From Scrubs to Stitches

Hello, and welcome. I think the best place to start is with a little honesty: this whole thing wasn’t planned. Not really. It crept up on us—one stitch at a time.

For the last 25 years I’ve worked for the NHS as a nurse, eventually becoming an Advanced Nurse Practitioner in a GP practice. It’s rewarding work, but “stressful” doesn’t even begin to cover it. After years of juggling clinics, patients, paperwork, and the general chaos that comes with modern healthcare, I found myself craving something… quieter. Something creative. Something that didn’t involve a waiting room.

I did briefly flirt with the idea of learning the cello. Sadly, my hands had other ideas. It turns out that having very small hands makes a career in the orchestra somewhat unlikely, so that dream was quietly packed away.

Sewing, though, had always been there in the background. I’ve owned a sewing machine for years and made bits and pieces along the way, but everything changed when I discovered Creative Crafts & Needlework in Totnes. They run the most wonderful courses—patchwork bags, table runners, Japanese rice bags—and I signed up for one “just to see”.

It was an absolute joy.

From that point on, things escalated quickly. Friends and family soon found themselves receiving patchwork bags and makeup pouches in gloriously bright, unapologetic colours. Birthdays, thank-yous, “I saw this fabric and thought of you”… nobody was safe. This Christmas, I even stopped wrapping presents altogether—most were delivered in custom-made fabric gift bags instead. Festive, reusable, and entirely justified (in my opinion).

There was, however, a downside.

Our house slowly but surely turned into a sewing studio. Machines everywhere. Fabric in every nook and cranny. The office became a storage facility for cotton and thread, somewhere beneath which Neil was valiantly trying to write software. The kitchen, it turns out, is excellent for laying out large quilts—less excellent for cooking dinner at the same time.

We needed space. Proper space. A dedicated studio.

That’s where the old stable comes in—but that story deserves its own post.

Around the same time, another idea quietly took hold. While travelling in Canada and wandering around Prince Edward Island, we popped into a sewing shop and saw a long-arm quilting machine in the flesh for the first time. If you know, you know. It was a moment.

Back home, as I worked on a large quilt, I learned something that genuinely surprised me: once the quilt top is finished, it usually gets sent away—sometimes quite far away—to be long-armed by someone else. The final stage of a deeply personal, handmade process… handed over. It didn’t quite sit right with me.

Even the lovely owner of Creative Crafts admitted she had several quilts sitting unfinished for exactly this reason.

And that’s when the ideas joined up.

What if there was a place where quilters could bring their quilts, see the work being done, be part of the process—and maybe even have a go themselves? Not a faceless service, but something personal, welcoming, and hands-on.

We already run an Airbnb and have done for the past 12 years. What if quilting could be part of a break? A creative holiday. Time, space, fabric, and the satisfying hum of a long-arm machine.

So that’s how it began.

From scrubs to stitches. From GP clinics to patchwork bags. From a cluttered house to a slightly mad but very exciting plan.

Thank you for being here.
Lynne X

The Quilted Stable