Suzy Magazine Launch

I had heard that a brand new shiny sewing magazine was under development and that it was produced by Rosabella of Sewn and Dominique. I had also heard that it was to be a magazine written by the sewing community for the sewing community. How amazing that would be!

But it seriously took me up until two days before it went to print before I thought “I wonder if I should contact them about putting an advert in the magazine”! What a numpty!

Well anyway I sent them a message telling them that I had backed their campaign on Kickstarter and by any chance did they have any advertising slots available. I had a reply almost instantly asking me to get a full page ad to them by Sunday – it was Friday evening! So on Saturday I got to work setting up a display and taking a million photos, cursing at the camera until Andy figured out it was on a ‘cloudy’ setting and putting together an A4 page on Photoshop.

I am so proud of the result. But, that is not the bit that I was nervous about. The reward for backing the Kickstarter campaign was a ticket to the launch party on 27th November in London.

Now, I don’t go to London very often and I don’t think I’ve ever been on my own, I don’t know why but it totally intimidates me. Which is ridiculous considering I flew on my own to stay with a friend in California on a whim, and went to work in Rome for three months as an au pair. Also, I didn’t know a single person that was going to be there. Not personally anyway, I knew a lot of them from reading their blogs, watching their vlogs or following them on Instagram.

Social media does this weird thing where you start to feel like you know a person, you watch or read about them on a weekly basis, know what clothes they wear (lets not forget this is a sewing community where we show off our handmade clothes, I don’t just pay particular attention to which pair of jeans they’re wearing!) and what they’ve been up to. You feel like you’re catching up with a friend. Until you remember that they have no clue who you are and if you’re too over-familiar it could possibly come across a little “stalkerish”.

I’ve always been quite a shy person and have always had to push myself to do things that are way out of my comfort zone because I realised that I didn’t want to regret not doing something. This was one of those occasions, with much encouragement from Andy, and friends giving me advice on how to get there.

I arrived about 20 minutes earlier than the rest of the guests so I took a deep breath, put on my big girl pants and went to introduce myself to Rosabella and Dominique. They were so lovely and welcoming and soon made me feel totally at ease. People started arriving and I was totally blown away that some of them recognised me and were already following me on Instagram! I got stuck in introducing myself and loved having people to chat sewing to. It was a bit like a red carpet event, trying to figure out “who” everyone was wearing. No surprise to see there were lots of Cleo dresses – the new pattern from Tilly and the Buttons. Talking of, I totally had to suppress a fan girl moment when Tilly herself turned up!

The magazines were handed out followed by many an oooh and an aaaah as people flicked through the beautiful pages. Quite a few people at the party were featured in the magazine so it was lovely to see everyone so excited about it. And look – me and my advert! It was totally amazing to see it in print!

I really did have such a lovely time. Whilst I have lots of creative friends I don’t know anyone in the sewing community so it can feel a little lonely sometimes when you want to chat over a cuppa about the latest pattern releases. But after two hours of chatting to the likes of Gabby from Gabberdashery, Jen from Gingerthread Girl and Ana from Coco Wawa Crafts amongst many other truly gorgeous and inspirational ladies I left feeling like I had made some new friends and with serious smiley face ache!

The pages of the magazine really are stunning and the features are fab, I was kept well entertained on the train ride home.

Unfortunately it’s a whole six months to wait until issue 2 is released but I’m already looking forward to it. If you missed out on purchasing the magazine on Kickstarter you can purchase it here when more stock has arrived. In the meantime you can catch up with all the excitement on Instagram by following @suzymagazine – Congratulations ladies on the launch of a truly awesome magazine!