I have been obsessed with cutting fabric for as long as I can remember. Sewing has always been a part of my life, I can remember my Nana sewing and my mum making me beautiful ballet costumes as a young girl. Looking back now I think I was more in love with the fabric the costumes were made of than actually practicing the ballet steps.
I grew up in New Zealand and at age 10 all girls took sewing for one lesson each week. It was one of the highlights of my week, and while everyone was still finishing their first skirt at the end of the term, I was completing my fourth piece of clothing.
I continued to sew and embroidery throughout my childhood, but it wasn't until I was studying Marketing and Clothing at Otago University, that I was exposed by chance to patchwork. A friends mum sent her several wonderful quilts and I fell in love with the wonderful fabrics and traditional designs. It took me three years to get up the courage to take a course, as patchwork just did not have a young persons image.
From this point I knew patchwork was for me. After completing my studies and an internship at the Chicago Apparel Centre in America, I started working in the textile and homeware industry in NZ and decided to take patchwork at night school, with a wonderful teacher.
In 2000 my husband and I moved to London, England, the plan was to stay for a couple of years, and nine years, a beautiful daughter and a wonderful dog later we are still in England.
I initially worked in marketing in London, but after a couple of years, I missed the textile industry. So I quit my job and started a patchwork business called Antique Angel, we have become one of the leading UK stores for block of the month quilts and projects.
In 2006, I decided on the spur of the moment to trade at a quilt show in New Zealand so I could have a trip to visit my family and take my baby daughter who was just six months old to NZ for the first time. The show was fun, and we unexpectedly had a huge number of sign ups for my block of the month quilts, with customers being happy to have them shipped all the way from England each month. Several stores asked to buy my patterns and I suddenly had a budding wholesale pattern business.
I now have a lovely team of people that help me, sewing parts of the samples, checking patterns, a wonderful photographer and of course the website and graphic designers that do everything techie.
I hope you enjoy making my patterns as much as I enjoy creating them for you.