Hello!

Hello, hello! It's Jessie here, aka Messy Jesse as I'm known from my blog! This is my very first guest post on the Sizzix blog today! I'm so excited to be part of this fantastic and talented community. I had the pleasure of visiting the Sizzix base here in the UK over the summer and it was a brilliant day out in North Wales, meeting the team and getting to grips with all the dies and machines! There was lots of time for playing and chatting about all things Sizzix ...

We all appreciated the kitchen sign ;-) I think I need this for my sewing room ...

… And of course seeing some of the lovely projects cooked up by Angela, she's so inventive! 

So shall I tell you a little more about myself? OK great. I.love.sewing. Literally love it! For the most part I'm a quilter but I do enjoy making soft toys and the odd dress-making project when I can find the time. Most of the time you will find me here …

… in my sewing room! ah it's just heaven working in here. Can you tell I have an addition to mini quilts? (there's more added since this photo was taken!) I've always been creative for as long as I can remember, but picked up sewing in my late teens - after dabbling with projects here and there I finished my first quilt in 2011 and haven't stopped since! 

I have a real passion for the traditional technique of English Paper Piecing (EPP). So I usually have a bigger quilt project in the works as well as a small EPP project on the go at all times. One of the reasons that I was drawn to Sizzix was the opportunities to use the dies for EPP - so I'm really excited about eliminating cutting time using my new dies! 

My style of quilting is heavily influenced by vintage and antique quilts from the 1920s/30s as well as earlier quilts in the 1800s. Those classic blocks and bold colours always look so fresh to me. When I'm not sewing, I'm running my online fabric and quilt shop; Sew and Quilt! I write for my blog, I do some editorial sewing projects for books and magazines, I also have a day job + a saturday job (saving for our wedding next month, eek!) and love doing DIY projects around for our home in Cornwall - oh, and a very neglected undertsanding fiancé ;-) 

So I've just recently received my father christmas delivery of dreamy Sizzix dies! Aren't they great?!  I can't wait to get started with them. 

I'll be posting each month here on the Sizzix blog so I do hope you'll join me for some fun project ideas! See you then!