2015 has already been an exciting year for me!
For pretty much the whole of January I have been beavering away, working to complete my biggest-ever trade order, for the US retailer Terrain. They have the most beautiful website and shops in Connecticut and Pennsylvania and are part of the Urban Outfitters group, who also created the one of my favourite outlets: anthropologie.
Supplying such a large international company is really exciting and pretty scary at the same time. I'd never had to complete an order of this size before, could I get it all done in time?
I soon realised that I needed to invest in an industrial sewing machine, luckily I found a lovely man in Cromer who supplied me with, and taught me how to use one. I pushed the old girl to her limits and he had to help fix a couple of broken needles.
My workshop is based in the Assembly House, a Georgian mansion in the centre of Norwich. My actual work-space is quite limited, so I had to take advantage of the spacious ballroom in order to screen print my table runners. I also had to enlist the help of my patient parents, who are still waiting for their reward!
Fulfilling such a big order was a lot of hard work and required a lot of support from my friends and family, as well as everyone at the Assembly House, the people at Terrain were also incredibly helpful and full of great advice. I learned so much and I'm hopeful that I'll get to do it all over again soon.
Terrain's photographers took some beautiful shots of my work and seeing them up on their website was incredibly rewarding. You can view and purchase my work now by going to www.shopterrain.com
If you want to me to answer any questions about completing big orders, just comment below :)