necessary, expecially in the world of dressmaking, but we tell you every step of the way what seam allowance you'll need.  It's almost always the same throughout the pattern, but even so, you will always be told what it is.

4) A Besquillion Diagrams

It's one of my very favourite jobs here at OriginalStitch, so maybe that's why we have so many of them, but we use looooooads of diagrams in our sewing patterns.  Don't know about you, but it is just so very much easier.  I draw them myself, when I have designed the product myself or stood over Amanda while she makes it, so they are straight from the very horse's mouth - I have drawn them from the exact construction at that very point, so if there's still pins there, I draw them; if there's loose threads hanging down, I draw them.  We then have our lovely designer Jon colour 'em in all pretty so they're even easier to understand, and have shading where there would be some, and right and wrong sides of the fabric properly coloured.  Lovely.  If you're terribly clever, you can probably almost make something without even reading, which is what my mother does.

"What seam allowance am I using?" she said once.
"It says it right there look Mum - quarter of an inch, see?"
"Oh I haven't read the pattern, I'm just using the pictures." she said.

5) No Template Enlargement

When you cut out our templates, you won't have to enlarge them.  I'm quite happy to admit this may be a matter of preference, but I try to think of the person sewing from their abode up the top of a Welsh mountain, with no access to a photocopier shop, and as temperamental an all-in-one printer as we have (shh, don't tell it I said that, it's easily upset...).  So our templates are designed to fit on an A4 sheet, so that when you print it out, it is real-size.  You may have to join pieces together to make the whole template before applying to the fabric, yes - but we make this as easy as possible by including full written instructions and using nice little symbols.

6) They're available immediately!
Our patterns are currently PDF downloads, which you can access right there in your purchase email, once you've been to the website and bought one.  We have chosen this method because of our eco ethics - we felt it was a little cheeky to go printing out reams of paper for our sewing patterns when we bang on about environmental concerns.
Having said that, we'd be interested to know if you would like them as a paper version, because we would seek to work with some lovely bonkers paper made from rhino poo, or beer dregs, or old Barbie packaging or something.   (We ain't joking, our tags ARE made from old beer dregs!

7) Online Support
You can get support when making your pattern from our OriginalStitch Cafe- it's where all the manuals and manufacturing information is housed for our stitchers to access, so it's where we put information relating to the sewing patterns.  Come and join, and any help shouts you put out we'll pick up - either myself, or Amanda, or even one of our lovely stitchers will soon come to your aid!

So, if you haven't taken a peek at our sewing patterns yet, have a little look - we're working on a whole raft of our Piece & Jam Collection items next, so we'd love to know - what would you most like to see next in our range of Sewing Patterns?

In the Making: The Men's Shirt & Tie Bag

Now where did I put those pi...oh yes, in my cakehole

We are in love with our Fortune-Teller Bag, it's super simple to make and bags of fun to wear.  You can run one up in 3 minutes flat. Nearly.  Well, maybe half an hour, but that's how quick and simple it is if you do our scarf tutorial, residing for now over at Mrs Thrifty's, where we proudly guest-blogged.  However, that's strictly for friends or for meself, but transferring the design to our product range means a little more quality control.  So here is one, a custom make for my good friend, who saw mine and ordered her own.  She stole her husband's shirt and sneaked it down the Post Office.  She could have stuck some of his ties in too - so the handles are old ties, but for now, we used some lovely old vintage lining fabric so the handles slide smoothly inside the bag casings.

When the shirt arrived I got my grubby, shoddy benailed mitts (aren't they a disgrace, my nails?  My four-year-old painted those on for me 3 weeks ago.  I'm just waiting for them to grow off because I've run out of nail varnish remover).

Um, as I was saying, I got my shoddy benailed mitts all over the shirt and cut it to smithereens before reconstructing it into a bag. 
Naked.  No, I'm kidding, I just happen to have a strapless top thingy on, but I admit it does look a little dodgy.  Unless we want to start up a naked sewing club?  Hm?

Hang on...pins, needles, rotary blades....I'm thinking casualty, embarrassing potential for ending up on the medics' facebook page entitled OMG You'll Never Guess What Injury Came Into Casualty Today

I'm thinking maybe we stick with clothes.  Let's leave naturism to beach volleyball.

Anyhoo, here it is; from shirt to bag.  It's where all shirts dream of ending up....

Grabbing buttons...

Cutting off cuffs...

Lopping off collars...

Cutting out the big shapes....

Sewing 'em together...

Adding lining pieces...

Piecing the structure...

Is it a cuff, or is it a pocket?

Stitching it all up...

Giving it legs - got to have your brand in there

Not wasting the breast pocket!

Putting buttons back on...it looks like tiny knitting!

Give it a little security with a button-up tab...

Re-using the buttons and button placket for a little detail...

Rouche up the handles....

And voila - one Men's Shirt Bag.

Coming soon to the website!  So if there's one of yer man's shirts you've had your eye on, stick a balaclava over your head and sneak into his wardrobe to half-inch it, nabbing a couple of ties while you're at it, and bob's yer uncle, a truly unique Men's Shirt Fortune-Teller Bag.

These will be available as a product to buy on the website very soon, but you know you can just get in touch with us anyway, right?
Here, at Facebook...
Here, at Twitter...
Here at the website...
and Here on the Blog!

Top Tips on Shopping Eco 3: Don't Lose Them, or You Might Lose Out

Eco-friendly lunchbag!

You know I like to share with you easy ways to shop in an ethical way, because it's a good thing to do.  It's nice to the planet, and it's nice to people.

If you are a dedicated ethical buyer, as I am, though, there is a downside.   Each purchase has to be researched, considered, compared and then usually purchased online.  I admit there are times it would be easier just to slip out to my local builder's merchant, or mega-supermarket, or large famous online retailer.  You are lucky if you are able to nip down to your local high street to grab eco-friendly clothes pegs, some environmentally friendly furniture polish, or an eco solution for your child's lunchbag.  Every time I have a purchasing need, I have to research the ethical options online for solutions.

I admit it, I've had to change the way I shop a little, so I thought I'd share with you some of the ways I do this - I already spoke of online ethical 'magazines' in the post about Green e-Zines, and how to decrease your environmental footprint by buying British in this post, and this will add yet another dimension to your ethical purchasing.

Like, follow?

One of my vices. Shoooooz. Click for more.

I always follow great companies whose eco credentials I think will come in handy.  I may be fiercely resisting buying shoes, but want to know I have ethical shoe boutiques at my fingertips when that party invitation arrives.  When you find a company you like, go and find them on Facebook and click on the Like button, or follow them on Twitter if you're a tweeter.  They may also have a Blog - click on the Follow or RSS feed buttons on their blog so that you can keep in touch.

Cheeky minx.  Worked though!

Green businesses, like us, tend to use the social networking sites heavily to engage with their customers, because often they're not enormous corporates with massive advertising budgets.  We try to get up close and personal (in a very loving sort of way, not in a smarmy space invading way. Well, maybe sometimes if you're very handsome or pretty....) so we're right there when you need us.  Quite often this is where businesses are at their silliest, like when we asked for your help to name our visiting Grass Snake the other day.  (Olwyn, she's called, by the way.) The laziest customers, like me, even use Facebook or Twitter pages to ask customer service questions or even better, ask for discounts...I did the other day, in a blatant and cheeky post on Swings and Pretty Things' wall.  She responded, I bought, she was happy, I'm happy.  Everyone's happy!

And the answer was, yes, she did! Click here for more

After tweeting generally for eczema products, this company responded to me; we got into a conversation and they came back to me with links to a product, and even told me about a discount code I could use.  She wanted the sale, I wanted the product and I wanted it there and then!  Job done.


 Sign Up

Pass the Pimms darling

 
I'm an instant signer-upper.  I don't feel I'm powerlessly bamboozled by newsletters - companies are governed by very strict laws and guidelines when it comes to sending you email newsletters, and most, like us, just want to alert you to new launches, new products, sales, freebies, competitions and other things we're up to.  Sure, I get quite a few every day but I have them going to an email account which is not my work one. I scan them vaguely every day, and that way, if I'm sitting thinking about a garden party I'm planning for the summer (yes, summer - that sunny shiny thing we sometimes get in June, remember?)  and I happen to open a newsletter from the Natural Collection which says this in the title "Let's go Al Fresco! Outdoor Dining at its Finest", then I'm going to give it a look.  Honestly, I don't look at every email, but they're already self-selected - I signed up for them, chances are one day they may have the thing I happen to be after. And if my need was very fleeting - new pond lining specialists for example, and I'm not really interested any more, I can always unsubscribe.  Unless the newts eat the old lining, in which case I'd be really peeved I deleted it, darn it and fig.

See it, wish it. 

Sitting on my toolbar. Little temptress.

I am fully prepared for the onslaught of gasps and controversy I might now meet for consorting with big corporates; but I'm telling you, when the things you seek are not immediately to hand in your local supermarket, this - the Amazon Universal Wish List button is a very useful thing! You drag a little button up onto your toolbar, where it lives, waiting for you to press it whenever you see anything, anywhere, on any website that you like.  I'm guessing most of you have an account at Amazon, and you might even already have your wishlist set up there.  But did you know that you can add to your wishlist from ANY website?  For eco buyers this is great - if I stumble upon a product I like, I wish it.  It's a good tool for specialist buying.  And if you have persons in your life who are a little bit net savvy, you can of course leave it lying open, accidentally, or share it with them.
I wish!
(Let's put it this way - I actually ended up buying all my Christmas Wishlisted stuff, with all the Folksy gorgeousness I'd drooled over, myself.  With my eyes closed - he was trying to hide the pictures with his hand whilst I typed in usernames and passwords and navigated round sites.
No, he's not 80.
Anyhoo....)

Pin it

Of course, if you want a place that's a bit more public to list the things you love, then there is Pinterest.  If you haven't come across this yet, it's like a mood board, or inspiration board - again, with a handy little button you install on your toolbar - see? Every time you see something you like, you click on the little Pin It button, and it asks you which of the images you can see on that page you want to pin on your board.  It's another sharing site too - other people can come and drool on your board, you can re-pin other people's pins, and you can have lots of boards, covering all your desires, fetishes, needs and wants.  So, next time you see a product you love, pin it!  Not only can you drop big hints with friends, but it's a handy reminder too.  And again - for specialist, niche or non-high street stuff, what a great way to keep a record.  If a little tempting...!

So next time you're browsing at OriginalStitch, but not quite ready to buy, don't just sit stand there twiddling yer thumbs! Pin us!  Wishlist us!  Like us!  Follow us!
Oops, I seem to have become a little self-serving there [grins evilly], but in all seriosityness, if you find a good green company, you may not easily find them next week.  Having massive, enormous standout and instant brand-name recognition in a crowded internet market is not easy for small green businesses, so grab their details while you can, then they'll be there when you need them, you follow me?!

Life's Just Better With Jam

Of course, it's taken me so long, their feet no longer fit.  Ahem.

We discover, Dormouse Moneybags and me, that all of a sudden a half-term or an Easter or a Christmas holidays is slap bang sitting right on top of us.  Wham!  Just like that.  We're all, what the, how the, where the heck did the time go?  Are our children ever in school?

I like how it looks as if they've signed their feet...

And in those weeks of course there's little point trying to do anything involving the following high falutin' thinky activities - planning, strategy, website editing, product design, image editing.
You know, just the stuff in our jobs.  No way.  Forget it.  And certainly not making products for our lovely (we're curtsying right now, curtsying) customers, who deserve only the highest quality products we can muster.

Add one gorgeous bright red giant bathmat!

But we're addicted to sewing, so we do both attack little projects for our own home, since it doesn't remotely matter if we cock those up.  Yes, I like to make a right old scruffbag of a thing for my gaff.  I don't care about loose threads, scruffy edges, double-stitching, linings, neat hems, market trends, on-trend colourways or nuffink.  No, I just grab some scraps, cut 'em up, hoop up, throw a sausage at the kids, stitch something to something else, lob some squash at the kids, stitch some more bits to some other bits, cut, snip, stitch, say "Yeeees!" to whatever thing they've just asked for (crisps was it? Tequila? Tree-climbing? Fire-starting? No idea, just can't stop in the middle of machine-embroidery), stitch a bit more, pinking shear some edges, bob's your uncle and here's a bowl of ice-cream with chocolate sauce and yes, of course, help yourself to too much telly.

Enter me for Mother of the Year Award, you say?  Oh yes please, do, do.

Machine-embroidered scraps for a picnic blanket

Anyway, so here are the things I'd been meaning to make for donkeys' years, and scruffy though they are, I'm glad I've done them.  They are the very things I love - they inject creativity into the fabric of this house.  They are there to please no-one but me (and if they please other people, hooorah!); they are spontaneous; vintage; sustainable; re-used; and best of all, being used, so I get to have a little cock-eyed smile at them each time I see them.  Slightly smug.  You know that smile.
I must tell you that the bathmat idea is not mine, no - I saw it in passing at a nice blog once, and always meant to do it.  You can find a smashing tute for it here if you're not confident about tackling it freestyleeee....

The picnic blanket idea has been germinating for a while in my bonce.

 

These are all machine-embroidered squares with daft phrases on them, like our Piece & Jam Collection.  Ok, it's going to take me a while, but once I've done 12 or so, I'll throw them together with some other squares to make a picnic blanket - whack an old shower curtain on the back and hey presto, all ready for an English picnic, for which waterproofing is always advisable. A load of foody phrases, coz life is just better with Jam.

Whose voice can you hear now?  Yep.  That's right.  Homer Simpson.

Yes, that is Eddie Izzard, most beloved of this Isle.  There'll be a few more of his by the time this picnic has finished.  Cake or death?

So, now then - I'd like to know any of the following in your comments please...either here or on our Facebook page....

a) What did you make in the holidays, and on a scale of 1-10, how scruffy was it?
b) What were your most shameful hands-off childcare tactics?  Share.  Seriously - I need some tips!
c) More Eddie Izzard phrases for the picnic blanket please.  And by the way, these are for everyone - please make a picnic blanket using them!  Could you pass me the idioms please.  Thank you.

Face it, you Twits, you Follow?

This was the original Facebook logo - they nearly went for it, honest, but decided on a felt-tip pen one in the end.

Well now, me and Dormouse Moneybags, aka Amanda, only went and had an OriginalStitch Works Outing yesterday didn't we! Yes, we were on day release from OriginalStitch Towers, leaving The Husbs in charge of their respective progeny, and off we went t'Big London to the UKAware Show at Olympia.

It's full of like-minded ethical, eco-friendly, environmentally driven sort of types like us, so we came back bulging with business cards.  And we thought we'd do a little celebration of some of the stuff there.  Follow us, follow them, follow us all!  Hoooorah for following!

Gingham tweeting, it's all the rage

Now, we love this Blog, and it is where you'll find the chaotic undercurrent of OriginalStitch, (are you Following us in your Google reader thingy? Oh, do, my loves, why don't you, hm? Look, you can join all those lovely looking peeps to the left there - aren't they handsome and pretty?) but Facebook and Twitter is where we also daily update you on products, special offers, or just share nonsense from our day in headline style, plus links to the latest blog post too.
And look - I've even made you special linky badges from fabric to get you to them - just click and follow us!

But with no further ado, lookee here at these fab things:
www.reestore.com, home of Dragon's Den winner Max, who designed this smashing plastic bag bin - you just pop the bag handles over the tops and the bag pulls the plastic tight. Brilliant. Made from 100% recycled plastic. We went home with 4 between us. Saw us comin' eh? 

Next, we liked Fairtrade Innipooh, with these fab bicycle baskets made in India - go to her website and read the fab story of how Trudi, from Suffolk, came to find herself in business with Parvathi in India. We toddled off with 3 of these in bright jolly colours for some daughters. I repeat, saw us comin' eh?

And how about this for the latest in at-home parties - the Swap-a-Rama Clothes Swap parties? You take along 5 of items of clothing or accessories you no longer wear, but which are of course nice and clean and non-shoddy, swap them for vouchers, and spend those on something pre-loved your friends have brought along, for a small fee on the door!  Amanda, who is Class Rep on the PTA is all over this for the next Ladies Indulgence Event at our girls' school up the road, so I will be manhandling fivefoot women in the street to come along so there's stuff to fit me. Um, that's women who are 5ft, not women with five feet. You knew that, right?

Bung-It-In Bag, from soon to arrive Piece&Jam Collection

And last but not least, here is a lovely sneak preview of an up and coming product we found being showcased by two very attractive, glamorous and successful looking ladies wondering round the show, one of whom was five foot.
Ahem.
Ok, so you know that's us right?
I'm that transparent aren't I?
Well, anyhoo, what the heck - we'll be revealing the whole new collection soon so come and find us on Facebook and Twitter, and you'll be able to see all the next sneak previews, as we launch the whole Piece&Jam Collection.  It features applique and quirky embroidery of fab, daft or iconic images like bunting and radios and sewing machines, on stuff like aprons and laundry bags and tea cosies and Bung-It-In Bags.
Oh yum.

We look forward to meeting you, you handsome pretties, you.