Deciding Where to Cut Cutting into someone’s treasured clothing or belongings is always the most nerve-racking part of making a memory item. There is no popping to the shop for another metre if something goes wrong, once the scissors go in, that is it. No pressure, then!

It Started With a SHEIN Top… I'd bought a top from SHEIN that I really liked the shape of. From the front it looked quite simple, but the back was what I really loved, open-backed with ties. There was just one problem. I wanted it longer.

I bought an overlocker. And apparently, once you own an overlocker, everything must be overlocked. Does it need overlocking? Irrelevant. Can I physically get it under the presser foot? Excellent. OVERLOCK IT.

I’ve found that small, consistent habits make a huge difference in staying productive without burning out.

As you can probably guess, my fabric choices can be as chaotic as my brain. That doesn’t mean they can’t work together, it just means they might not make sense to anyone else at first glance. I can get wildly carried away in a fabric shop, stroking bolts of fabric like a Victorian lady fainting over velvet and spending far too long gazing at colour ranges instead of making decisions.

But then summer rolled in, as it always does, and suddenly I had six weeks off work. Six whole weeks of no bells, no students, no deadlines. That was when everything shifted. With time, space, and absolutely no one policing my day, I really started to learn who I was, and I threw myself straight into sewing. I was on every sewing course going. If someone was teaching it, I was there, armed with a notebook and absolutely no self-control around fabric shops.

To make matters worse, I sewed like I was on the starting grid at Silverstone. Full speed, full chaos, full “why is the bobbin doing that?” energy.

So, I did what any sensible woman would do: I signed up for a course. I signed me and my mum up, because if I was going down this path, she was coming with me. She had recently retired and needed to have her time filled.We joined a “Get to Know Your Sewing Machine” workshop run by the Maker on the Move.