My introduction to Patchwork & Quilting started in Cambridge, where I had the privilege to live next door to a wonderful Quilter, Gilly Newberry; she gave me the insight as to what could be done by hand or machine.

Daughter of a seam stress, I always had fabrics & threads all around me, my Mother would spend hours at her sewing machine (nothing has changed there) and she could put her hands to anything.

My spare time was channeled into Patchwork, what spare time! I worked full time and fostered teenage boys, but I am a believer that if you want to do something you will find the time, City & Guilds, evening classes and many specialty workshops, although you never stop learning.

Starting a business like this does not come entirely without thought and preparation. I had to convince my Husband that this was not just another pastime, and I had thought this through (like we all do, with the thought that this

could be easy!) It would mean a move away from the area we were living in, Newbury, back to where we had both met some 40 years earlier, Hemel Hempstead.

After a visit to ‘Stitches’ at the NEC in 2000, I had convinced him I was serious. That was the start to Patchwork Corner.

We have had nearly 5 years of hard work behind us, but are pleased with the results. We attend 10–12 major show each year as traders and love meeting new & old friends. I would not have got this far if I did not have the help of my hard working staff, Doug, Paula our daughter, Joy, Catherine, Pauline, Ami our granddaughter, Marion & many loyal customers.

We are at present in the middle of building work, which will give us a purpose built teaching room with kitchen & disabled toilet, this releases the old workshop for the shop extension, and this all should be finished by summer 2005