In the past

Ireland was a wonderful country to grow up in and I was born into an even more wonderful family, full of very creative people who loved to make thing with their hands. My dad was a very skilled carpenter and my mum was a very skilled dressmaker and mother. My brothers followed in my dads footsteps, my younger sister studied Art and is now an art teacher, she also has her work displayed in galleries. My twin sister and I carried on to work in the fashion industry in London.

I remember when I was very young my mum was always teaching myself and my twin sister how to sew. She was the person that started my love of fabrics and encouraged me to create wonderful outfits for my dolls while she created wonderful outfits for all our neighbours and brides to be.

The first real sewing machine I learned to sew on was with a foot peddle that had to be rocked forward and backwards to get the wheel to turn and that would then move the needle. You could only sew straight lines and there was no back-tack button, you had to turn the work around and sew back on its self. The machine and table was a beautiful piece of work though. I have just got one of the tables to put into my hallway as the entrance table to hold my lamp. It has pride of place and looks fantastic.

As I got older and started to socialize, I soon realised the skill that we had could make us stand out among our friends as we didn't need a lot of money to create great fashion outfits every week-end.

At fifteen, I started work in a clothing factory where I learned how to use all makes and models of sewing machines and also learned sewing skills that have stayed with me a life time. I spent 7 years working there before the big blue yonder called and at twenty three I set off  to explore what lay outside the land of my birth.

The first port of called was London, well! it is pretty close and as this was my first time to live away from home I though it best not to go too far to start with, plus I knew that there was a great fashion industry there....

Thats all for now. I will tell you more soon.