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"This is the season she will make beautiful things. Not perfect things, but honest things that speak to who she is and who she is called to be." - Morgan Harper Nicholls
Thank you for joining me on this exciting, scary, wonderful, unpredictable new journey. One that I assure you will be full of colour & creative inspiration. I want to make it simpler for us all to find more space for creativity, more room for what really matters, what makes our hearts sing.
These Clever Hands is not plotting to be a money making empire - you won't see me popping up on Shark Tank or the stock exchange at any point. This is a microbusiness that simply allows me to find purpose and fulfilment in doing what I love - working with beautiful, colourful, fabulous fabrics. And, more so, to enable other quilt makers to do more what of what they love - designing & stitching.
Wanting it to be simpler
Ugh, I remember driving home after a busy work day, looking forward to some late night stitching, only to realise I needed a particular piece of fabric & that my LQS had already closed...
So frustrating! Don't get me wrong, I love supporting my local quilt store - but getting to it was not simple. Work, family, work, groceries, work, family, work, cleaning... my stitching time was precious & I simply didn't want to waste it by driving to & from a shop in the hope that I *might* find what I wanted. Inevitably, I was ordering most of my fabric online - a bit from here, a bit from there. But this was also fraught with problems...
Some orders would arrive quickly, some wouldn't. Plus the postage adds up when you're ordering bits from here & there.
Then there was my precious time being sucked up, scouring the internet to find what I needed - flicking back & forwards between online stores trying to work out what fabrics were going to work together.
Not to mention the minimum cuts... I do a lot of EPP & the minimum cuts are a killer. It makes fabric shopping so expensive. Sometimes I was buying a 25cm piece of a co-ordinate to only use a skerrick in teeny, tiny piecing - unlikely to be used again.
How I will make it simple
I'll be doing the grunt work for you. Scouring the realms to find the very best of the most fabulous of fabrics & colour, colour, colour! Kaffe Fassett (The Colour King!); Philip Jacobs; Brandon Mably; Anna Maria Horner; Alison Glass; Jennifer Paganelli; Cotton+Steel; Tula Pink; and many more.
I will lovingly select a feature fabric for each pack - the hero piece that all of the other fabrics will work around. Then I will pull together an array of other fabrics that will co-ordinate, compliment & work together, giving you endless options.
In my mind, this is exactly what I would love to be able to buy for my fussy cutting projects; for my sampler quilts; for my applique; to top-up my stash... A delicious, sampler pack of quality, colourful fabrics. They are a fabric version of the Whitman's Sampler Chocolate box or the Cadbury show bags - & just as delectable!!
Let's keep it simple
"When we crave simplicity we are not after an easier life. We are after life." - Dave Bruno
If I can help you to keep it simple, then my job is done.
Simply put: an array of curated fabric packs to choose from; only quality fabrics (not chain store nasties); prompt responses to enquiries; prompt postage of orders; a stream of creative inspiration & encouragement. Co-ordinated, convenient, cost effective + colourful.
These Clever Hands is all about making it simpler for you to find more space for creativity, more room for what really matters & what makes your hearts sing.
From my clever hands, to yours...
Jo xo