I like stories but I’m well aware not everyone does or has time to give to reading a page of text so I’ve written two versions…

In Less Words
Cranford is the place my grandparents lived where they had a cupboard at their house filled with stuff they’d saved.

This low-value ‘treasure’ of jam jars, newspapers and bits of foil introduced me to the idea that all sorts of things were worthy of reverence for their usefulness and aesthetics. The idea stuck with me.

A career in tailoring and being a sewist has now led to the amassing of my own ‘cupboard’ (*cabinet sounds nicer) of fine, natural (mostly) fabric offcuts and it’s now time for their transformation and appreciation!

The Cranford Cabinet sews unique and thoughtful things making the most of what already exists in useful and beautiful ways.

In More Words
My grandparents' home until 1990 was a 1930s semi in the old Saxon settlement of Cranford, now rather an unlovely suburban area of London bordered by giant roads and overshadowed by the north runway of Heathrow. The green opposite their house hid a lump of old air raid shelter and there was another in Granny and Grandpa's back garden, full of spiders and forbidden territory to me and my sister.

Granny and Grandpa's house was from what I can recall pretty unmodernised and my memories are a patchy mix of a sunflowered carpet, art deco mirrors, dark-brown furniture with tasselled covers, drawn curtains and the aroma of boiled cabbage, Palmolive soap and Avon face powder.

But it was a tall, shallow cupboard in the alley outside their back door that made the biggest impact on me. I didn't know at the time but Grandpa had constructed this as extra storage for the kitchen. All I was aware of was that behind its red-painted wooden doors, sealed shut with those metal catches you have to turn, it was absolutely jam-packed to the top with stuff. 

I was fascinated by that cupboard and its contents: milk bottle tops, bits of neatly-folded, used aluminium foil, metal trays, plastic margarine tubs, toilet roll tubes, plastic bags, biscuit tins, newspapers, glass jars, millions of lids and more.

Now that may have rung alarm bells to the adult me, possible signs of unnecessary hoarding by two world-war survivors still entrenched in make-do-and-mend, but as a child I was most struck by the reverence applied to all these things. I had never considered before the specialness of foil bottle tops or the benefits of the right-sized ex-marg container and something of that appreciation for the value in things and 'shame to waste' attitude stuck with me.

Fast-forward a few decades and I now have my own 'Cranford Cupboard' in the form of several thousand offcuts of fine fabrics saved from clothes myself and my partner have made for clients of our tailoring business. 

Over the years the Cupboard has enabled us to repair and rescue many a garment, often from the same fabric they were made from and that's hugely satisfying. 

However, the offcuts accumulate much quicker than they're used.

It's high time these lovely fabrics saw the light of day and so The Cranford Cabinet* has been created to revalue these (mostly) natural materials and make them accessible in other forms. I'm starting with two decades’ worth of fine material offcuts, deadstock, fabric sample books and project leftovers from other sewing commissions and transforming them into well-made useful and beautiful sewn things.

It's important to me that the majority of my makes use material that already exists with sensible additions of new haberdashery and interfacings that release this great resource of fabric into the world to be used and enjoyed. 

Due to the finite nature of my materials I'm making items in Series so each will be a limited edition, making them even more special to own and enjoy. This also increases my making creativity and excitement in coming up with new things. There should always be something new coming along… follow me to find out more!

*Cabinet sounds nicer than cupboard

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