Our New Website is Live!

We are delighted to announce that our new website is live !!

Do click the link above to go over and check us out. You can book class spaces for any of our fun patchwork and quilting classes and find out lots more about whats being sewn at #theplainstitchworkroom as well as all our latest opening hours and info.

It's our birthday! You are all invited!

Late Spring and Summer Classes Now Booking!

I'm super excited to announce that our late Spring and Summer Classes 2016 are now open for booking - check out our classes page and don't hang about - some classes filled up on the first day of booking! We are so grateful to have such enthusiastic supportive customers!

The Simple Sampler

With the term in full swing and the busy January weeks of first classes now all up and running I can draw a breath! I love the bustle and excitement of a new term, new students and old all equally excited by a new project - so much fun choosing a new fabric palette. It's such a privilege to get to join in with the intensely personal process of choosing fabric for something as special as a quilt. Our jobs are such fun, we get to hear about all the new babies and grandchildren as soon as that scan picture is public as that's when quilters start sewing! We hear all the sad stories too about people in your lives who need your care and help and often that is expressed as much through the time and attention you give them as through the handmade items that our customers turn to to express their love and thoughts.

It is a special gift to be able to take a little piece of your feelings and to stitch it into something precious for a loved one. Sometimes when we are swept up in the excitement of new fabric and fun of a new project we forget to stand back and reflect upon how special the time that we lavish on these creations is when you look at it in the cold light of day. Because we are all sewers and quilters it's 'normal' (!) to us to spend 6 months hand sewing a gift for a new baby. The sewing is as much about our quiet anticipation of that new life as it is about the stitches. But I'm always so warmed when we get a 'newbie' in who ohhs and ahhs with the real reverence that these special gifts should elicit when they look at how much work has gone into a new project.

In the darkest, coldest and most unforgiving months of Jan and Feb, as the first daffodils valiantly try and cheer us up, it's a very special hobby to have...a way to ward off the January blues that others feel - we bask in the 'sunshine'; glow of the promise of new fabrics and new projects and are warmed under our quilts or sewing at the machine or in front of the fire as we plot our sewing year.

My Simple Sampler class is my all time most favourite class to teach. I have taught this probably 20 times or more now to rooms full of expectant new quilters and people sometimes ask if i 'mind' teaching it again and again. The funny thing is that I adore it! I get to feel each time like a parent on Christmas morning with the BEST present all wrapped up under the tree. I know that the gift of creative expression with fabric, of making a quilt, of sewing by hand is a special gift that I get to give my new students each term and with their excitement and wonder as their quilt grows I share their excitement!

Every 2 years we have a Simple Sampler reunion and 2016 is a reunion year! The reunion is usually in he autumn term but already i've heard so many times this month...i'm getting it done for the reunion!

If you'd like to join the exclusive 'club' that is PlainStitch Simple Sampler Graduates do join us for our next classes starting in April, morning or evening classes through until early July...it's the best present you'll give yourself, we promise!

2015 at PlainStitch

Wow – what a year 2015 was! Those of you who know me know that I am useless at looking back – I usually can’t even remember what happened last week – I love looking forward - I love new ideas new fabric and all the promise of a new year. But on the eve of the end of 2015 I love to reflect on everything that’s gone before. I’ve added lots of pictures of our PlainStitch year – most of them I can’t believe they were only in this year – time moves superfast and super hand sewingly slow in The Workroom!

This year we started the year making Sausage Dog Pin Cushions, we threw a Comic Relief Crafternoon, we expanded into the BackRoom and knocked down walls in the Workroom, we made Log Cabin Quilts, amazing Simple Samplers, intricate EPP quilts, our Bee in Your Bonnet Class finished their fab quilts, we enjoyed our Spring Retreat Day, we threw a first birthday party and ate the most amazing Modern Applique inspired cake! Our Sewing Bee went from strength to strength – this year we undertook the huge project of a community wall hanging and our members went over and above, sewing with 6 year olds to 96 year olds and we had such fun doing it.

Claire’s Free Motion embroiderers freestyled so much fab work from tea cosies to Christmas cards, Vic got us all hooked on hand embroidery and we all started stashing those wooden spools like squirrels! Victoria’s Miss Stitch kids made the most gorgeous stuff and the Teens raised the sewing bar, taking on many of our adult makes and showing us how it’s done, nonchalant! We made Sewing Machine Covers and all wanted a zippy pouch for our embroidery threads!

In the spring we all flew our Union Jacks for Baby Charlotte up and down the High Street, our Modern Applique class were quilting high achievers turning out works of art, and we opened the studio for Bucks Open Studios and met so many lovely new people, we took PlainStitch out and about to Fairs and exhibitions from The Quilters Guild to local sewing groups and got such a fantastic response, we love meeting new quilters and sewers!

We had such a laugh at our Farm Girl Vintage Day in the summer where we rocked our Stetsons and sewed patchwork strawberries in the sunshine, we all went a bit mad for the PlainStitch Bunting Quilt Kit with its icecream colours for high summer. We started to learn to Crochet with the lovely patient Jo. Then this autumn we welcomed Julia to the Team PlainStitch, and turned our attentions to seasonal sewing and embarked on the first class of Arendelle, designed the most fabulous Wholecloth Quilts, we made Christmas cushions, Bauble Quilts, Stockings and wreaths and we all went even more mad for Christmas Pillowcase Kits!

We stocked the shop to the gunnels with the most tempting and delicious fabric all year, we kept watching favourite bolts sell out over a weekend, we love a text print don’t we?!

We got nominated for a National Sewing Award and our Sewing Bee was a BBC Get Creative! Community Champion, we just can’t wait to see what 2016 has to bring! From Clamshells or Trip Around the World, Alphabet Embroidered Sampler, Learn to Knit with Janet and so much more that we have up our patchwork sleeves for next year, we know it’s going to be even bigger and better for 2016!