Introducing my flower girl dresses and sewing workshops to the world.

Welcome to my sewing blog and this new step in my life.

Well, to be honest, I am new to blogging, so this will all be just a trial and error situation for me at first. I do, however, know how to sew and this is what all my blogs will be about. My aim for this blog is to share with you all the things that make me happy in life, you know, little sewing things.

I have many ideas planned, but for now, the biggest one is to share some sewing tips in my blog posts. To help all you lovely creative people understand the basics of sewing.

I am Annemarie Holtzhausen, a full-time homeschool mom of three children. I am married to the man of my dreams and we have a beautiful daughter and two sons. Both our sons have Cystic Fibrosis.

I am currently assisting my children with homeschooling (online school), so I saw the opportunity to teach others what they need to know about the basics of sewing while I am in "teacher mode". Let's see if this will work.

What is my story?

Well, sewing is in my blood. My grandmother used to make the most beautiful things and I used to be in her presence a lot.

Later in life, I started to cut up some of my clothes to pretend to make new ones. I even remember my aunt one day giving me her old lace curtains to play with and I had a ball wrapping them around me to make different "wedding dresses".

As I got older I was always busy with some kind of sewing project and I ended up making my sewing - hobby my career after I worked for a new and upcoming fashion designer in Polokwane for a little while in 2003.

I have been making wedding dresses and evening attire since 2005 after my friend trusted me to make her wedding dress. It was my first big project on my own and it was such a big success that I never looked back.

Of course, I took a few courses here and there and they were so few and expensive that I could never do a full fashion design course, which, of course, was my dream.

In 2007 our first child was born and our daughter inspired me to make beautiful dresses. In 2009, when our second child was diagnosed with cystic Fibrosis, my career took a wrong turn and I practically stopped. Just as I got up to try again (and my business did well then), we were surprised with CF baby number two.

Don't get me wrong here. I think it was God's way of slowing me down. He had other plans for my glorified hobby and I did not realize it at the time.

We love our children so much that I decided to take things slow for their sake. Of course, I continued to make an evening dress or a wedding dress here and there, but I surely did not see myself becoming a full-blood fashion designer in my life.

As our little ones grew older and healthier, I spent my time drawing flower girls' dresses. Of course, inspired by my daughter. Not that I thought I had the time to make them.

In 2020 when COVID-19 hit South Africa and our country had to submit to a full shutdown, my life changed for the better.

Our children were forced by the schools to do their school work at home and this is when we realized that homeschooling is working for us. During the shutdown and winter holiday, I made my very first, very small line of flower girl dresses. This is where I realized that this is what I was supposed to do with my sewing passion.

I also worked on the idea of sewing lessons last year when we started to find our feet in homeschooling. That way I could still carry on with my sewing passion and I could help others learn about sewing. This year I started my workshops and I was surprised to find how many people want to learn how to sew.

This opened plenty of opportunities for the future and this is my new direction.

Thank you to my children, my husband, and the funny turns life take with us all.

So watch this space!

Here I am, introducing my flower girl dresses and sewing workshops to the world.

Be on the lookout for me, because I will be busy selling little dresses to little people's mothers and making some cool sewing study material to sell online.

Please leave me a comment after this blog and let me know what you would love to learn about in the future so I will know what to prepare especially for you.

All my love

Annemarie