Behind the Scenes of Guthrie and Ghani: Growth, Community and the Power of Sewing

In this episode, Lauren Guthrie shares the story behind her journey from working as a physiotherapist to founding Guthrie & Ghani, and how a love of sewing slowly grew into something much bigger than she ever expected.

We talk about her experience on The Great British Sewing Bee and how that moment shaped the direction of her career, as well as the realities of building and evolving a fabric shop in an ever-changing industry.

Lauren reflects on the growth of the sewing community over the years, what it really takes to source beautiful, high-quality fabrics, and how she’s navigated the challenges of scaling a creative business while staying connected to the joy of making.

It’s an honest conversation about growth, not just in business, but personally and creatively, and about building something that’s rooted in community as much as it is in sewing.

Key takeaways:

• Lauren used to be a Physiotherapist but became burnt out and decided to change career.
• Lauren was on the first season of The Great British Sewing Bee - she feels this has shaped her career so far.
• Guthrie and Ghani has been going 13 years so far and continues to evolve.
• Lauren acquired G&G's sister company Pattern Trace in the last couple of years.
• The Sewing Society kits that G&G are well known for have changed recently from monthly releases to a quarterly box.

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Guest Details:

Website: www.guthrie-ghani.co.uk

Instagram: @guthrieghani

                  : @guthrieghani_studio

                  : @patterntraceuk

Youtube: @laurenguthrieghani

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Chapters

00:00 Introductions
00:10 Lauren's Journey into Sewing and Business
05:00 The Experience of Being on The Sewing Bee
05:54 Taking the Leap into Entrepreneurship
08:04 From Healthcare to Creativity: A Personal Journey
10:28 The Evolution of the Sewing Community
14:14 Building a Supportive Sewing Community
15:25 Evolving Business: From In-Store to Online
16:58 Sourcing Fabrics: Balancing Trends and Personal Taste
18:44 The Transformation of Sewing Kits
22:48 Designing Fabrics: A Personal Touch
29:19 Acquiring Pattern Trace: Expanding Horizons
31:28 Exciting Future Plans for Guthrie and Ghani
36:28 Substack end of the show 

Transcript

Gemma Daly (00:10)
Lauren, welcome to the Sewing Social podcast. I'm so excited to have you on today.

Lauren (00:15)
Hi Gemma, thank you for having me.

Gemma Daly (00:17)
You're welcome. I was wondering if you could introduce yourself to the listeners.

Lauren (00:22)
Sure, my name's Lauren and I founded my business Guthrie and Ghani back in 2013. So we have a shop here in Birmingham and then we also sell online as well. Lots of dressmaking fabrics and patterns, basically anything that you would need to create an amazing handmade wardrobe. And we also have a sewing studio above the shop as well where we teach lots of classes in person.

And I think that's like the briefest overview I can kind of guess. Also, there's layers to that.

Gemma Daly (01:00)
Perfect. Well, we're going to go into all of that anyway, Lauren, but I'd love to know where your relationship with sewing first started.

Lauren (01:09)
So I came from a family that just did quite a lot of sewing. my mum was a dressmaker and well, I guess she still is, but that was that was like her job when I was growing up. And I can remember my grandma sewing as well and had aunts that knew how to sew. So it's always just been something that I've been around, I guess. And there's always just been like sewing things in the house, like sewing machine,

pins on the floor, fabric everywhere, that kind of stuff. And so it just seemed like really normal part of life, because just, you know, when you don't know any different, like it's just always around. so I've always just been interested in it from a young age. And I don't really remember a time when I didn't really know how to sew, because I've just always sort of been into stuff like that. But specifically making clothes was probably when I

Gemma Daly (01:39)
you

Lauren (02:04)
was more like a late teenager and then really in my mid to late 20s, really got into it and started making lots of clothes. So yeah, it's always been there in some form, really.

Gemma Daly (02:17)
Yeah, that's really lovely. You were on the very first season of The Sewing Bee, weren't you, back in 2013? How long had you been dressmaking then by that point, and how did you hear about the show to apply for it?

Lauren (02:25)
Yeah.

So I was, I think I was 27 when I was on the Sewing Bee and by that point I'd been, I'd probably been like making clothes bit more regularly for say like a couple of years but to that I had, you know, I had been making clothes as I said before when I was in my late teens but then

So I used to be a physiotherapist and I went to uni and did that and then I worked as a physiotherapist. So, you know, that was my life for like a period of time. And when I decided I wanted to move on from that, that's when I really picked up sewing again. And I was trying to decide what I wanted to do in life and my career, whatever, ⁓ as work. And I was exploring different ways that I could do that and something that I was really passionate about that was my hobby and

one of those aspects was sewing. So I was in the process of setting up the shop really like trying to work out how do you set up a business, what's involved, like what's it going to be like and everything. And during that time, I saw just on a Facebook group, I joined because I didn't have any friends that sewed really or were that into it. I joined loads of different sewing Facebook groups. ⁓

and just to try and like find out more about what was out there and then it was on one of them that I saw an advert for the sewing bee but obviously it was the first season like we didn't really know what it was about or what it was like or anything just had the bake off really as a sort of reference so I didn't really know what I was getting into I guess ⁓ no

Gemma Daly (04:20)
So yeah, you said you didn't really know what to expect with the bee because you had nothing to base it on, unlike the contestants that go on the show today. So I can imagine that was quite daunting.

Lauren (04:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, it was really daunting because we didn't, you we had no idea what the challenges would be like, because two of them are a surprise, right? So you know, we knew what the main one was, like the last challenge, and we were allowed to sort of prepare for that. And you could feel like you could practice for it in a way because you knew what the project was going to be. And I, you know, most definitely did practice for that. But

Gemma Daly (04:44)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren (05:00)
For the other two, yeah, we had absolutely no idea what it was going to be at all. Whereas I guess now it's like, OK, well, you know, it's going to be some sort of alteration. You've got to kind of think on your feet quickly. But we didn't even know that. ⁓

Gemma Daly (05:18)
What do you think you enjoyed most about that experience?

Lauren (05:22)
I think it was meeting other people who really liked sewing as well because I just didn't know anybody else who was that into it. So it was really nice to just meet other people know instantly that you just had that thing in common with them. So that was really nice. And then also, I think just the challenge of it, I did really enjoy the challenge of it because when you sort of sew mostly on your own,

it's hard for you to gauge like, am I actually any good at sewing or like is this, you you don't, it's hard to know where to kind of pitch yourself. And social media was like very much in the early days back then, you know, it wasn't what it was like now with how much people share about their sewing journeys and everything. Like it wasn't really like that back then. So yeah, I guess it was just good to try it, to be tested, like try out.

Gemma Daly (05:54)
Mm-hmm.

Lauren (06:14)
try out different things that I hadn't done before and be like, ⁓ actually, I can do this. That's good.

Gemma Daly (06:22)
Absolutely. So at the same time as being on the show, you were also completely renovating the building that is still Guthrie and Ghani and you'd left your job as a physio, like you said, to go all in on your fabric and haberdashery business. Was it quite a scary leap to take?

Lauren (06:35)
Yeah.

I think when I look back on it now, I'm surprised that I wasn't more scared. I think I was just probably young and naive, to be honest. And I don't know, maybe there was an element of thinking like I didn't really have much to lose because I knew I couldn't continue doing what I was doing and that I had to do something different. And this sort of circumstance that I had was that

Gemma Daly (06:52)
you

Lauren (07:10)
Yeah, well, my husband did bought this, the building that the shop did. He'd had that building from before we were even we'd even met. And it was it was decaying. was falling apart and we had to do something with it. And it was like, well, you know, we can renovate it and I'll try out this business idea and see if it works. But, you know, if it doesn't, then at least the building won't.

be on the verge of like just completely falling down, you know, will have actually made the building a bit more useful again. So I kind of went into it with that attitude, like, you know, just see what happens. And yeah, think if I know then what I know now about the challenges I've had to overcome over the years then I

I would have probably been more scared about taking that leap, but yeah.

Gemma Daly (08:00)
Yep.

That's good though, that's really good, because look what you've built from then till now. But I find it quite interesting because you were a physio and I'm also an occupational therapist. So it's interesting that we've both got that sort of healthcare background. But you think it is that sort of led you to feel that you didn't really want to do that anymore?

Lauren (08:16)
Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I think the aspect of the job that I liked before was that I got to feel like I was making a difference to people. And a lot of physio, as you will know, is education and helping people to understand things. And I guess I felt like I liked that and I felt like I was good at it.

And I carried that forward my business because was feeling like really burnt out with my previous career choice and knew that I couldn't keep doing it. And sewing really helped me at that point personally, like the feeling of...

working on something and being productive and it giving me that sort of self-esteem or like a sense of identity of like yeah I can actually do something that feels really good and I guess I wanted other people to have that feeling as well because I can confirm that like well over a decade later like that feeling just doesn't get old like I still you know I love sewing and I love making my own clothes and wearing them and

you there's not a day that I wear something I've made myself and, you know, I always think, I always feel good about it. And I think that other people should feel that as well, because, you know, life can have its challenges, but when you can do something that's within your own control, that makes you feel good, then, you know, I would want that for other people too.

Gemma Daly (10:07)
I love how, you know, through a lot of my chats with people on the show, we go into a little bit more than just following the instructions or buying a piece of fabric. It's like what this hobby actually means to people and what it can make you feel. So I love that you've mentioned that kind of thing, Lauren.

Lauren (10:28)
Yeah.

Gemma Daly (10:29)
So, as we mentioned before, talked about how different the sewing community was back in 2013. How would you say it's changed since then?

Lauren (10:39)
So back in 2013 and sort of the few years prior to that, a lot of it was long form blog content and you know

blogs were really popular and that was how I guess people connected and shared and I can remember the different different blog reader platforms that I had. was a ⁓ Google reader I think it was called and then there was blog loving maybe and you know you could subscribe to people's blogs and get updates and everything and

Gemma Daly (11:06)
Yeah.

Lauren (11:10)
you know, I loved that and it was, you know, it was like such a nice way to be like, actually there are lots of other people out there who are, who are sewing as well. And then, then Instagram kind of came in and I guess

that sort of shorter form content has just, you know, propelled and exploded over the last decade and probably makes it a bit faster paced in a way, because when you had to write a blog, like it took a long time and you can, it's not like you could write a blog every day. know, maybe do like at the most you would maybe be like one a week or something, but you know, maybe it was even only one a month. So I guess in that sense, there was like less to consume because

people couldn't really produce it as quickly. now the way that social media is like, just there's so much and it's so fast and it's so instant. And I guess that was like quite exciting as that evolved, but I don't know what's.

Gemma Daly (11:58)
you

Lauren (12:10)
Maybe it's kind of got to the stage where it's almost like there's just a lot and it's a lot for minds to filter and process. And now you've got like the AI side coming in as well. And people are like, is this real or is it not? You know, that's kind of the next challenge we've got to overcome as well. So yeah, I think in terms of how it's changed, it's like the pace or the speed of it all is just like skyrocketed.

Whereas before, yeah, it probably was like a bit slower or more, it was in a way maybe like a bit more authentic or human or natural because, you know, people had to put time and a lot of thought and effort into these longer format ways of communicating. Whereas now it's like picture or, yeah, fast, quick, get the hook, get the, you know, do this.

Gemma Daly (12:36)
Mm.

Yeah.

Lauren (13:03)
grab someone's attention, make them stop.

Gemma Daly (13:06)
This is it. I think there's probably, and I don't know if you feel the same way, but maybe there's a ceiling to this and maybe we are slightly going down the other side again, because I know myself and I've started like a sub stacks, which is like a blog form of content. But for me, I feel like sewing goes hand in hand with slower pace and longer form.

content because it's just you can't produce garments at that rapid speed or I certainly can't anyway.

Lauren (13:38)
Yeah.

Yeah, and you know, nobody should feel the pressure to do that because that takes the fun away, right? It's like not, it's supposed to be fun. It's not supposed to feel pressure.

Gemma Daly (13:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. But I think

social media does give you that pressure sometimes, doesn't it? And it's sort of, I've spoken about this before, but for me, it came with experience to like learn that I didn't need to keep up with everybody else. I just had to do my own thing.

Lauren (13:59)
That's good.

Yeah, it's really easy to get caught up in it, for sure.

Gemma Daly (14:15)
Yeah, so how would you describe the community that you've built around Guthrie and Ghani

Lauren (14:20)
I would say our community is just so, so lovely and so nice and

Nowadays, I don't, I'm not able to spend as much time on the shop floor as I used to, you know, I used to be there every day. And now as this as my sort of life has moved on, and I've got other commitments that I have to think about, like family and other stuff, you know, I don't I don't get to spend as much time in the shop floor anymore. But when we go to the shows, we do the Stitch Festival in London. And it's so lovely to meet people in real

life and hear how much that sewing has impacted them and how inspired they are by our fabrics and the videos that I make and everything. It's just a really happy, welcoming, nurturing place.

Gemma Daly (15:13)
That's really lovely. So talk to us about running Guthrie and Garnie then. How do you think the shop and yourself has evolved since you started the business?

Lauren (15:25)
I think it's evolved a lot as it should do. know, businesses should always be looking to evolve and change. You can't continue to do the same thing forever. I would say like the one of the key things that's changed is that when I first opened the shop, the majority of the business was from in-store sales and people coming into the shop. But now it's very much the other way around and it is predominantly an online business.

which is great because then I can reach more people then and even people who are not able to travel to the shop can still enjoy the things that we have on offer. yeah, that has been one of the key things that's changed. And also when I first started the shop, I guess I was trying to do a bit of everything. We used to sell yarn and knitting and crochet stuff.

We even had a little coffee shop in the shop when I first opened as well. And that is has evolved now that we we predominantly focus on dressmaking fabric and specifically dressmaking fabric for clothes that you would just want to wear all the time. So we don't we don't really focus on like bridal stuff or occasion wear or anything. We we've we've kind of fallen into that niche of

Gemma Daly (16:41)
you

Lauren (16:48)
making clothes for everyday life and inaccessible way as possible because I think if you spend time making something and sewing something then you should feel the joy of being able to wear it all the time.

Gemma Daly (16:52)
Yeah.

Absolutely. So let's talk about those fabrics then. How do you go about sourcing your fabrics for the shop? Do you follow trends or do you pick things that you like and that you think the customers will like also?

Lauren (17:12)
It's a bit of a mixture of a few things and also having the shop for 13 years now, just, you know, I've got a lot of experience of just knowing, knowing what's going to be popular too, because, you know, ultimately I do have to make sure that I'm picking things that I know are going to sell because that's what makes a viable business. You know, I'm really lucky to have, to have a team.

of people who work in the shop. And there's over 10 of us. so yeah, it's about looking at looking at what has been popular in the past, what the current trends are, and what I naturally feel drawn to as well. And obviously, I like all of the fabrics that that I stock in the shop, but I'm aware that my particular taste probably isn't for everyone. So I do have to

try and consider, okay, how can I make sure that I'm covering other stuff? If it was purely just what I liked, I think everything in the shop would be pink, but you know, not everybody likes pink stuff. So we do have other colors as well. Let me make that clear. So yeah, a lot of it's based on past experience, trends, what's popular and why, like a of a mix of everything.

Gemma Daly (18:09)
you

Yeah, fantastic. So let's talk about the Sewing Society kits, which you're very well known for. There's been a big change recently on the way that you release those kits, hasn't there? Can you tell us about it?

Lauren (18:44)
So I first started the kits back in 2019 and my main motivation for starting it was that I was making a lot of clothes for myself because that's what I like to do and then I would share it on social media as one does and then

Gemma Daly (18:45)
Okay.

Lauren (19:04)
Everybody would be like, I want to make that as well. Have you got that fabric? What pattern was that? How did you do that hack? How have you made it like this? And so I felt like I was repeating the same, you know, the same thing a lot of times, a lot of, you know, same questions a lot of times. And also it became quite hard to sort of manage stock. And I felt, I felt bad saying, sorry, I've not got any of that left fabric left anymore. Cause people wanted to make.

exactly what I had made because I think it's just easier to sort of picture something if you can see what someone else has made. You know, it can be quite hard to think, OK, I've got this fabric, I've got this pattern, but what's actually going to look like when it's together? And that's why I started the kits because I thought, well, if I can show people what the final outcome is going to be and then I can make it really easy for them to buy that, all we need to do is just get this one bundle of stuff and I'll make a video.

that goes along with it. And then you will know exactly how I have made the thing I'm going to make. so I did that. And it was just so popular. I don't think really many other people, if any, were doing kits back then. And it just kind of snowballed because the demand was so high, we would we would sell out of kits really quickly and then I'd be trying to make more and then

because it sort of coincided with COVID, COVID happened not longer after that. And that was, you know, COVID really did help the sewing industry because everybody was stuck at home and they got their sewing machines out and started sewing again. So it just it just became so so popular and it was you know, it was a great way that I could share projects with people think over time, as more

kits have become more readily available generally in the market and you you can get kits for all sorts all over the place now. And so it's not really like the shiny new format of making a project or planning a project that it once was. And also talking about what we were saying earlier about the pace of things too and just, you know, how carried up we can get and the sort of fast pacedness of all.

releasing two brand new kits, 10 months of the year. And that is a lot. know, people can't really sew that, or not many people can sew that quickly. ⁓ You know, I was sewing that quickly, but it was a lot. was a lot to manage and I do have people in the team that specifically help me with that. But it's still a lot and...

Gemma Daly (21:36)
Yeah.

Lauren (21:45)
I think it just felt like it had kind of run its course in that format and that kind of fast pacedness of it all. during that time, because I'd started to work on my own fabric designs more and bringing out more of my own fabrics, it's almost like there wasn't as much time to sort of let them be in the world. It was just like, on to the next thing, on to the next

Gemma Daly (22:08)
Yeah.

Lauren (22:10)
So I guess this sort of new format of just spreading things out a little bit does just help to slow things down a little bit more, you know, as it should be when you sew you shouldn't feel pressured into like, I've got to make the next thing, I've got to make the next thing, I've got to make the next thing. It's like, okay, got time to take it in and decide what I want to make and digest it all and maybe make the same thing a couple of times because, you know, that's fun as well.

So it just felt like one of those evolutions that needed to happen because yeah, it had been seven years of making a lot of kits and I think it is good to change things over time.

Gemma Daly (22:47)
So how often are they released now? Because it was once a month wasn't it?

Lauren (22:52)
Yeah, so we've sort of loosely looked at more like a seasonal project release. So, you know, probably like four times a year. Three to four times a year. But it gives us a lot, a lot leeway and scope internally to work on things and make sure that each one's really good if we sort of have

loosely defined periods of time rather than like it's gotta be the first Wednesday of every month.

Gemma Daly (23:24)
Yeah, it

sounds like an awful lot of work.

Lauren (23:30)
It is a lot of work and you know it's work that I enjoy because ultimately I know that I'm helping people to be able to make really amazing clothes and give them that confidence and support but yeah it's just slowing the pace of that down a bit.

Gemma Daly (23:44)
Yeah, yeah. You mentioned, you've been designing your own fabrics over the last few years. Was this something that you always wanted to do?

Lauren (23:54)
It was something that I often thought about, but it was one of those things that just felt too hard to do. It felt like it was too much of a risk or maybe it would like take too much investment or it just. Yeah, you like you sort of think things sometimes and then you're like, that is just like a mountain that I don't know if I can climb. But then. sort of ended up.

falling into it slightly unintentionally. I mean, I guess I'd thought about it, but I wasn't actively pursuing it. And it all started really when I was just scrolling on Instagram as you do. And I saw a beautiful design that Rachel Parker had done. she she's a surface pattern designer, fabric designer, you know, she she designs amazing stuff all the time.

and then licenses these designs or you can sort of buy the rights to them. And I just, as soon as I saw it, I was like, that is amazing. That would look so good on a fabric. So I contacted once I actually had a design that I could work with, that I then sort of took on as my own.

I worked with her to then recolour it and look to get it printed. And then that and it was really popular. The first batch of that that we got sold our Chica Cheetah print, which is now just the G &G staple. It just ever seems popular. so then once I'd done that, was like, OK, actually, this is OK now. And I've got, you know, I know a little bit more about the process of actually how can I get something to become a fabric?

And then when it got to the 10 year anniversary of the business, I thought, I to do something really special to mark this landmark. I want to have my own fabric that I've sort of come up with the idea of. So then I worked with Rachel on that brief of coming up with what the fabric would be like and the scale and the, you know, colours and what would be in it. And that is when

Gemma Daly (25:44)
you

Lauren (25:54)
that the design Be Happy Blooms came to be, which is actually the wallpaper that is behind me here. And one thing that I really wanted to do in that design was make it have some sort of deeper meaning. So all of the flowers and the foliage and everything that is in that print is connected to me or my family in some way by our names. ⁓ So at the time I just had Sophia and Solomon.

Gemma Daly (25:59)
you

Lauren (26:22)
and I've got Sammy as well. He didn't make it into this one. He wasn't born yet. ⁓ But there's there's quite a lot of flowers that have got Sophia in the name. And then there's Solomon's Seal as well, which is the one with the little white drops there. And there is also quite a lot of flowers that have Lauren in the name as well. So I was able to sort of pull inspiration from all of that and also to mark the month.

Gemma Daly (26:26)
Thanks

you

Lauren (26:48)
of the anniversary, which was April. So there's there's flowers that are associated with that month. And then they sort of made their way in there as well. So there is a bee as in Bee Happy Blooms, which is to represent my my journey on the sewing bee. ⁓ So so so yeah, I wanted to create this design that just felt like it had the it was more than just like picking random flowers and sort of putting on a print. And when I've thought about it, that's really come from

the nostalgia of me as a child going to the fabric department in Liberty and like seeing all of these amazing fabrics and that is one thing that Liberty still do in their designs. You know, they'll have a theme for their collection and there's so many different layers and their designs. It's almost like every time you look, you sort of spot something else or everything else has got a sort of deeper meaning.

And because sewing and fabric means so much to me, I think it's just really nice to be able to create something that's got ⁓ more of a story to it. And that's what I've tried to sort of bring into all of my designs that I've then created and worked with designers to make over the years since then, is that, yeah, ultimately it's got to be a really lovely fabric that you want to wear. But, you if you're interested, it can feel even

more meaningful because it's got this story behind it too.

Gemma Daly (28:13)
I really love that personal aspect and you've done it as well with ⁓ like your Luskin tyre bag pattern, haven't you? Bringing in your Scottish heritage there as well.

Lauren (28:23)
Yeah,

Yeah, I actually met my husband up in the Outer Hebrides and we used to go to Luskintyre Beach, ⁓ which is just the most beautiful place. And I thought that it was really fitting to call the bag that because, a great bag to take to the beach because you can fit lots of things in it.

Gemma Daly (28:47)
I did actually buy that kit when it came out because I loved the fabric and the pattern that you put together and I did google that beach and it is stunning.

Lauren (28:57)
Yeah, it's worth it.

It's a long way away, but it's worth a visit. You can never make up

Gemma Daly (29:05)
it. So you also ⁓ recently acquired a sister company, didn't you? Pattern Trace, which is well known for its Swedish tracing paper and bobbin storage. Can you tell us how that sort of came about?

Lauren (29:19)
So we had been stocking the pattern trace products for a while. So was on the stockist list, I guess, of that company. And then Claire, who had set it up, she wanted to move on in her life and didn't want to run the company anymore. So then she just asked her, her stockists and sort of let them know, you know,

I'm going to be selling the business if anybody's interested, get in touch. And I don't really know what I was thinking about at the time, but I thought, that actually sounds like a really good opportunity. I was actually pregnant at the time.

Gemma Daly (30:05)
That might have had something to do with it.

Lauren (30:07)
So in

hindsight, I don't know, actually, I it was the best time to take on another business, but there you go. So yeah, got in touch with Claire and sort of, we worked out the details and everything, worked out what would be involved. then we just took.

took ownership of the assets of that business and the stock that it had and the products that Clare had kind of developed as part of the range. But it had its own website, it its own newsletter list, it was a separate company. And so although I felt like it complemented what we did at G &G, I didn't really want it to get lost in G &G and everything that G &G does.

which is why we've kept it as a sister brand, a sister website that sort of, yeah, we kind of link with each other sometimes, but we do essentially run it as two sort of separate entities so that those amazing products that are on the Pattern Trace website really have the right sort of platform and light and space to shine. so that's sort of how it all came about.

Gemma Daly (31:21)
Do you have any exciting plans coming up, Lauren, for the business anytime soon?

Lauren (31:28)
So we are on the pattern trace side of things. We are going to be bringing back the foundation paper, which ⁓ was ⁓ a product that was there in the beginning. And then because we were just focusing more on the dressmaking side of pattern trace, the pattern trace range and ⁓ evolving and developing all of the products that sort of fit into that.

we weren't really focusing as much on the quilting side of the foundation paper. So yeah, that kind of phased out a little bit, but that is coming back by popular demand. So that will be later in the year that will be back again. So that's really exciting there. And then we are gearing up for our next...

⁓ release of G &G fabrics and G &G sewing pattern as well that is in June. And then we will have another one in the autumn. So I'm just in the process of getting strike offs and tests for some new fabric designs, which is really exciting and starting to plan out our next pattern too. there's lots of lots of busy, exciting things happening there as well.

Gemma Daly (32:45)
Absolutely, everybody stay tuned for all of those exciting releases.

Lauren (32:48)
Yeah, yeah.

So in April, that was our first G &G pattern that came out. It's the Lena blouse. That's the one I'm wearing just now. And, and yet that was that was something that we worked on a lot. And when it's the first time you're sort of doing something, it's always nerve wracking and exciting at the same time. But it's been lovely to see that, share that with sewing community and start to see everybody's versions of it pop up. And so yeah.

I'm looking forward to the next one. ⁓

Gemma Daly (33:17)
That's brilliant.

Fantastic. So just to tie up the interview, Lauren, I like to do a little game of this or that. Is that okay with you? Okay. So knits or woven?

Lauren (33:26)
Yeah.

Wovens

Gemma Daly (33:31)
Bold prints or classic plains

Lauren (33:34)
prints I don't think I can sit here in a table. But it is true, I do like prints.

Gemma Daly (33:35)
I thought you might say that. No!

⁓ Tea or coffee?

Lauren (33:49)
Tea.

Gemma Daly (33:50)
scissors or a rotary cutter.

Lauren (33:52)
Cezars.

Gemma Daly (33:53)
an organized stash or creative chaos.

Lauren (33:56)
Organized stash.

Gemma Daly (33:58)
A new make or a tried and tested?

Lauren (34:00)
That is a hard one. I don't know if I could choose, depends on the context.

Gemma Daly (34:02)
A bit of both.

Okay, we'll say both. Sweet or savory?

Lauren (34:14)
See you today.

Gemma Daly (34:15)
Do you follow instructions to the letter or do your own thing?

Lauren (34:19)
⁓ to my own thing! I'm really guilty of that. Sometimes to my detriment, but yeah.

Gemma Daly (34:27)
spring, summer or autumn, winter. And one project on the go on multiple.

Lauren (34:29)
Thanks, summer.

I tried to just have one.

Gemma Daly (34:36)
Is that the reality?

Lauren (34:38)
Sometimes there's a bit of overlap. It depends if I've got a deadline of another sample that needs to be sewn, but on the whole, on the whole is one.

Gemma Daly (34:46)
Fantastic. So where can people find you, Lauren?

Lauren (34:50)
So you can find me on my website at guthrie-ghani.co.uk or if you want to check out the pattern trace stuff then it's patterntrace.com (all one word) I'm also on Instagram a lot. We actually have three Instagram accounts. So we've got @guthrieghani which is our main G&G account. We've also got guthrieghanistudio account which is where all of our workshops and retreats.

stuff is shared on there and then we do also have a pattern trace account on instagram as well so there's lots of places you can find us on instagram and then you can also find my youtube channel as well which is just my own name Lauren Guthrie on youtube and please subscribe to my channel there i share lots of stuff on there that doesn't always get as much attention on other platforms so it is worthwhile checking that out too

And I do have a blog that is on the website, on the G &G website. There's lots of really nice, inspiring stories and tutorials and projects and hints and tips and everything on there as well. If you wanna be nostalgic back to the old days of reading blogs. I can't let go of it. I still do them.

Gemma Daly (36:05)
Fantastic, and I will link all of that in the show notes and definitely go and check out Lauren's YouTube. You get to see all the new fabrics and various tutorials and things. But I just want to thank you, Lauren, for being a fantastic guest on the Sewing Social podcast today.

Lauren (36:21)
Lovely, thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Gemma Daly (36:23)
You're welcome. You take care. Bye.

Lauren (36:25)
All right, thank you. Bye,