The Workroom - Come in and have a look around, why dontcha?

This is a little post for my lovely sewing friends who aren't near enough to come and pop into the Workroom on Market Day here in our little village of Wendover in the Chiltern Hills.

 I have lots of lovely peeps who share our sewing from all over the world and I've had lots of requests for a proper nosey look around the Workroom now we're open for business.

Some of you live a long way away, or nearby but busy busy, or are busy off, you know, giving birth and so forth ( hope baby makes an appearance soon Midlands friend!), or living the dream in Somerset ( we miss you!) ...anyway here is my little tour around our lovely Sewing Home!

This is the little archway door in a lovely old characterful wall, in Back Street in Wendover. The gate is brown at the moment, but it's soon to be turned blue to match the front door which is in the middle of being painted at the moment. We are very excited about this as it will allow us to describe ourselves as 'through the shiny blue archway gate in the old brick wall' how lovely a description is that?! Anyway, until it's blue you can just look out for our little sign which looks like this......

When you push open the gate you come into our little hidden courtyard. We are really quite giddy about the prospect of summer and outdoor sewing here, hidden away in the heart of the village  behind the busy High Street - yummy indulgence!

We are awaiting very grown up iron railings for our very wonderful stone steps. Don't they make you feel just a little bit Jane Austen-ish when you arrive with your sewing?

Anyway, if you've resisted the urge to have a little sit in the sun, do ring our bell and come in and up the stairs and into our sunny Workroom, here's our little free motion embroidery wreath on the door. ( We're having a new bell fitted this weekend - the current one is very faint so feel free to knock too just to make sure!). My attempts at free motion embroidery are a little bit spidery, but we have a fabulous class lined up for the autumn run by a very talented local lady who can literally draw with her sewing machine and she'll be teaching us all how to do that too... more details coming soon.

 So, welcome, come in, have a look around.......

This is our ironing station. Isn't it fab? It's right next to the big sash window so you can watch the world go by on the High Street as you press your blocks - lovely! Oh and have a sneaky jelly baby from the supplies cart underneath to keep the sugar levels up!

So this is our Workroom. Lots of quilts, lovely fabric, patterns, lots and lots of fat quarters - we pride ourselves on having oodles of them pre cut so it's easy to mix and match your fabric choices when you come to a class. We love fabrics strewn across the table, try them out! It's bright and light in the Workroom so easy to get a true 'read' of fabric colours - there's nothing worse than trying to buy fabric in gloom, the colours look so different.

That's my pin cushion basket in the middle of the table, i'm adding a new pin cushion just about every week at the moment! It's a way to stop myself trying to make a full quilt of every fabric bundle that one of my customers pulls for their project that gives me the 'wanties'!

We make our own lampshades, so much fabric fun, we have a class on Fri 4th April 10am to learn how if you'd like to make your own.

Our super comfy chairs are vintage Ercol. We  are based less than 5 miles away from the Ercol factory. We love where we live and we love local, so we're proud use these vintage examples of the rich crafts tradition here in the Chilterns.

This is our peg board shop of notions. I love a peg board - it reminds me of my Grandads garage with all of his carpentry tools neatly lined up on a peg board ready to create.

We have lots of fab fabrics and we're adding to our shelves every week. We're really picky about the fabrics we choose, we try and edit to suit our customers, we go for prints that really work hard for you in a design.

We hope you enjoyed a little wander around. Do pop in if you're local, have a rummage, look at the quilts, come and talk sewing, we love visitors, we are open this Saturday 9.30am - 3pm, and every Thursday morning 9.30am - 2pm or drop us an e mail and pop in one day when we are there working on new class projects. Thanks for coming by x

Wonky Patchwork Pin Cushions

This week the Workroom has been a hive of activity! Our freshly 'first coated' front door has been welcoming so many lovely visitors.

We've had lots of new classes kicking off this week. I do so love the start of  Simple Sampler - the anticipation of soon-to-be-quilters getting excited about their first quilt.

We've done lots of fabric choosing - our favouite thing! We've suffered a lot of 'bundle-wanties' as gorgeous combinations get picked out and wrapped up and spirited away for someone to get started on new exciting quilt combination.

We've had lots of lovely visitors, bearing flowers ( aren't we lucky?), and wishing us well. We do feel very lucky to be at the heart of such a wonderful group of people. Thank you.

My sewing time has been squeezed out by my second most favourite job, cutting and arranging fabric bundles! But I did make time to turn this little wonky log cabin demonstration block, that I whipped up in my Log Cabin Class last week, into a pin cushion. I'm collecting them at the Workroom. They are very moorish! Come and choose your favourite to use when you sew with us!

I did find time to start cutting into this lovely bundle which I have special plans for which I'll share when I get started on actually sewing it!

Come by the Workroom this Saturday and say hi, we'll be open from 9.30am- 3pm, maybe making pin cushions!

New Beginnings

Oh my, it's glorious weather today here in the Chiltern Hills. The sun is shining, daffodils are suddenly everywhere. It's my absolute favourite time of year.

So much newness about!

We finally were able to get the front door of The Workroom painted after 6 agonisingly long weeks of rain and undercoat! It's now on it's way to looking fantastically glossy and the perfect shade of summer skies blue, come and admire it, hooray! Next we'll paint the gate too so you can more easily spot where our little oasis of a courtyard is located.

We are getting exciting new stock for the Workroom coming in every day at the moment. The latest being a great selection of fantastic modern quilt patterns. Save me from myself and come and buy them, as you know I just want to keep them for myself and obsessively make every quilt!

We've also just taken delivery of a pile of Frank Edmunds American Beech wood deep quilting hoops. I don't know why a good quilting hoop is so hard to buy here in the UK but they all seem to be so mean and skinny. These are lovely and generously deep and I know they'll sell out in a flash.

We're extending our open hours next week to accommodate the start of lots of new fab classes most days. Pop in on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday and all day Saturday.

I've spent this sunny afternoon making samples for my sold out Fabric Baskets class at the end of the week. I am sooo in love with this latest basket. I have another 2 in states of progress with same fabric but different handles and inners. The fabric is v Orla doncha think?

Then in a suitably frivolous sunny Sunday type way Miss Stitch had so much fun hanging out with ROY GBIV* in the scrap basket making mini bunting for a display a local shop is making to kindly promote our community Wendover Sewing Bee. Is there something wrong with me when something this random can make me so happy! He he. Fabric love! xx

 *(Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue,Indigo,Violet)

Thank you

 The calm before the wonderful, cakey, balloony, laughter and friendshipy storm!

.............a huge thank you to everyone who came along to the PlainStitch Workroom Open Day today. I was overwhelmed ( literally at times, as you queued down the stairs and on the landing!) by all of the support from so many lovely people.

 A massive thank you to Helen and Kath and Netty for keeping everyone in drinks and cakes, x x x

A huge thank you to all my lovely students past and present who turned out in huge numbers laden with cards, flowers and hugs. I did cry quite a lot!

A huge thank you to all the lovely new people we met today, so many of you, so full of enthusiasm for trying a new skill. I do have the best job in the world as I get to enjoy your thrill at what lies ahead on your sewing journey!

A special thank you to my original MakeClub friends who let me practice becoming a sewing teacher before I really was one. I  have the best friends in the world and I would never have taken those first tentative steps without their friendly prods of encouragement.

Next week the Workroom will be open on Tuesday morning 9.30am - 12.30pm while a class runs, and on Thursday 9.30am - 2pm for shopping and sewing so do pop in for a quieter browse if it was just too full to shop today(!), or book a place to sew in the Workroom on Thursday morning when it's back to it's quiet tranquil usual vibe!

Much love, Debs xx

Our Sign is Up!

Oooh!! Quite giddy with excitement, my sign is up, isn't it lovely?!

The Workroom In Progress.....

We're nearly ready to throw open the doors and welcome our lovely friends and students into our sunny Workroom on Thursday 6th from 9am. Can't wait! 

The PlainStitch Workroom - Opening 6th March

Lots of exciting car loads of loveliness made their way to The PlainStitch Workroom this week but my front room is now mercifully (almost) empty of boxes and bags and baskets, and the Workroom is bursting at the seams with colour and pattern. How many more sleeps til Thursday?