My Business Story

One of my favourite things to do is to scroll back in the instagram grid or blogs of business owners I admire and see where their journey began and how it progressed. As everyone has a different business story I always find it so interesting to see the progression from where it started to where it is now, and I've certainly learnt a lot by looking at it too! So it felt only right to share my business story with you all. 

Hi! I'm Tash!

I first picked up a needle when I was around 8 years old. My mum bought me and my sister one of those cross stitch on card kits to keep us occupied during the summer holidays. I was hooked! I continued to cross stitch until I was around 13 years old - when school, boys and a social life started to take over. I would take my cross stitching with me into school and stitch on my lunch breaks by my locker. I still remember the table cloth that came pre-printed with the pattern I was stitching. I forgot to separate the threads out and ended up only being able to finish a quarter of it! 


I still love doing cross stitch - though it takes me forever. But I always read the instructions very carefully first! Kit from stitchsperation

When I started working full time in theatre I would always have a needle and thread in my emergency supplies kit. From fixing costumes to fixing set pieces I found that I was still using those skills I had picked up. I remember being shocked as well that many of my colleagues didn't know how to sew and so couldn't even reattach a simple button on a costume!

In Nov 2016 I quit my full time job without really knowing what to do next. I had the idea to open my own candle making store - but soon found that I had little patience for stirring the wax, pouring of the fragrance, etc etc.


One of my several ill fated attempts at candle making

From Nov until Feb I turned from craft to craft trying them all out (watercolours, sashiko, and needle felting) before finally deciding to embroider a present for a friend's birthday. As I was unemployed I didn't really have a lot of money to spend on buying a gift so thought making something myself would be a nice thing to do.

Some of the sashiko patterns I stitched up

The first hoop I gave away as a present I couldn't wash all the blue water soluble pen out of (and it kept coming back!) but I was so excited I had to share it.


My first finished hoop. I was so incredibly proud of it!

After that I decided to make a few fun hoops. I really wanted to incorporate my love of origami cranes but was also very keen to do something I hadn't seen before. After a quick instagram and Etsy search I found tons of origami crane hoops out there so I started thinking of other animals I loved. I've always had a soft spot for dinosaurs and one of Mr Hatchling's colleagues had been making origami dinosaurs at work - so I googled a few images and loved how they looked. With those references I drew out some designs and got to stitching.



The first dinosaur hoop I ever made!