About
About me and how it all started
Hi, I’m Alison and I am the designer behind Flora Patterns.
I’m a designer and maker who designs toy/creature pattern and sewing kits. I also handmake these items to sell in my Etsy shop or at local craft fairs.
I work in the small studio space I have carved out within my home which looks out onto my garden. I am inspired by nature, textiles and the love of using traditional craft in a modern way.
How it all started
I’m a designer who has spent many years as an educator and career mentor. My work has taken me from drawing with a T‑square to using CAD CAM, but I always find myself returning to craft and the handmade. My love of making began in childhood with my wonderful parents.
My mother could turn her hand to anything and taught us to knit, sew, crochet, and bake. The start of every summer meant new clothes she run up on her old singer sewing machine. Christmas brought taffeta party dresses with satin sashes. Weekends were often trips to Remnants King’s the local fabric shop, full of colour and texture. The biscuit tin was always full of buttons, which became a lifelong obsession. One of my happiest memories is making my wedding dress with my mother, covering 100s of buttons together over cups of tea.
We didn’t have much money, but our childhood was rich with creativity.
After my mother died, I found a box in her fabric cupboard filled with pattern pieces cut from cereal boxes. My parents had made these the toys while convalescing in a TB hospital as young adults. I kept them for years, and in 2020, during the quiet of the pandemic, I opened the box again and began to sew.