At Crafty Sew&So we pride ourselves on delivering top quality workshops delivered by our knowledgable, friendly and enthusiastic tutors! 

Hayley Richardson:

Hayley one half of Kiwi and the Bear, a creative husband and wife team based in Staffordshire.

They hand dye all of the fabric they use using various mixes and methods developed over the years. With a little embellishment and embroidery, the fabric then becomes a custom embroidery hoop or a pin pennant flag, each piece is completely unique - this is the magic of tie-dye. 

"I love sewing because… It's a fantastic skill you can apply to endless projects in so many different ways. Our love for it comes from being able to take something traditional and use it in a not so traditional way."

Hayley’s Top 5 Sewing tips:

1. Measure twice cut once, a cliché yes but an effective cliché for sure.

2. A magnetic needle minder can save a lot of wasted hours searching for a missing sewing needle, trust us!

3. Take what you know and experiment with it, have fun. Changing things up can allow you to develop your own style.

4. Be patient, occasionally sewing machines have a mind of their own and sometimes they just do what they want to do. Sometimes a project will take longer than you want it to and sometimes threading the needle will just seem like an impossible task, you've got to be patient, it will pay off in the end.

5. Keep your scrap pieces of fabric, there are so many things you can do with what you have left over, or you can let someone else raid your stash and they might find exactly what they needed to finish that project!

Meet the rest of our dressmaking team in the next post.