The perfect fit with Lottie from Wild Orchard Sewing

In this episode of the Sewing Social Podcast hosted by Gemma Daly, Lottie Leigh-Gough shares her sewing journey from beginner to expert, focusing on the importance of fitting and pattern cutting. She discusses the emotional connections women have with their bodies and how fitting can empower them. Lottie also introduces her online courses, the Completely Custom Festival, and her mindful sewing sessions, which merge her Buddhist values with her passion for sewing. She reflects on her business evolution from a fabric shop to teaching online, overcoming imposter syndrome, and her future plans.

Key Takeaways

• Lottie specialises in fitting and pattern cutting.
• Fitting is a significant obstacle for many sewists.
• Emotional connections to body image are prevalent in sewing.
• Understanding your body is crucial for successful fitting.
• The full bust adjustment is essential for most sewists.
• Sewing is a labour of love that requires patience.
• Mindful sewing combines meditation with the craft.
• Community building is vital in the sewing journey.
• Lottie's business pivot was driven by the pandemic.
• Imposter syndrome is common but can be overcome.

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Guest details: 

@wildorchardsewing

www.wildorchardsewing.co.uk

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Lottie Leigh-Gough and Wild Orchard Sewing
02:59 Lottie's Sewing Journey: From Beginner to Expert
05:58 The Importance of Fitting in Sewing
09:12 Emotional Connections: Fitting and Body Image
11:51 Techniques for Fitting: Understanding Your Body
15:07 Common Misconceptions in Fitting
18:02 The Completely Custom Festival: Building Community
20:57 Mindful Sewing: Merging Buddhism and Craft
24:05 Online Courses and Teaching Philosophy
27:03 Business Evolution: From Fabric Shop to Online Teaching
30:00 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and Future Plans

Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:16.462)

Hi Lottie, thank you so much for joining me on the Sewing Social Podcast.

Yeah, and I thank you so much, Gemma. It's lovely to be here and to chat about sewing.

I really appreciate you being on today because I know you've got a very young little girl with you at the moment, your daughter. So thank you. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, that's okay. So yeah, so this is baby Luna and my older daughter is at nursery today. So these are my quiet calm days and it's just me and the baby. That's the easy bit.

Would you be able to introduce yourself to the listeners?

Speaker 1 (00:53.646)

Yes, absolutely. yes, I'm Lottie Leigh-Gough and I run the Wild Watches sewing company. And so I teach, I mean, I teach all things sewing and garment making, but I guess I specialize in fitting and pattern cutting. And so I've been teaching online since about 2021. You know, and I tend to teach not beginners, you know, I tend to teach more advanced sewists, but anybody that's from ambitious beginner to like,

know, decades of experience. Yeah.

And I'm curious, where did the name Wild Orchard Sewing come from?

so it came from, I, I used to live in East London, and was part of, a quite thriving Buddhist community that lives in East London. And I guess that was my driver actually, wanting to start my own business was being a Buddhist and wanting to make my work more in line with my ethics and values. And there was this really amazing cafe that was in East London. And at some points it was called the Wild Cherry and at some points it was called the Cherry Orchard.

And so yeah, it's just a bit of an homage actually to this, I sort of time or, yeah, this feeling of like female-led business, know, Buddhist businesses that were about expressing values.

Speaker 2 (02:15.958)

Amazing. So tell us about your sewing journey. You've obviously gone from beginner to expert in sort of areas of fitting, for example. Tell us a bit about your journey so far.

Yeah, so I'd dabbled with sewing from like maybe my late teens. I remember my mum getting out of sewing machine and buying me and my sister a bunch of fabric and we sort of muddled through making some dresses and wasting this very lovely fabric. As you do. And yeah, and then having a bit of a phase of trying out vintage sewing patterns. And it was just always the same experience. You know, I would be so enthusiastic and...

you know, that fiery feeling where you suddenly spend eight hours at the sewing machine and you're determined to get through the whole project. I would just be so disappointed at the end, you know, with the finish, but mostly with the fit, would be unwareable. Yeah. So I sort of dipped my toe in and out in that way for a number of years. And then sometime in my mid-twenties, I guess, I got really serious about sewing a handmade wardrobe. And it was that thing around fitting. You know, I remember I was

I needed to go up a dress size and I was in their nets and I was ready to buy that bigger size. And, you know, it still didn't fit. And I just felt this sense of like, I dunno, I'd had enough or, you know, there has to be something better than this. Something that would stop making me feel like rubbish about my body. And, and so this sort of sewing came back again. And I just, yeah, I just got very serious about it. guess, you know, I took a bunch of sewing classes.

You know, did like fitting master classes. listened to all the fitting things. you know, I really tried to learn and, and, and it's hard to learn. isn't, you know, there's not, the answer didn't come to me particularly easily. But yeah, I mean, I guess I kept going and it took me down a route of block making. I'd say I learned a huge amount of fitting by just drafting, redrafting, fitting blocks. And that eventually led me onto pattern cutting. And I think pattern cutting.

Speaker 1 (04:23.788)

is also very important for learning fitting. So it was really a combination of taking classes, making garments, just a lot of trial and error, you know, being willing to draft and redraft things. And I hope this makes sense, but there was something about pulling together these two worlds of like garment making for production or what happens with commercial garment making, and then the home sewing world. You know, there's a bit of a gap in between those two things.

where it's like, if you can bridge those two things, you can really learn a huge amount about how to make things that custom fit your body. You know, it's almost like you need these quite professional level of skills, but actually you're applying them in this like home way, hobbyist way. And so guess it was bringing those two things together that started to really become effective, I guess.

Yeah, that definitely makes sense because like you say, there is that sort of gap in between, isn't there? You can know how to sew something, but that doesn't mean you know how to fit it. So there's a lot of skills to learn in between.

Well, yeah, and professionally, nobody does that. know, professionally people specialize in one area and that's what they do. You know, I remember I had a friend who trained as a tailor in several rows. And so was desperate to talk to her about all these things that you do as a home sewer, like fitting and sewing and doing all these bits. And she said, oh no, you know, I just sew up the blackfield scenes on the trousers. You know, someone else does that bit, someone else does that bit. So.

you know, I think as sowists we don't realise quite how many skills we're trying to learn all at the same time.

Speaker 2 (06:05.454)

Right, and you often sort of berate yourself a bit, don't you, because you're like, I've done all this work and it still doesn't fit. It must be my fault. But like you say, there's a huge amount to learn. And if you don't know it, you don't know how to adjust it.

Bye. Bye.

What's your favourite type of garment to fit and why?

Whoa, good question.

So I'd say, well, I guess the thing that I do the most often is going to be bodice fitting. And I think in a way, everything is incorporated in bodice fitting, particularly around the bust. And it's like, there's this lovely process or sequence of, of how you do things in order to get a good fit there. can be really incredibly satisfying. You know, there's this moment where you get a bodice fitting really well around the bust and it can just be like, wow.

Speaker 1 (07:01.41)

And I think a lot of that is just because standardizing isn't very good at being fixed around people's It's just basic blocks are actually very flat. They're really not very good at sculpting around curvy shapes. So if I'm in class with students and it'll be just these incredibly moving moments where for the first time you get something fitting really beautifully and that's often happening with bodices. No one realizes.

quite how big their boobs are because standard sizing is always trying to squeeze us into this much flatter shape. But I do want to give a little shout out for the old skirt block because nobody wants to fit a skirt block but you can have some of your biggest epiphanies and I certainly have mine fitting really simple shapes and the most simple one you can do is a skirt.

That's really interesting. I want you, if you can, to elaborate a little bit on, like you say, the emotion involved in getting something to fit really well. Like, what have your experiences been with your students?

Yeah.

I think the first thing to say is just remembering that there is this huge backdrop of how important women's relationship is with their body. Not just your relationship with your body, but the world's to women's bodies so quickly can become political. I remember even writing my university dissertation about women's bodies, but in the context of English literature, it comes up.

Speaker 1 (08:45.58)

all the time. So yes, I think for me it does, comes from this place of being very interested about how women relate to their body. And one of the things that I love about teaching fittings, it's like I really get to spend time with women in that way and to hear those stories and hear those journeys. You know, so what happens for me is that usually students come and they usually have like one part of their body that they think is the problem.

And, you know, so people say, oh, it's my back or it's my ribs, or I've got this or I've got that. And they really, really single out one part of their body. Um, and it's called wrong or yeah, yeah, it's sort of this wrong, wrong bit. And through the process of fitting, you know, it's like, basically break that down and it can get sort of made worse a bit by what happens in the sewing fitting world because adjustments ends up getting called things like flat bottom adjustment or.

full tummy adjustment and so we hone in on these these particular areas. But when you go through the process of actually getting something to fit your unique shape really perfectly and you'll find that it will you know for the first time someone gets to try something on that actually works for their shape yeah it's incredibly emotional you know I've cried in class other people have cried you know particularly when you get to see it for someone else and it's like you get that perspective of like like we hold

so much, know, like shame and complexity and hatred of our bodies. And a lot of that is just forced on us by standardizing and by clothing not working for us. So yeah, it can feel like these moments of, yeah, like real like deep preciousness actually, because it's not only is it rare as in it's not mainstream, but also you had to work quite hard to get to that point. You know, we all know that making your own clothes.

is a labour of love. So everyone's had to go through maybe a few different trials in order to get there. They've really had to commit the time and the energy to understanding fitting. But yeah, it's very liberating. You know, it's really fantastic to see, you know, glorious woman's body looking glorious because it fits her. So yeah, I think it's one of the best feelings actually.

Speaker 2 (11:03.532)

That sounds amazing and so rewarding. I can see why you do that. It's incredible. Do you have a particular process when it comes to fitting? Can you talk us through how maybe you would break down fitting a bodice block?

Yeah, I've got, took a few notes cause I thought, yeah, there's, there's things that I just wish people knew, you know, in a way, like I would love to spend more of my time teaching pattern cutting than fitting, but because fitting is such an obstacle, you know, really that is why I spend a lot of my time doing. So yeah, I mean, I'm really hoping one day nobody ever struggles with fit, but it is. That would be amazing. The first thing is about choosing the correct size.

That would be amazing.

Speaker 1 (11:50.574)

And my advice is to choose it based on your high bust measurement instead of your full bust measurement. I've got a free guide actually for people that walks you through the exact steps of how to do that. But your standard block assumes that you've got a two inch difference between your high and your full bust. And I know that 90 % of my students will have much bigger. If anyone's seen a photo of me or can see me on camera, I mean, I've got like a seven inch difference between my high and full bust.

And I'm not even particularly full chested. And I'll often work with women who have got a 10, 12 inch difference between their high and full bust. Very few people have that two inch difference. And actually you would look quite flat chested with that. So the first thing is to choose your size based off of your high bust measurement and then do a full bust adjustment to go up. And one bit of information that I don't think is very widespread.

is that the full bust adjustment technique that's brought, know, often given out this slash and spread technique that you can generally get for free and follow tutorials only works up to a certain point. So because it's a slash and spread technique is you can add, I think up to about four inches, so two per side, but anything bigger than that, you just true off your added width when you go to true the dark.

So if that's a bit technical, he might just need to trust me. So there comes a certain point where you can't just widen the pattern like that. You have to rework the pattern. So if you are someone that's ever thought like, this robust adjustment technique isn't working for me, or you might find you get to the end of it and the dart is so big, anything that don't know what to do with this dart or, it's just because actually this is a bit limited. So for curvier bodies, you need to be using

a different technique, something that really works with the block in order to get a better fit. Fitting a sewing pattern is really hard and I think what happens is that because it's such a labour of love making clothes we're always sort of looking to ways of making it quicker or easier and sewing patterns do have this like wonderful promise of like just make this tweak or this adjustment and it will be easy.

Speaker 1 (14:08.91)

But I'm sure that for most people who sew just know from their own experience that that's not always the case, you know, especially if you are curvier in your shape. And so my bigger bit of advice is to take the time to fit a set of basic blocks rather than trying to fit the sewing patterns. Just because it's, because they're simpler and they're easier to work with, you learn a lot more and a lot more quickly by doing that than sewing patterns. And everything you learn with a basic block is then

You you transfer those skills, what you've learned onto doing the basic work. One more bit is that you're measuring yourself wrong. You're just not going to get your measurements on the tape. There are certain measurements that are easy to get on the measuring tape, like your high breast measurement, which is quite an un-fleshy part of the body. But the moment we get to our like fleshy mounds, like boobs and bums, it's almost impossible to get that measurement on the tape. So my advice is always...

you know, work your basic block and let the calico teach you about what your measurements are. Let go of the measuring tape basically.

That's really interesting. Do you have three main fit adjustments that you think every home sewist should learn then? Do you think that the bust adjustment is one of the main ones?

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The full bust adjustment is key. I think I've had one or two students that have not needed it out of hundreds. You know, it's really nearly everybody needs that. An interesting telltale sign is feeling tension in the back of the body. So sometimes people will say, I've done a full bust adjustment or I've done this or I've done that. And I think I have a broad back, but in my experience that that's often just, you know, it's just needed in the front. So yeah, that's really important.

Speaker 1 (15:59.958)

I think though, for me, it's less about specific adjustments and it's more about understanding important principles. So I think the first one is definitely that around bus fitting and the high in the full bus. But the other one that's really important, I find myself saying a lot, is an armhole that's too big is going to feel like an armhole that's too small. it's a bit like, know, when your bra straps are falling off your shoulders.

and you feel like strangled by them, it's like they restrict your movement. But the way to correct that is to tighten them. So some things that are too big are going to feel like they're too small. And this is particularly true of armholes and crotch curves. So I see this a lot where people, they might feel something catching or pulling, and so they go to make it bigger. Or it can just be a bit of a thing where like, you think you're fat, so you think, I should make everything

bigger if it doesn't fit. Yeah, that can be the experience that people are having. But actually what we need to do is learn where to make things smaller, where to make them tighter to the body to give you more movement. And if you imagine a gymnast wearing a leotard, you know, the leotards are very tight to the body, you they really sit in the creases. So yeah, so I think those, it's those two things that tend to be, yeah, so the bus thing is about how to create sculpt, how to create space.

And then the armhole one, yeah, it's about where to make things tighter, make them smaller. So it's about learning to work with the curves of the body, I guess.

It sounds like from what you're saying is that we should all slow down a bit because we're just keen to get to the end of the project all the time. And there's a lot of things with that, isn't there? Because obviously it doesn't make you feel good if it doesn't fit properly, but it also, you make a garment that you're potentially not going to wear because again, it doesn't fit properly. So it sounds like we all sort of need to take a step back.

Speaker 2 (18:02.528)

And just like you say, try and incorporate those principles and work from a block that works for us.

I think that's it and it's a sort of hard sell in a way is to encourage people to slow down. But if it helps, you you're only slowing down to learn. And then once you've got those sort of ducks in a row of knowing what your measurements are, know, like knowing what the shape of your body really is. And instead of just thinking of it in these small aspects of being able to see your body much more as a whole and having a handful of successful garments.

By the time you're at that point, actually you start to leave fitting behind as an issue. And you're at this point where you can sort of rinse and repeat the things that you've done before. And you can start to really speed up once you've got that foundation of things fitting. And a bit about like knowing, I think it's important to know what your style is, what you want to wear and what your creative process is like as well. You know, is what part of the process do you enjoy the most? Where do you need a bit of discipline to say, actually I need to.

go over that top stitching again or you know, but once you've got there, it's like, think you can be quite quick and productive from that point.

Do you tend to work fully from blocks that you've created then, or will you use any sort of commercial or indie patterns?

Speaker 1 (19:26.702)

bit of both. So on the whole, think because all my blocks fit me really nicely and I've got a few patterns that I like, it will just be a case of tweaking. You know, I tend to work in like projects. So, you know, I'll do like a number of dresses at once or a number of shirts at once, making little tweaks with each one. But yeah, no, I think there's definitely a place for using indie sewing patterns. One of the ways I think that's really good to use them is thinking of them as basic blocks.

there's a couple of just really great companies out there, but I think you can do that with like Headends Closet, love, By Hand London, and so over it, some of my favorites, because you know that they're really high quality, really well drafted. and they can be such a starting, great starting point for them making other things, especially anything to do with stretch or knit fabrics, where it can be quite hard to calculate all of that and to go through the process of, of matching it up and.

one block is only ever really going to be relevant to one type of stretch fabric. You can't just have one stretch block that's going to do it for everything. So particularly for stretch garments, actually, I'll use commercial sewing patterns.

Do your students sort of come to you with any, you have touched on it a bit already, but any common misconceptions about, like you've mentioned about body shape and again, berating different parts of the body, but do they have any misconceptions about fitting their own garments?

In a way, feel like people often have all the information. You know, that tends to be, we tend to be very information heavy. Like there's a lot of stuff out there. You know, it's quite easy to get hold of all the different adjustments and all the different theory. But yeah, maybe where, where I really come in is about helping to really see people through that process. So what will happen is, is, is people just don't, won't realize how big their full bust is. And you might get caught in this trap of.

Speaker 1 (21:26.518)

but this is what I measured it has. so, you know, people keep going back in and going back to the pattern, but you know, I, but I measured it and, actually you have to then look at the calico. I say, no, no, no, you need another four inches. You know, you need more. you know, and it really, and, it's so, yes, I guess, I guess one of the misconceptions is that we only need to make small tweaks from the basic blocks to get it to fit. And actually what we need to do to get things to fit is really move very, very far away from.

from the standards block. So I think that that's often what I'm doing is giving people the real courage to really keep going with the process. Instead of thinking, oh, I tried this tweak, it didn't work. I'm going to stop there. You know, you need to keep going.

you run like an online festival, don't you? Called the completely custom festival. Talk us through that a little bit.

So yeah, so how did that start? yeah, being an online business is, it's like, if you imagine you have to sort of create your shop every day so that people know that they can come in and say hello. And the Completely Custom Festival was, yeah, it was an opportunity for me to spend time with people, spend time with my audience. And I was thinking, what is it I would really like people to know before they take the course with me? You know, what's that information that I wish was available?

And so I put all of that together when we go through the steps of how to create the perfect silhouette for your body. But I also throw in loads of other information as well, like around fitting, because that's so important to people. And a bit more of the stuff around why our relationship with our body is really important. And I have guests on there as well. So some of the people that I love to work with, I also get on to come and guest, which is very exciting. But yeah, it's just a chance to build a community for a week.

Speaker 1 (23:17.088)

and have everyone come together online.

And you mentioned about sort of being a Buddhist and things which I didn't know, but it makes sense with sort of your mindful sewing sessions now. So what does that mean to you?

So yeah, so I've been a Buddhist for a long time, 12 years or so. Yeah, my early 20s, I came across the London Buddhist Centre and was hooked basically on meditation and particularly the values around creating community. You know, that was always really important to me. And it was during those very dark days during lockdown. And I remember just the world feeling very turbulent and sort of wanting to find a way of bringing people together. yeah, and so I started the Mindful Sewing Club and it just sort of happened.

these things feel perfect for each other is how could I put these things together? And so we meditate together to start with just something very simple. You know, I just guide people through a bit of a relaxation and then we save half an hour, take a break. So it was just, it just really, really worked. You know, it was so lovely to come together in that way. And I noticed that not just me, but other people at the class as well, you know, really having an impact on how you approach your sewing practice.

You know, and actually practicing sewing in that mindful way. And yeah, it's been going a number of years now and it's a lovely, it's a group of people who will meet. I'm having a break at the moment from maternity leave, but we'll get going again soon. And so yeah, it's just the perfect combination actually sewing and mindfulness.

Speaker 2 (24:51.178)

It sounds lovely because I think again, sort going back to like the pressures that we put on ourselves sometimes and the speed of which we're trying to do things, it sounds lovely and that it's, you know, focused, it's mindful and you're just taking your time over something and doing it together.

It's so just like the opposite, I think, of what can happen on Instagram. You know, and I love Instagram and it's been a really, really important part of my journey. And, and, and I loved it. There was a community there online, but I think the shadow side of Instagram is that it's incredibly fast, which doesn't really work with sewing to sewing. It's not, it's not in reality that fast. And then it can just give you this feeling of, I have to be that fast.

And also everything ends up looking perfect because it's been photographed really well or you know, get these like super, super aesthetic things coming up in your feed and then real life just doesn't, doesn't match up to that. So yeah, so to be in a, in a group of people where everybody is sewing in like real time, it helps to just like reset your perspective. Like, okay, this is how, this is how long it takes. This is what's what's a speed tempo. Like humans actually run up.

Yeah, absolutely. mean, I'm sort of far enough, long enough in my own journey now that I don't feel like I need to keep up with anybody anymore, but that's not how I was a few years ago. And I actually slow, so incredibly slowly, it takes me like a number of weeks to make a garment, whereas it might take someone else a day, you know? But I think that

mindset comes with time, but I agree that if you're seeing that all the time, it's like, why aren't I doing that? And you're trying to constantly keep up. So I do love the idea of mindful, mindful sewing and slowing down.

Speaker 1 (26:48.718)

down. know and to sew a garment a month is actually incredibly productive. Now if you think that's 12 pieces a year and if you're sort of sewing at that pace over a number of years you're going to have to start clearing out your wardrobe because you'll have so much.

Can you tell us a little bit about the online courses that you offer?

Yeah, so, yeah, my offerings have just really evolved, I guess, over the last few years. You know, when I first started teaching, just felt, it felt really important to me that fitting was just always woven into what I was doing. I know that my own experience of taking sewing classes is that fitting felt like a bit of an elephant in the room. You know, it would be taken through the project and I'd end up with something at the end, but there'd be part of me that would be a bit shy to say, it doesn't fit, you know, I'm not going to wear this. And...

Yeah, so I guess all my courses have always started from that foundation of how can I get things to fit. And I used to get people to fit my sewing patterns that I've produced, but I always felt like there was this missing bit. Like I always wanted to talk to people about basic blocks and what was underneath the sewing patterns. So now that's what I do. So I take people through the fitting process with a set of basic blocks.

And then I also teach pattern cutting and all the other things you need to finish. So it's like the whole garment making process. And I keep all my teaching now under one course, the Completely Custom Academy. And so, I've been working hard over the last couple of months to make it available all the time. It used to be I would only teach a handful of times a year with live sessions. Whereas now you can drop in and get access to the course straight away.

Speaker 1 (28:34.446)

and I've got a private membership that I support people in. And there's the whole course, the big course, which comes under the umbrella of the Academy, the Completely Custom Academy. But just so I know that people are just very focused on fitting and that can really feel like the thing that's bugging you right now. You can get access to just the fitting aspects of the bigger course, which is called the Completely Custom Fitting School. So if you just want to nail fitting, you can get that course as well. And then...

have support from me in my private membership, which actually it's just really, it's a lovely way of doing it because you get to see everybody else as they go through their journey. Everyone is calico clouds and posting pictures. And I always joke that know that business is going well when I'm, I'm, uh, yeah, it's sort of flooded with pictures of people's boobs and and crutches and, asking for advice. And I think, yes, fantastic. And, uh, yeah, it's always a bit embarrassing.

wearing your palico toiles but honestly it's also very thrilling you know it's really a place of learning. So yes I've got my online courses at the moment and now's a really great time actually to get to do some fitting to get fitting because in September I'll be back teaching live focusing on pattern cutting so if you're thinking I'd really really like to take on making just completely custom garments whether it's from blocks or altering sewing patterns.

Yes, spend the summer learning fitting and get ready for September when we'll do some pattern cutting.

I I started following you Lottie when you used to sell fabric as well. your business has had quite a pivot, hasn't it? Can you tell us what made you do that and have there been any sort of bumps in the road or anything like that that you can talk us through?

Speaker 1 (30:18.734)

Yeah, I mean, guess that was probably the biggest bump in the road. you know, I started, I started August, 2019. I, you know, I'd been working in charities mostly up until that point, including in a British center for a number of years. And, you know, I decided, right. I want to start a business and naively writing my business plan and I got a fabric shop and, know, so I was really getting into sewing at that point and I just loved fabric.

And it seemed like a good avenue, I guess, that trying to create an ethical business as well was selling ethical fabric. That's what I did. But of course then we went into lockdown, we had the pandemic and in some ways it was really good for business and I had this huge high of everyone suddenly being at home and the shop did really well. But then actually when everybody went back to work, know, like everything plummeted and there was Brexit, or like the repercussions from Brexit as well.

And something like a fabric shop, it's a very tricky business in terms of cashflow because you've got so much stock and the stock's very expensive to buy. So unless you're keeping everything moving, you can get into trouble really quickly. You know, you have to have a big space. There's a lot of like hoofing around these giant rolls of fabric. So yes, it was a tricky business basically to try and keep running through that difficult time. So that's when I decided to make the switch and I was really lucky actually a friend of mine who

Um, one's a completely different type of business. said to me, Oh, have you heard about this business coach, Lisa Johnson and recommended she does this like free challenge that's around creating passive income. And she said, Oh, why don't you try this? And, and it was doing that actually that made me realize, Oh, okay. Why didn't I try giving teaching, selling a go? Um, even though at the time I had massive wild imposter syndrome syndrome. I thought, Oh, I can't do this and it's not going to work.

Anyway, I just sort of jumped in and went for it and launched my first course in 2021. you know, it's just been a much easier, better, more satisfying business to run since I made that switch. You know, the world has continued to be very turbulent. So, you know, to be able to have made that change. And plus I've had lots of babies, not lots of babies, but two babies in that time as well. So I've been like.

Speaker 1 (32:35.81)

pregnant and on maternity leave and, you know, birthing small babies. so, yeah, so to not like, I just could not have done that if I was still running the fabric shop, which demanded so much time and energy. So, yeah, so to be able to have made the switch and do what I do now is I feel really lucky that that friend's made that recommendation at that time. And I decided to be brave enough to say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this.

Absolutely. It takes a lot of courage to pivot your business and your life and sounds like it's really worked for you.

Speaker 2 (33:15.502)

What do you think that you got over that imposter syndrome?

Speaker 2 (34:01.166)

I think it's completely natural to have imposter syndrome, isn't it? And like you say, it never completely goes. It might come back a little bit, but you've just got to go for it.

Speaker 2 (34:29.742)

You spoke a little bit about, later in the year, you're starting your live classes again. Have you got any other exciting plans coming up this year apart from raising another tiny human?

Speaker 2 (35:04.878)

So to finish off today Lottie, I thought we'd have a quick little quick fire round of this or that. yeah. that's okay with you. So to twirl or not to twirl?

Speaker 2 (35:22.488)

Do you prefer woven or knits?

Speaker 2 (35:30.702)

prints or solids. Going out or staying in.

your coffee.

scissors or rotary cutter.

YouTube or podcast.

Speaker 2 (35:49.494)

sketchy setup.

Speaker 2 (35:53.422)

Organized stash or creative chaos.

Interesting. Only one project on the go on more.

Speaker 2 (36:21.144)

and making for yourself or others.

I don't blame you.

Speaker 2 (36:34.008)

Tell me about it. So where can people find you Lottie?

Speaker 2 (37:01.646)

Fantastic and thank you so much for joining us on the Sewing Social podcast today and lovely to see Baby Luna as well.

Speaker 2 (37:18.19)

I don't think anybody will mind baby noises. Thank you Lottie.