The first reaction I usually get when I tell people I'm a full time mum and work from home, is a shake of the head and an 'are you mad?' stare, and its true, it is a type of madness.
When I was pregnant with my son I decided on a whim to enrol in the Open University and study Criminology (blame the pregnancy hormones!) he came along in the October and my degree began in following Jan, and it was surprisingly easy. I studied at night instead of channel surfing, I studied for 2 hours at the weekend while my dad or my partner took my son out, I don't feel I missed out on family time, but it was a crazy reactionary decision that I then had to juggle.
So after 2 years of modules, deadlines and lots a lots of badly written notes I decided to take a break. The idea was to enjoy the last year before my son went to nursery, and to get a job. Instead I set up Me&My, Id always made things for the house and for my son, and I missed the routine of studying, so I replaced it with sewing. I must have taken out the whole craft section of the library and have broken my sewing machine countless times at 3am trying to perfect a design! But the business evolved, and the designs become popular and slowly my house turned into a fabric explosion. It is hard work, and its not for everyone, you have to set aside a good chunk of time just for admin and orders, and forget about making things just because you like to, once an order for 10 of the same design t-shirt comes in, you do end up never wanting to sew another one of those designs again! I cant look at my fox t-shirts with out coming out in a cold sweat! working from home can be incredibly rewarding and enriching, you learn to be organised, you learn to entertain a 3 year old with scraps of fabric, and 'dress up' takes on a whole new meaning when you need to take stock photos! but it can be chaos, house work gets forgotten, Iv had whole weekends locked away in my studio, lots of cuppas get drunk, and meals get skipped when you are really busy. You also enter the world of craft fairs, which in itself is a whole new story......
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