Last week, I was standing on the platform of Durham train station, having sadly waved goodbye to a very dear visitor, when my attention was caught by an advertisement like this one, referring to a search for unicorns.
It was a rotating advert and I as the rail passengers passed by me, I stood watching for quite a few minutes until the one I wanted came round again! Virgin (who manage the North-East line, which runs through Durham) are holding a competition for small businesses called VOOM. Even though I run a small business (a micro-business), this was the first I had heard of it.
I drove home, looked up VOOM and dived in.
I have to tell you that I got quite excited about all this and wrote my entry. Here’s the pitch photo (you may remember this image from last week!):
This is the pitch:
To give people joy – and the confidence to make beautiful textile items, I create unique fabric designs and write easy-to-follow patterns.
Amanda Jane Ogden
I’ve included a 30-second film about what I do:
My small business Amanda Jane Textiles, began on September 1st 2014 after a giant leap of faith! Leaving behind my full-time job as a teacher, I turned my whole attention to fabric design. There are now over a hundred designs in the online studio, more than twenty ‘how to’ patterns in the online shop, a hundred and sixty blog-posts on the website, seven published magazine articles, two monthly newsletters (so far) and one online class. I work in a home studio, making good use of my background in educational publishing, my textiles degree and my teaching.
Plus I mentioned future plans:
The next step is to go international: the plan is to translate all the patterns into French, German and Spanish.
That’s it!
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This is my ‘Cephalopods’ fabric design (as seen on the top I am wearing in the picture at the top). You can find it here.
Thank you for reading my blog. Quilt patterns are here, Fabrics are here, Classes are here