Welcome to Magpies Laundry ….

Beautifully unique keepsake quilts, cushions, and textile art, handmade with love.

Keepsake quilts make wonderful and unique handmade gifts for life’s special occasions – be they special birthdays, wedding anniversarys, christmas, mother’s day, graduations, or commemorative occasions. These significant dates offer you an opportunity to commission a truly wonderful gift that comes straight from the heart, incorporates your family history and memories, that will have a special meaning to both you and the recipient, something that celebrates your history together and makes it a part of everyday life.

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“Have nothing in your home you do not know to be useful and believe to be beautiful”

- William Morris -

Do you love stylish, beautiful, quirky homes?

Do you dream of having a home that could feature in a magazine?

I know I’d love to have those well-chosen statement pieces that say something about my personality, that have some sort of emotional meaning to me – pieces that remind me of significant times and events in my life – rather than a big pile of cluttery “stuff”. But well-designed, well-made designer homewares are so expensive, and it’s difficult to justify that sort of expense in the current climate, when you don’t really need to add anything to the house.

Especially when you already have that little hoard of clutter nagging at you. Your wedding dress, the children’s baby clothes, the suit you wore to your sister’s wedding, those evening dresses you can’t wear anymore … you don’t need them, you can’t use them, but can you bear to throw them away? No, me either.

So they just sit there. And every time you declutter and clean out that cupboard, you see them, and they reproach you – unseen and unloved, memories locked away – spoiling your dream of clean, uncluttered living.

But what if you could have some of those clothes made into a beautiful object for the home – for yourself, for your children, for your mother, your sister? Something unique, beautiful, well-crafted, personal and with genuine emotional significance? Something that solves the clutter problem without the need to throw precious things away? Something that allows you to keep those lovely contemporary neutral colour schemes, but delivers a huge “wow” through your use of soft furnishings? Something just that little bit different? A real statement piece, that doesn’t cost the earth (in more ways than one), and has clear ethical and design credentials?

Can it be possible?

It could be possible, if you visit Magpies Laundry.

Working with your treasured clothes, vintage fabrics, and costume jewellery, I apply the traditional techniques of patchwork, quilting, appliqué & embroidery to create beautiful and stylish keepsakes for everyday use. I’d love to create something unique  for you – a quilt, a throw, a cushion, a wallhanging – handmade from start-to-finish.

It’s a collaborative, bespoke process that allows for small details like pockets, buttons, trim and other objects, even text, to be incorporated into the final design, to reclaim your memories. A piece of art masquerading as an everyday object, that mixes vintage and recycled with contemporary design. Something that makes a real statement about your personality and history, well-crafted and beautifully made.

Like the sound of it?  Want to know more? Visit my blog to see what I’ve done for other customers, or visit my shop for a small selection of ‘pret-a-porter’ pieces as a starting point.