ABOUT

Hello! I’m Gill, and I create craft storage and accessories for 'The Industrious Maker'. I am inspired by vintage packaging and sewing ephemera and I love to utilise and re-purpose materials in playful and unusual ways. I make a range of items such as embroidery hooped jars, pin cushions, sewing pouches, needle books and pattern weights. My focus is on creating functional storage and display solutions which are a pleasure to own and a unique and thoughtful gift for the creative and busy maker.

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Over 20 years ago I inherited my grandmother's sewing box; it was a footstool which opened to reveal beautiful vintage haberdashery, wooden cotton reels and tins of buttons she had collected over the years. I loved this old packaging - particularly the cotton reels with their intriguing labels and I began collecting them myself. I left my arts admin job when I had young children, and The Industrious Maker developed organically as I started to make and sell crafts at local fairs. I had a lightbulb moment when I did a fabric printing course and used an image of an old cotton reel label which I framed in an embroidery hoop. It struck me it would make a great lid for storage and from there on I developed pin cushions and needle books as well as re-purposing other items such as brass plumbing parts into sewing weights and cotton reels into magnetic scissor holders.