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10 year birthday

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the crimson rabbit celebrates a birthday!

May 1, 2023

the crimson rabbit is sitting on some patterned fabric wearing a yarn shawl and ribbon celebrating her 10th birthday

I really can’t believe that my little business bunny is 10 years old today, but it’s true! Mark (my husband, if you don’t know) made me several pictures with his Artificial Intelligence program to celebrate the event, and this was my favourite. Bunny is standing on fabric and wearing a yarnie wrap tied with a pretty ribbon, which feels like it sums up my making world perfectly. You may also notice that one of bunny’s forepaws is a bit crooked and shorter than it should be – this might be a fairly typical feature of AI pictures, but also feels right to me – my bunny and I are certainly not perfect and have made mistakes along the way!

After many years of employing whatever knowledge and skills I had on behalf of others, I set out on my making journey 10 years ago to work only for myself, using my hands and my intuition. I wanted to learn how to make things that I would like to have in my own life and found that other people would like to have them in their lives too, which was amazing. Nothing has really changed since that beginning time and whilst ever I continue to learn and enjoy making, I’ll continue to do just that. So happy birthday to the crimson rabbit and on we hop into our next decade of creating!


Another little milestone I have to celebrate is my 100th sale in my Folksy shop, which was the blue version of this little zippy pouch:

two zip top small pouches or purses in a floral print

I don’t know if you shop on Folksy yourself, but it is one of those very typically British places filled with little eccentricities, peopled with a real range of makers with so many different styles. What all the makers there have in common is a real passion for British Craft and reaching their audience through a very British marketplace. It has certainly taken me some time to get going over on Folksy – they don’t have anything like the reach of the likes of Etsy, nor the technology to support their makers, but I feel very loyal to them, as do many others. Above all, it’s such a supportive and collaborative place that I enjoy being a part of.

Folksy UK logo with explanation of what Folksy is all about

Sadly, it isn’t easy to set up International postage on Folksy, but some sellers do ship overseas and if you see something there you’d like, it’s certainly worthwhile contacting the shop owner and asking them if they’d be prepared to ship to you. My own shop currently only has UK and US shipping set up, but I’m always happy to ship elsewhere on request, as long as there’s a good mail service between us.


It’s been a while since I posted here on the blog – I have been concentrating on communicating via Instagram, Facebook and to my newsletter subscribers, otherwise known as The Burrow Community. Going forward, I will be posting the general content of my newsletters here the day after release, but if you want to know about new makes first, or would like to have the opportunity to enter my giveaways, you will need to join the burrow community (click the link on the title bar at the top of this page, or here).

The new make in my newsletter this time was as a result of a request for a client, which is where so many of my new pieces come from these days. I so enjoyed making it that it will definitely be appearing in my shops!

Annie wanted a passport wallet for a planned trip to Japan later this year, big enough to hold two passports with a few extra pockets and a penholder. It needed to be practical and have a Japanese feel to the fabrics, avoiding florals:

Double passport holder wallet made with blue wax cotton and Japanese prints

I used a solid navy coloured wax cotton for the outer, which is super practical for travelling, and matched it up with Essex Linen and a couple of prints from Paint Brush Studios’ Japanese Garden collection by The Tiny Garden. As is often the case with overseas fabric companies, they can be really tricky to find in the UK, but I did manage to find a couple of the prints at Sew Scrumptious, although I bought the last metre of each!

Inside, I used the two prints to make the pockets in such a way that the lining of the slip pockets also details the top edge of the outside; I do love to create details. As well as the pockets for the passports, I added a zip pocket and another slip pocket (with a penholder attached), big enough for a little notebook to record memories of the trip:

The body of the wallet is padded with foam and it gives the whole thing a really substantial feel, like a little clutch purse. I also made a smaller single passport version, which has the two slip pockets and a hidden credit card pocket inside one of the slips:


To celebrate my business bunny’s 10th birthday I’m having a celebratory giveaway for my burrow community and the first name out of the top hat will be receiving a coin purse of their choice from my Etsy and / or Folksy shops. This felt like just the right prize to choose since coin purses were amongst the very first things I sewed for my shops and I still love making them now, although I like to think that I’ve improved the quality of them over the years!