Jennifer’s love of sewing began at an early age. Learning from her mum, from around the age of 8, to sew by hand and then by machine.

As a teenager, watching a man making dresses in Affleck’s Palace, Manchester, made her realise that sewing could be much more than a hobby. Jennifer bought one of the dresses, fresh off the sewing machine that day and continued to learn about garment construction both at home and at school.

If you’d like to watch Jennifer demonstrating sewing techniques on live television you’ll find links in this blog post. You’ll see French seams, easing in sleeves to armholes and much, much more!

At 17 Jennifer was offered a dressmaking apprenticeship. Learning at work each day and in her spare time designing and making her own clothes, often staying up late to perfect a new technique.

Attending private pattern cutting lessons opened up even more exciting possibilities of drafting made to measure patterns rather than buying commercial paper patterns.

At 20 Jennifer was offered a job with Betty Foster at her studio. It was an amazing opportunity to learn even more about pattern cutting and to work for a woman she’d watched on television. Making bespoke pattern blocks at the HQ in Crewe, Cheshire and travelling to sewing shows at the NEC, among other destinations was another opportunity to learn more skills. Observing Betty Foster talking to audiences about adapting patterns to fit their own body measurements and then working on the stand where bundles of fabric, patterns and haberdashery were sold to enthusiastic customers was a insight into sewing shows and the art of public speaking.

After working full time for eight years, Jennifer studied full time for a qualification in Fashion and Textiles.

Jennifer’s creative and technical skills have taken her to India, Italy and the US, working in small scale clothing production, teaching one-to-one sewing lessons and the City & Guilds Fashion syllabus.

With a love of the outdoors and as someone who finds a tremendous amount of inspiration in nature, Jennifer studied Practical Horticulture at City of Bristol College in 2013/2014, discovering there are many more connections between fashion/textiles and horticulture than she first thought. Inspired by colour, texture and shape whether designing, sewing or gardening, Jennifer enjoys combining nature and textiles as themes for the creativity for wellbeing sessions which she facilitates.