Sew Over It Giveaway

As you may have seen over on The Sewing Directory Sew Over It in London are opening a new sewing café, in Islington. They will be selling fabrics, haberdashery, patterns and kits as well as running their popular sewing classes.

Their store will be opening on the 15th of November. The store will be at 37 Myddelton Street and will be open Tuesday-Friday 1-6pm and Saturday & Sunday 12-5pm.

Sew Over It would like your help to spread the word about the launch of their new shop, and in exchange they are offering the fabulous prize bundle below to one lucky winner.

The prize consists of: 

 - 3m of fabric (of the winner’s choice from the shop/online store)

 - All 6 of Sew Over It’s dressmaking patterns 

 - Magnetic pin dish - Dressmaking scissors

 - Customising jar 

To Enter 

Spread the word about Sew Over It’s new Islington store on your blog, website, or social media and post a link below in the comments to where you have mentioned it. You can find more details of the shop launch on the Sew Over It blog here, or my website here. 

You could share those links, or details/images from those posts in your post/social media update.

Make sure you comment below to tell us where you’ve shared the details so I can enter you into the giveaway.  Only entries on the blog will be counted.

T & C’s

The giveaway ends at midnight on the 14th November 2014. A winner will be chosen at random and contacted for their address. UK entrants only.

52 books challenge completed!

As you may have spotted from looking at the tabs across the top of this blog for the last couple of years I have been attempting to read 52 books in a year.  I decided to set myself this challenge at the start of 2013 because I had gone from loving books and reading several per month (or often several per week) to hardly reading any books.

As soon as I started working on the idea of The Sewing Directory it took over my life, I was working 7 days a week and just had no time for any reading.  I had also had a baby a year before I started the directory so by the time the business was launched I had my hands full!

When I blogged about doing this challenge several people said they wanted to join in.  The first year we did it via Twitter but this year we have a lovely Facebook group which has become an online book club.  The other members have encouraged me out of my comfort zone to try authors I never would have normally.

One of the books I tried thanks to others in the group recommending it.  I loved it, it was very moving.

Last year I didn't quite make it to the 52 books, I managed 44.  This year a good 10 weeks before the end of the year I passed 52 books!  In fact I've managed 54 so far and I'm now aiming for over 60.  I feel so proud to have gotten there, especially as not only did I write my own book this year, but I also moved house which was a pretty big ordeal taking a lot of my time and energy.

I don't quite know how I managed to fit it all in!  I think actually part of the reason I've read a lot more is because I've been run down and ill a lot of the year.  Then when too ill to work I read instead.  I've also travelled a lot, by train, so I've read several Kindle books. So next year it would be nice to just read because I'm taking time off for fun, not because of illness. I should make that my goal for 2015.  52 books read whilst healthy...

Who is in the book?

In this post I wanted to tell you about the lovely knowledgeable people who contributed to my book.  I do not claim to be an expert at all things business related so although I have shared my knowledge, and researched lots of topics in depth to cover in the book I wanted to get the experts to add their top tips in. I want to give you as much useful information as possible to help with your business.

At first I wasn't sure about having other people involved, I knew lots of other books did it and I wanted mine to be different.  But then once I started writing I realised that it's good to have a different point of view, or input from someone who has had a different experience of business or who works in a different part of the industry from me. 

Many of my contributors are from within the craft industry such as Tilly sharing her blogging tips, Harriet from Not on The High Street giving advice on making your products stand out on online marketplaces and Kristin from Sew Mama Sew sharing her knowledge on building an online community.

But also I wanted people from outside of the industry who are experts in their own niche subject, such as Ruth former head of SEO at Moz who gave advice on search engine optimisation,  Rebecca the MD and CEO of Create.net sharing tips on web design and PR consultant Fran sharing advice on marketing your creative business.

The one thing all the contributors have in common is that I think they all do something well, something which will help those of you running your own businesses.  

Also crafter extraordinaire Perri Lewis (blogger, Guardian craft writer, creative director of Mastered and craft author) has written the foreword for the book.

You can find out about the all the book contributors and read Perri's foreword here.