I live with my partner Roger and our 11 year old son Louis just outside London in the UK. ( This is a picture I did specially for my website - only to have Roger shave his beard off the very next evening. )
Sewing and making stuff has always been my first love. My first book, Fleecie Pets, was published in the UK, USA and France in August 2007 and my new book, Fleecie Dolls, was published in the UK and USA in August 2008. I've also written craft articles for various magazines and, with my friend Sam, had a business called Plainfeather, producing colourful woollen throws, cushions and bags. You can click on the link to see the sort of things we made.
I probably should have applied to art school but ended up studying politics and then anthropology instead. Maybe that's why my career has been more varied than most career guidance officers would advise. I've worked as a charity information officer, political researcher, shop assistant and part-time school dinner lady - and that's not counting student jobs in Britain's most famous fish and chip shop and at the local sewage works.
Learning to sew
I first learned to sew as a convent school girls in the 1960s. Sister Patricia was a harsh teacher and reduced many a seven year old to tears with her exacting standards. When I was seven, she made me undo all the blanket stitch round a nightdress case I was making - even though it was actually my exceedingly neat mother who had done it. Click here to see a detail of the nightdress case and other early work - yes, my mother still has it some 40 years later ( I only hope I am that careful with Louis' early artefacts ). Luckily I was tough enough to survive Sister Patricia and even bagged the school sewing cup in 1969 for a rather fetching pair of pale blue seersucher pyjamas. They were ill fitting and hardly flattering - but came in useful as an improvised buoyancy aid in life-saving exams.
Very early influences
My real love of making things comes, I think, from my paternal grandmother Delia Goble who loved sewing, knitting and all things crafty. I remember devouring her collection of Women's Weekly and other mags ( some of which I still have thanks to my father's sister, Ruth ) with their patterns for the craft crazes of the 60's and 70's, such as Macrame owls and rather bizarre hippy blouse made entirely of men's handkerchiefs. Click on the link to see an example of these magazines and a picture of my grandmother.
