Changing It Up at Crafty!
Hi Crafty Friends!
Did you catch our #BehindTheSeams day in association with @inahaystack on Instagram? We loved showing you some snippets of a day in the life of Crafty and we've loved finding out more about all the other wonderful indie businesses involved too! If you've not seen it yet do go and take a look on their stories highlight
If you’re interested and intrigued by what goes on at Crafty Sew & So you’re in for a treat as we’ll be bringing you lots more behind the scenes insights going forward!
We’re Changing It Up at Crafty Sew & So!
After 5 years in our lovely sewing shop in the heart of Leicester, we are moving to an exciting new studio space! Responding to current events, we have made the decision that it is in the best interests for our future to Change It Up at Crafty!
Crafty Sew & So Partners Freya and Sarah at the St.Martins, Leicester shop opening party
So, what’s changing?
We will be focusing our attention and energy on our online shop and mail order services and this will allow us to provide the one-to one service we are proud of, perfecting the online fabric shopping experience for you and sourcing the exciting products that you know us for.
We’ll be moving to a fantastic studio space, still in Leicester city centre and we’ll still be coming out to meet you at craft fairs, events and shows around the country throughout the year.
The shop is shutting then?
Although we will no longer be operating as an open-door shop, we’ll still be very much open as an online store and your source for sewing supplies! We’ve set ourselves ambitious plans to grow our online shop and fabric range and provide you with everything you need to sew the things you want to make.
In all honesty, the last 6 months have been super tough and there were definitely times we thought that we wouldn’t still be here trading now. With the amazing support of our families and loyal customers we are! We owe it to them and you to keep it that way!
Even with your amazing support it is a struggle to cover the costs running a premium retail shop. By changing it up and moving away from high street retail for now we can keep the staff, who have given us so much, with us and we can move the business forward.
To keep being able to bring you the service, quality and experience you expect from us we have to make some big changes. We must adapt, not only to protect the business we have worked hard to build, but to build on the many new ideas we have and to flourish!
Our reduced overheads will mean we can invest the savings in even more beautiful fabrics and our time will be better focussed on sharing as much information about those fabrics with you as possible. We’ll be focusing on fabric education- helping you to learn about fabric properties to choose the right fabric for your project - so you can feel confident about shopping online for fabrics with us.
We’re looking forward to recreating the in person shopping experience with you through personal shopping video appointments, our brand new Swatch List subscription (more info coming soon!), and of course, when we can all meet again in person; Sew Leicester meet ups will continue!
We’ll also be hosting Sewing Weekenders and workshops in a large open plan space with lots of room to spread out and of course we have our Sewing Camp at Beaumanor Hall coming up later next year so lots to look forward to!
So, where will you be based?
Our new studio is in the Churchgate Artists Studios, an old factory converted into a community artists space and full of lots of other inspiring indie businesses!
We’ll have a large open plan studio and storage space for us to all work in together and a smaller filming room for vlogs, online workshops and streaming and photography.
We’ll be working alongside some of Leicester’s most creative indie businesses including Wren and Wilson and Silly Girl Club! We are so excited to be sharing creative space with such inspirational people!
What new and exciting things will we be able to bring to you?
So here’s the clincher, with slightly less rigid commitment on our time and funds we can focus on some really exciting new developments that we know you’ll love!
We’re excited to be working on some brilliant commissions and projects including working with Sew Hayley Jane on a subscription box collaboration for December (more info coming soon on how you can sign up to receive an exclusive Crafty Sew & So for SHJ box).
We’ll be continuing our My Handmade Wardrobe projects for Love Sewing magazine which we know you love – because you’ve told us! And we’ll be giving our My Handmade Wardrobe Patterns brand the love and attention it deserves and bringing out a heap of new patterns for you to enjoy!
We’ll be bringing you brand new Live Online Workshops. Our newest Slipper Boots workshop has been our most popular yet and our next date in December is nearly sold out (again- thank you)! We can't wait to have more time to develop more new and exciting projects to share with you and we love that by taking our workshops online we’re reaching as far as Scotland and Cornwall and we can’t wait to have our first international attendee soon!
And we’ll be developing even more Crafty Sew & So kits and patterns to get everyone sewing!
So although it's big change, we are super excited about the opportunities Changing It Up will open up for us and we want to take you along on the journey with us every step!
Keep up to date with our plans - sign up to our newsletter at the bottom of the page and follow the action on our Instagram @craftysewandso