The Great Sewing Revival - I'm not letting it pass me by!

Thanks to Kirsty Allsop and friends, sewing and crafting is very much 'on trend' at the moment. Craft magazines are flying off the shelves and the WI is enjoying a real renaissance, but the whole sewing revolution is just passing me by. Now I am a fairly creative person, I enjoy crafting, gardening and cooking but I really struggle with sewing.

My Mother is a great seamstress and often makes her own curtains and and has made beautiful things for my daughter. You would think that would have rubbed off on me, but I think it has skipped a generation. In fact my daughter loves nothing better than to spend time making little creations with fabric and thread. One of her favourite activities is arranging and re-arranging all the bits and bobs in her sewing box, a cherished gift from Grandma. I don't even have a sewing box, anything remotely connected with this past time is kept in the junk drawer, including my collection of loose needles. There it all sits, next to the sellotape and the bit of grey blu-tak. It's like a little booby trap, waiting for you to route around for new batteries or the instructions for the telly, then it attacks and you inevitable find yourself at best a little pricked or worse looking like an acupuncture trainee! (OK so we will add sorting the junk drawer out to my to do list, then I can write the post titled 'Feng Shui for your kitchen drawers' that I have always wanted to).

So what? I hear you say, make jam instead and still be part of the craft revolution, but the thing is sewing isn't just a fashionable past time for all those stay at home mummies, its actually a really useful skill to have under your belt. As I have progressed further into my adult life it has become apparent that simply buying a new pair of trousers because the hem has come down isn't really the most viable option, and running to my mum every time I have a loose button, can not go on forever. what really brought it home to me was when my daughter got three badges to put on her Rainbows uniform, she looked at me with sad despairing eyes and

sad "oh no Mummy, what are we going to do? Grandma is on holiday"!

So I am taking the bull by the horns and going to give it a go, I am persevering, It may have taken me ten weeks but by hook and by crook I have got two of those badges on!