Last week I was invited by the Manager of the Nicholson's Shopping Centre in Maidenhead, to discuss a proposal she had for me. Intrigued, I went along to the meeting where she offered me the chance to use one of the empty shop units for a Great British Sewing Bee inspired display, to help advertise my shop. You may remember when we first took over Sew Crafty (Orxiom fabrics as it was then) we were residents of the centre. Lots of people to this day still ask if we are the shop that used to be there. Anyway, of course I jumped at the chance, Mostly because I love window dressing, I'm sure I get this from my Dad, as he used to fit window displays in Harrod's when he was a teenager. Also because as much as I love our window at work, it has its limitations, it was so fun to be let loose in a new, empty space.
I spent the week collecting together props and making examples to use in the display to best show off our products and on Friday my Dad and I spent the whole afternoon in Unit 27 setting up our display.
Here is what the unit looked like before, displaying some of Teresa Mills lovely mosaics. You can see that the window is spilt into four sections separated by a door.
We used the two smaller sections to display costume ideas as we sell a lot of fabrics and accessories for making costumes. When the schools have Book week our shop is a busy place, we love helping parents out with costumes for their kids to play dress up! We have put a poster in a fabric covered frame to tell people where to come to get all their sewing goodies.
The other two windows we dedicated to more traditional sewing fayre. We used the top window as a dream sewing table of sorts, with a mood board, a sewing machine and supplies, books, trimmings and yarns. The bottom window we used as more of a display space showing off some pieces we made from the show and some customising ideas.
We tried to use a mix of our products with some from mine and my mums collections, like you would have at home.
A glass dish with new and vintage buttons in front of a collection of Cloth magazines. The Sewing Bee book is on display surrounded by ribbons, fabrics and My Tilda bunny.
I set up a little design station too with a sketch book and samples in front of our mood board, which is brimming with cuttings and ideas from Company and Cloth magazine.
I was really pleased with the end result, it looks like a work space any respectful sewer would be proud of. Hopefully it will inspire a few people to take the short walk down to our end of the High Street and pay us a visit.
This is the pretty little sheared dress my Mum made, the same as the one they made on episode 3 of the Sewing Bee. The Sewing machine is on loan from the lovely Anna (aka Thumbelina design) and the mug is mine that I use at work that was a gift from my friend Claire for my birthday, I'm missing it already!
Hope you enjoyed that little peek at our display, if you want to come down and take a look for yourself it's in Unit 27, opposite Iceland in the Nicholson's Shopping Centre, Maidenhead until the 29th of June. Whilst you here, you can pop down and see us at Sew Crafty (3 High Street, Maidenhead) at the same time!
Sammy xxx
