Hello! I’m Rachel

 

I have sewn for as long as I can remember. I had my first sewing machine (a hand turn, with the long bobbin, Singer No 28) while I was still in infant school. I just wanted to be like my mom and make things.

It all started when my mom’s sewing group organised a coach trip to Quilts UK at Malvern, and they needed bums on seats… I was dazzled – hooked on the patterns, colour and textures, and started quilting straight away.  I joined my local evening classes and was taught almost everything I know by Anja Townrow.

Sew Happy began in one of the chalets at the Craft Village, at Wyndley Garden Centre in 1994. I started selling rag dolls and quilts, altering curtains and general repairs, until someone suggested that I teach people how to make their own quilts…

It was at this time that I helped set up a local quilting group  – Sutton Coldfield Trinity Quilters. I’m proud to say the group is still going strong, we have a couple of meetings a month with speakers and workshops and we stage an exhibition every other year.

I went to college and did a couple of City & Guilds, one in Patchwork & Quilting, and another in teaching.

When the classes started taking over I had to make the tough decision to close my shop and go out on the road to teach. I ran loads of patchwork and quilting classes at various locations including The Trinity Centre, Heirloom Needlecrafts, The Community Centres in Mere Green, Park Hall and Collingwood, the Sewing shop in Lichfield, and a group in Tamworth.

It makes me smile to think that the sampler quilt I designed all those years ago is now probably in a couple of hundred homes in the general north Birmingham area, leave alone all the other projects I’ve set people over that time.

I took some time out and did the Foundation course in Art & Design, and renewed my teaching qualification.

Then one day, I heard that L&M Nutt Sewing Machine Shop were looking for someone to teach patchwork in their brand new facilities… a fresh, light and airy space, comprising a sewing room (complete with sewing machines all set up ready to use), a cutting room, and a kitchen.

Although I admit, at first, I was scared to death of the computerised machines, now they are so familiar, I even have one of my own:)

Now the shop has closed , owing to well deserved retirement, and I teach my regular classes at the Trinity Centre in Sutton Coldfield.