15 year Blog Anniversary and the Alice Caroline Sew Along Festival

15 year’s ago today I wrote my first ever blog post! Huge thanks to all my blog readers who have joined me on this journey, for all or some of the last 15 years!!

I remember so clearly asking my then teenage sons for help and we actually had such a fun time together setting it up. I think they are secretly amazed that I kept writing it and where it has taken me!

That first post, which you can read here, didn’t even have any photos! But I did set out my objectives quite clearly and I feel I have stuck to them!

Starting this blog was such a pivotal moment for me. As you can read in that first post I felt isolated in my craft world until I discovered the online community. Within a year I was completely enmeshed in that community with so many blogging friends from around the world (including my now Thread House partners Lynne and Karen!), taking part in swaps on Flickr and getting more and more ambitious and creative with my own makes.

Fast forward another year and I had turned this hobby into a new career and opened my own craft teaching studio and shop! So I have so much to thank the blog for and I am very pleased that I still write it regularly. I still love this space to communicate my passions, archive all my creations and connect with others.

Which leads us on to the subject of today’s post… I wanted to share some of the things I have been making for the Alice Caroline Sew Along Festival which I am part of.

I’m sure many of you will know Alice Caroline as the face behind the fabric company that specialises in Liberty fabric. As a long time fan of all things Liberty I was delighted to have an excuse to create a new project using some gorgeous tana lawn.

I decided to create a new exclusive Dream Flower for the festival, which I am calling ‘Alice Caroline’ (it took a while to think that one up!). This is the original version above.

I then created another one when I recorded the tutorial, this time on a dark background.

I am planning to use the first one in a new Fabric Book but wanted to show off a different project option for the second.

So I stitched some other matching panels and used them to make Karen’s fabulous Drawstring Bucket Bag pattern (from The Thread House Taster Sessions).

The other panels included two Freehand Rainbow applique blocks and a new version of one of my original Dream Flowers, provisionally called Calendulily (I’m still working on the names for these).

It’s been fun creating these and switching my usual Linen and Woven fabrics for Liberty Tana Lawn (though the background is still Essex Yarn Dyed). I stuck with my beloved Aurifil 12wt wool for the embroidery embellishment though.

And I think the finished bag turned out really well!

The Sew-Along Festival starts on June 22nd, for every day until 29th June. They will be hosting Liberty themed video sewing tutorials and fun live events. Supporting materials such as pattern pdfs and fabric guidance charts and recordings of tutorials will all be provided for you to keep forever.

Join me and some fantastic guests in the website HUB where you can sew along with over 20 sewing experts and meet new sewing friends.

Watch the tutorials during the festival or simply wait until it’s convenient for you to relax and watch. There are no limits on how many times you can watch or rewind a tutorial. And what a great line up!

EARLY BIRD PRICING £49.95!!

There is an affiliate scheme so please do click on this link to purchase or to find out more info.

You can also catch me with Alice Caroline for an Instagram Live at the start of the Festival on Saturday 22nd June at 4pm BST.

And speaking of Dream Flowers, I have one more piece of news…

The Dream Flowers are coming!

After the success of my Dream Birds patterns I’ve had many requests to release my Dream Flowers and I can now confirm the release date, Friday 21st June!

I will be selling these in very much the same way as the birds, individually and in a few different bundle options. And there’ll be some exciting new things on offer this time which I’ll share more on soon.

I hope you are all as excited as I am for some more Dream Appliqué with Embroidery Embellishment!!