We're in business!

Thank you all so much for your kind messages of support after my last blog post, especially those of you who had gone through a similar experience. You truly helped and I love you for it :)

It's been a very busy few weeks here. 

I've been settling in to being at home and quite honestly I have loved every single minute of it. It feels so right to be at home sewing, designing, making and forming plans - lots of plans that are getting me to where I have wanted to be for so long.

Today has been a very useful day. While the teenagers carved their Hallowe'en pumpkins, with no motherly interference, I dusted off my Etsy shop and refilled it for the first time in several years!

I'm starting things off with a batch of little fabric brooches that I couldn't stop making last week!

 I still have a few to finish off and post in the shop, so it will be a gradual restock.

I'm planning to make lots more of the brooches as they are so much fun to make and my head is full of ideas for new designs.

After years of trying and failing, I finally seem to have got to grips with free-machine embroidery. Give me a pencil and a piece of paper to draw with and I flounder but I absolutely love sketching with the sewing machine.

I've completed an order for 30 scented Christmas sachets for Enchanted Plants, filled with dried cinnamon, cloves and star anise - they smell incredible and my whole house was smelling very festive for a few days.

To go with the Christmas sachets were 30 free-machine embroidered lavender bags, filled with wonderful dried lavender from a local lavender farm. 

There will be some of these and the Christmas ones going into the shop very soon. 

The tiny twirly-bird brooches gave rise to an overwhelming urge to upsize the birds, which were given the classy moniker of Fat-Arse Twirly-Tailed Colourful Birds by my dear friend and head cheerleader Trashy. A few of these are in the pipeline too.

I've got a list as long as my arm of all the things I want to make and am getting so much brilliant feedback and support from friends on Instagram, Facebook and in real life. It feels like I can really do this and I'm so excited to be going for it at last.

Please forgive me if I plug my makes and my shop on here for a while. I promise I'll still do the normal stuff too :)

I'll be back on Monday when I'm taking part in my first bloghop.

I hope you have a thoroughly spooky Hallowe'en, if that's the way you like it!

love Moogs xxx

All change

Well, it's been a funny few weeks here. I left my old job on 12th September and a week later started my new one.

I lasted four days.

It became apparent to me almost immediately that I was not going to be right for the job. It was not going to be the job I thought it was and so, after getting incredibly stressed out and having a bit of a meltdown, I told them I couldn't do it. That was the hardest thing to do.

I felt completely awful and like a total let down and a fraud. I tried so hard to convince myself to keep going and hope it would get better but my gut instinct said otherwise. I had to listen to my instincts as otherwise I was going to make myself ill.

And so it is that I am now without work and more scarily without a salary but somehow I feel more relaxed and happier than I have for years. Mr Moog has been incredible, a real tower of strength. He knows I haven't been coping for a while and saw how anxious I got with the new job. So, we've decided I'll take a bit of a break, get my ducks back in a row and then see what happens.

In my heart, I know that I want to work for myself and get my business going. I've been making steps in the right direction.

I've been making these little wash-bags for an order for Enchanted Plants and have an order for a big batch of lavender sachets. 

I've also put together some proposals for a series of workshops that I hope to start running after Christmas.

I have a list as long as my arm of projects to make, with a view to dusting off the shelves in my Etsy shop and maybe even opening up a Folksy store. My mind is buzzing with creative plans and ideas and it feels so good!

It feels like I've got me back again!

I've been enjoying spending time on Instagram and getting back in touch with the big wide craft world out there. Mr Moog was worried I'd be bored or lose my confidence being at home, just me and my Moogs but every day simply flies by and the interaction with friends via text and Instagram mean I'm never lonely.

So, for now I'm going to see how it goes, make a real effort to get my business going and give myself a chance to breath and get over the stresses of September.

This blog post has taken forever to write, especially as I know many of you already know about the work thing from Facebook and IG but I wanted to write it. It's part of the process of drawing a line under recent events and looking forward to a future full of possibility.

Hugs and huge thanks to all of you dear friends who've been so kind and supportive.

Onwards and upwards!

love Moogs xx