The Creating of SewSmitten

Hi all!

So this is going to be a post about me penni p as well as a look into how SewSmitten was created and evolved from just a casual idea of me just wanting a website to display my work, to the reality of me needing a website in preparation for our very first stall which took place in Islington late August of this year.

I graduated from a Surface Design Degree in June 2007 taking along with me many useful crafty skills, I thoroughly enjoyed the practical side of my degree so I knew I wanted to pursue a craft based career. I continued working weekends at my current job at LadyLuckRulesOk (a fun fashion jewellery label) and I also started working part time for other designer makers to gain experience.

Later on with the new skills I had learnt I started to make my own products to sell to independent boutiques and gained knowledge in the industry of the selling market.

I still do the occasional internship when I have spare time but mainly I currently work part time freelance as a studio assistant for a couple of very different designers;

Miss Budd - a bespoke leather and silk handbag and purse designer, providing beautiful handmade and hand printed products to order.

Thornback and Peel - a wide selection of hand printed products to order, from cushions to tea towels featuring quirky English Nature themed designs.

...as well as juggle the day to day running of the SewSmitten website, which all definitely keeps me very busy indeed!

So although it had been a thought of mine for a while in mid August of this year, whilst in between part time jobs I decided to create myself a website for a platform to sell my wares as well as place to display my design work. The name took a while to decide as I knew I wanted something catchy yet relevant to what my style of work reflected, and there were many a spider diagram and lists of ideas that followed...strong contenders were: stitch me quick, sew sew studio, crafty sew&sew, penni makes, sew me......but through these came the birth of:

With a name and a website software package I was ready to go, now all we needed to do was design a logo, make lots of stock and take lots of photos..which meant a few very late nights and long days! And on the week of the 10th August 2009 the website was launched, not completely finished but ample enough for our very first stall with Craftaholics @ The Old Queens Head in Islington which took place on Saturday the 29th August. For which you can see some pics of in our Blog on our website!

Since our launch the SewSmitten site has grown lots - including our product range and we plan to continue designing and making lots of great new products. The site is predominately run by me; penni p but I have had lots of help along the way from my boyfriend Luke aka the Gnome who is also now a big contributor to the team and his print work features in some of our new products. We have also attended lots more crafty events around London too and we have met lots of other lovely craft making people along the way.

The website and brand of SewSmitten is still expanding and there are lots more updates to look out for, our aim is to keep growing and providing unique designs and products all lovingly handmade by us.