Find out about what motivates Amanda and Trish to bring you the madness that is Stitch the Gap...
Amanda
Apparently having the ambition to figure out a way to do what you LOVE for a living (without having to win the lottery) is all you need to start a social enterprise that goes from teaching one class of 6 kids per week to 13 classes teaching almost 130 people every week! I get asked A LOT how we got things started and so I wanted to share my story and give you an insight into my WHY - what on earth drives me to stand in front of a group of people every week when things started out so differently for me!
Amanda doing what she loves best - teaching children how to sew!
My Why
Picture the shyest, skinniest, tallest 11 year girl you can imagine and that pretty much sums me up. At age 11, I was almost 6ft tall and amongst a family of 5 average sized humans (apologies to any of my family reading this but you guys are SHORT!) - awkward doesn't even cover it! Even then, I was trying to figure out how I would EVER get hand-me-downs to fit! I didn't get the chance to explore this until later in life with lots of twists and turns along the way.
I've done so many jobs since leaving school at 15 and even tried to go to college when I was a teenager but I was so anxious that I had to pull over on the way to the entrance and couldn't make it beyond that! Thanks to the university of YouTube I taught myself to knit and crotchet and then my partner's sister, Mags, gave me a sewing machine that had been donated and I was determined to figure this contraption out! And figure it out I DID! What a world it has opened up for me too!
Big Girl Pants
Working as a carer in my local community I got the opportunity to support young people to access college and when I could see how they tackled this successfully, I realised that it was ME holding ME back. So, I put my big girl pants on and enlisted in a college course to learn how to sew properly (university of YouTube can only take you so far!).
Amanda working as a carer to support Katie
Always the entrepreneur, I never lost sight of finding a way to sew for a living and after finishing college armed with a qualification - I combined my carer's skills with my sewing skills - and ran an alterations business meeting the needs of those who struggled to get out to shops to find support with altering their garments to fit.
Amanda in her happy place!
I'm bankrupt!
But creative, sewing and entrepreneurial skills do not a businesswoman make! I needed HELP but WHO did I know that had the skills to complete the picture?! Turns out that the young girl I had supported had the answer - her mum - now over to Trish to tell her story...
But before I do, I wanted to mention that the biggest irony is that if I was to win the lottery tomorrow, I'd STILL come into Stitch the Gap (probably a bit later than usual, hungover and with bigger cakes to celebrate!).
And to prove that you need to know how to sew, the jumpsuit I made on 6ft compared to 5ft! What a TEAM!
Trish
I recently wrote a post on LinkedIn about the reason why it came about that myself and Amanda started Stitch the Gap. The feedback was amazing with LOTS of people saying that I should add it as a blog post to our website. So here you have it x
My Why
Monday 3rd of Feb would have been my beautiful daughter's 30th birthday and quite the milestone for a girl who liked a party. This girl is my WHY. She is the reason why Stitch the Gap is what it is and why there is so much PINK!
Our life before: A Wee Walk up Ben Wyvis
It's tough to be so open but in the spirit of embracing this ethos – deep breath – here is a small bit about my WHY:
In November 2014 my only daughter succumbed to the cancer that she had been battling for 8 years and for anyone on a cancer journey you'll know the ups and downs that particular train takes you on. For me grief is an emptiness that I just don't give brain space to, but on occasions like this week, it takes so much effort not to succumb to the depths of that.
In the early days of that grief, I struggled to fill that emptiness – my entire daily routine had changed and although I had 2 young children to look after and a husband who was finding his own way through the pain, I just felt so numb and empty. Amanda Stark, who had been one of Katie’s fabulous carers handed me a pair of knitting needles and she made it her mission to teach me how to knit. Who knew that concentrating on a repetitive task could still the mind and mend the soul – well apparently Amanda! I started to find my way back after that.
Why so much pink?
So, a few years later, when Amanda came round for a cuppa and started to talk about teaching children how to sew, I was hooked. We agreed on the name and enlisted the help of David Papworth to design the logo (at the time, a graphic designer in New York and also my brother-in-law - yip start-ups enlisting family members, who knew!). But what colour should we go for when deciding on our signage and ‘uniform’! We agreed to leave that for the universe to decide. We had found an embroidery company that would send a sample using any colour that they chose – we had argued over different colours, Amanda wanted black, anything but pink (most of her wardrobe was black and she apparently didn’t do pink!), I just knew what I didn’t want (I’m too pale to wear yellow etc!) – so the sample arrived and we opened the parcel together! Bright pink – Katie’s fav colour!
I'm afraid Amanda's wardrobe consists mainly of pink now - you see Katie's influence continues in all involved with Stitch The Gap CIC ❤
One of our first events in 2019! How YOUNG do we look?!
So for the past 5 years, myself and Amanda have built Stitch the Gap into a creative safe space that Katie would’ve been able to access and flourish within – my why is because she absolutely would’ve been part of something like this, my why is because she can’t (and also because I’d have been involved anyway as that girl was brilliant at spending money but terrible at managing it!).
I’ll finish with a picture taken at Katie's 30th Birthday Party, demonstrating another example of the influence Katie still has on many of our lives as its a collection of some of the star tattoos that were created in solidarity of Katie ticking off that tattoo on her wish list! x
Star Tattoos in solidarity of the inspirational Katie Papworth x