Origin Story

(I’m not exactly Captain America or anything, so just manage your expectations. I wasn’t bitten by a radioactive spider either…)

Flatbattery Makes itself, as a “thing” , has taken years to get to this point, with you, right now, on my website checking out the kind of stuff I do, but for me to explain all of that, we have to go back a little bit further…

To the Summer of 2014, the summer I lost, the summer the arse fell out of my world & literally everything changed. Now, don’t fret - This isn’t one of those woe is me, tragedy tales or any kind of triumph over adversity situation, just my story. Plain & simple. It is what it is & there are people like me all over the world who have found themselves in similar circumstances. I used to work as the finance/payroll manager for a recruitment agency in Birmingham & used to joke all the time that I’d love to be able to quit my job & stay at home making anything & everything. Be very careful what you wish for…

I got sick & never got better. I was a busy working mum, juggling everything a busy working mum does but kept getting pain that no one could explain, it got worse & worse & worse until I was admitted to hospital early in the first week of July. I didn’t go home until mid September. To this day the NHS still have no idea what bought it on & annoyingly I’ve had to learn to live with it every day since. It’s nothing ground breaking, “just” chronic pain & an energy limiting disability. Though I’m over simplifying it because that’s not relevant to the Flatbattery Makes’ origin story. Hospital is where the germ of an idea started to form in my head…

I don’t know if you’ve ever had a lengthy stay in hospital, but, it’s dead boring. Mind numbingly dull. Monotonous hour after monotonous hour waiting for medical staff to do rounds so they can make decisions on what they think they can do to fix you.

 The only real perks are beautiful visiting hours with loved ones & those delicious moments when the tea trolley came round. I cannot put into words the unbridled joy that springs into your weary heart when you can hear the squeak of little rubber tyres on tiles & the rattle of mugs clinking into each other coming down the corridor towards your ward pushed by those earth bound angels & bringers of unbridled joy ~ the purveyors of the tea trolley & all it’s singly wrapped sweet treats. 

(and big shout out to those of you who have experienced this particular brand of heartfelt joy! It’s a beautiful moment, isn’t it?)   

Anyway, as I was saying, Hospitals = zero joy so you have to amuse yourself or you’ll go completely round the twist. I was being held hostage in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Selly Oak, Birmingham, a super hospital doncha know? Altogether now… oooOOOoooo! That title just means they took a number of local failing hospitals & combined them into one Ma-hoo-sive failing hospital (Don’t get me started on that tale of woe!) but the upside of being in a super hospital is that there is a full sized Coffee shop & full sized WH Smith in the… Lobby? Foyer?! Atrium?! What’s the big open bit in a super hospital called?! shrugs never mind, not relevant… 

So, when I was feeling strong enough, I would tiddle down to WH Smith to find interesting magazines, to begin with it was all Kerrang! & true crime but then I noticed that most of the crafting magazines had little kits stuck to them for things you could make & thought to myself “That’ll do pig, that’ll do” It’s not as if I was a zero experience crafter, I was, and still am a pretty prolific knitter & had, over the years, dabbled in various things but wasn’t really into any of it at that point, you know? (When would I have the time, raising our son, keeping house & working full time?!)

Over the weeks & weeks I was incarcerated in the QE I amassed quite a few finished mini projects, had quite the tool kit of stuff from these magazines & I had read them cover to cover, every word, even the advertisements. Like I said, I had a lot of hours to fill with Quilting, knitting, crochet, origami, papercrafts, embroidery & cross stitch & I loved it! I’d whack on an audiobook & get lost on whatever it was that I was creating & it lit a fire in me that burns just as brightly today.

 When the kits were nearly exhausted & I was running out of things to do I’d go shopping online for more bits & bobs to do & my hubby would bring them in for me at visiting time, and, my endeavours were not going unnoticed. HCA’s, Nurses & Drs alike would compliment me on my work & one or two said they came over especially to see what I was up to & have a little natter about it - it was lovely & made my time “inside” much more pleasurable. 

I got home & the making continued, if I thought my time in hospital was long, it had NOTHING on rest & recuperation. I was off my feet for months & months & don’t think I started feeling myself again until well into the following New Year. The one good thing about all this down time is that I had plenty of time to expand what I’d started in hospital & learn next steps, It wasn’t all plain sailing as whatever it was that had caused the difficulties had also left me with a cognitive dysfunction, everything took 3 times as long & exhaustion hits PDQ (...still does, if honest, I’m just better at recognising it & working around it as best I can now).

At the points where I wasn’t able to physically make anything I turned to YouTube, we became fast friends, even if I really do not like the platform anymore! I have another blog post in the works explaining why, I just need to do a bit more research & polish it up before I publish that one. Truth be told, I’d veto putting any of my work out on YT at all, but as it’s the second largest search engine in the world, I really would be cutting off my nose to spite my face.  I learned that so many creative people put out content on YT & shared their passions, tutorials, news, updates & product reviews… It was great! So many hours & hours of TV that was centered around exactly what I wanted to watch. Not only did I voraciously hoover up as much content as I possibly could, I had also decided that I wanted to share my creative escapades with everyone in the same way. But, that was a long way off… This was the point that my love for dressmaking REALLY kicked up a gear. Up until this point I had done bits of sewing here & there. Fancy dress costumes, the occasional garment or curtains, that sort of thing but I was utterly entranced. I can say I was sewing before it was cool but I didn’t start sewing full time, for want of a better term until this point.  

And boy, did I pick up that ball and run…