Let me introduce myself......

A blog? Me? Are you sure? Well I am now. Welcome to my little world of all things sewn and crafty.

Hi, my name is Gail and I'm a married mam of one, that's me on the left. I'm from Newcastle upon Tyne so it's mam up here and not mom or mum so apologies now for any confusion. That's my little lady in the middle and my not too shabby, in fact bloody brilliant husband Gary. You could say I'm mam of two if you count our slightly unhinged but totally adorable 12 year old Irish Setter, Chilli.

I suppose I should start by explaining where I got my business name from. It's really simple, my 6 year old daughter's name is Lottie, Charlotte really but we started calling her Lottie and it stuck, and she is a hoarder. No really, she will collect anything and everything and will usually leave it all in her pockets for me to put straight through our washing machine, one of these days I will check before I shove everything in there! That's the image at the bottom of the page, day one of the school year and this is what I found

in her tiny cardigan pockets!

So Lottie's Hoard it is and to be honest it kind of suits. I love all things crafty, and I mean all things. It's not just crafts either, it's DIY and anything else that you can do or create yourself. Basically I hate paying people to do things for me that I think I can do myself, I mean have you ever had a quote for roman blinds, eeek! This, I believe, is a mindset that you get into and I'm fairly positive I came to this when I lived alone in a city far from my handy family and handy friends.

I suppose it helped that my own mam used to make all of mine and my sister's outfits when we were kids. It was the 1970's, the real hey day of man made fibres and all things sweaty! But we were always well dressed, we looked fab all the time, if a little grubby because I really loved playing in the mud. Now this all sounds great but my mam didn't teach me how to sew, I know, why not ey? Since I was a clumsy child I'm sure she thought I'd just sew right through my fingers so maybe it was best to avoid that particular hazard. She did try to teach me to knit however. Wow, what a mess I made of that. I used to start with a beautiful line of 30 stitches and after diligently knitting away for 30 minutes I had a beautiful line of 65 stitches, all split wool and all looking very much the worse for wear. The upshot was, knitting was soooo not for me. But my mam and big sister are amazing knitters and can knock up jumpers, cardigans and toys in a matter of seconds, well that's what it looks like to me. It still amazes me to this day how they can knit, stay focused on a tv programme and drink a hot cup of tea all at once, wow!!!

Anyway, my real passion lies with sewing and I love to knock up new dresses for Lottie or myself, or matching mam and daughter sweatshirts for us over a weekend. I've sewn clothes of all shapes and sizes, many things for my home such as blinds, cushions and quilts, upcycled wares are also favourite of mine some with great success, others not so much. I vividly remember the fabulous patchwork fabric that I bought to make myself a full length fit and flare skirt, forgive me it was the late 80's! I followed the pattern diligently and ploughed all my love into that skirt and I finished it with a great big smile on my face, I was so proud. Only to try it on and find that it wouldn't even fit round my hips, sob sob. But you know what, I loved that skirt so much I wore it anyway, only I hid the unfastened waist band every time I wore it with a lovely slouchy jumper and to be honest I had to wear boots as it was such an odd length. Remember there is always a way around your mistakes, and even if there isn't you will always learn from them and your sewing will get better.

So that's me. Introduced and ready to go. In this blog I hope to bring you my own hints and tips to make your sewing both easier and more enjoyable, to introduce you to some crafts that you might not have tried before, and I might not have tried either so that should be fun. I'll bring you some free patterns to make yourself, I'll test out some patterns myself to give you some insight into how to do them while making sense of the instructions inside. I'll also be inviting my big sister along to give you some hints and tips around knitting and crochet and I might even persuade my mam to join in the fun. I'm going to invite you into my world of crafting, try out new crafts and let you all see the results and hopefully share with you the fun that can be had from crafting and sewing.

Until next time then peeps I hope you enjoy reading my crafting adventures.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my long and rambling introduction.

With love from Lottie's Hoard, that's me, Gail xxx