Introducing Harriet

I first came across Harriet earlier this year during the Moneta Party on Instagram and soon started following her vlog as well as her blog Hobbling Handmades. I’ve always enjoyed her enthusiasm which is why I sent her a Sew Hayley Jane box to review a couple of months ago. Check out the gorgeous Marigold Jumpsuit she made using the chambray she received.

Having decided to cut back on the amount of writing and social media I’m doing so that I can concentrate more on the business I decided it would be great to find someone to write for the blog once a month, and so I reached out to Harriet.

Harriet will be writing about what she has made using all the goodies from the boxes every month and I am so excited to see what she does and to bring her sunny smile to the blog.

So without further ado, let’s find out a little bit more about her.

Tell us a little bit about yourself

I live in Essex (although being a sewer I don’t really fit in with the general Essex stereotype!) with my mum, brother and our two lovely little cats. When I’m not sewing, I usually sit in front of the telly and work on my big secret projects for my blog! I’m also a big fan of napping in the garden on a nice warm day.

When and why did you first start sewing?

I only started sewing just over a year ago! I’d been knitting for two years before that, so sewing seemed to be the natural next step from there. I wasn’t expecting to fall so head-over-heels in love with sewing as quickly as I did, but I found that it was a fab distraction from the pain of my medical conditions and calmed me down, so helped with my seizures too! Having something lovely and new to wear when I’d finished was a wonderful bonus, and I’ve been stitching non-stop since then!

Well, I did make a skirt in textiles class in year 8, but I’m not going to count that because the teacher ended up doing most of the work! When I actually started sewing, the first thing I made was a summer dress with a pattern I stole from my Nana’s Prima magazine. I didn’t have a machine at that point though, and didn’t want to buy one right away in case I didn’t really enjoy it, so I hand-sewed the whole thing! It took about a month of very hard work, but by the time I finished I had definitely caught the sewing bug and saved up to buy a machine very soon after!

Do you have a go-to pattern?

Gosh, I have loads of patterns that I always go back to! My favourites at the moment are the Vintage Shirt Dress and Alex shirt by Sew Over It, as well as the Marigold jumpsuit by Tilly and the Buttons. I think my most worn me-made item so far though are my Kwik Sew dungarees – I’ve worn them so much that the denim is starting to get holes in it! So I definitely have another pair of those in my soon-to-sew future, I definitely want them done before Autumn kicks in!

I must say, I’ve tried sewing with lots of different fabrics and each new fabric I sew with becomes my favourite! (Until I sew with the next fabric, and then that becomes my favourite!) Aside from cotton, because it’s just so simple, I do love using chambray and rayon.

What sewing machine do you use?

I have a lovely Singer Starlet named Rosa!

What a well-timed question! I had a sewing desk in my bedroom up until last weekend, when my mum finally caved and let me change our box room into my sewing room! It’s still very much in progress because I’ve only just finished putting everything in there, but it’s already my new pride and joy! I’ve been printing off lots of inspiration pics from Instagram to cover the wall with, which I’m hoping to use as the background for my YouTube videos.

I love to listen to things while I sew! I got some wireless headphones for my birthday, so I can still hear while I’ve got my machine going, but I’m always listening to either a podcast, a Netflix documentary or catching up with sewing vlogs on YouTube!