Page 20 - Patchwork & Quilting - UK (February 2020)

FEATURE // let's go shopping

Beryl outside
the shop

LET'S GO SHOPPING

to Sew & So's

WITH JUDI MENDELSSOHN

I first visited Sew and So’s in 2002 and I can say that with accuracy, because as I was driving towards it
there was an announcement from Buckingham Palace on the car radio that Princess Margaret had died.
Nothing like an obscure fact to help memory. Since then I have been lucky enough to visit on several
occasions and, more recently, was delighted to visit the shop with its new owner, Beryl Hindes.

Sew and So’s was established in 1996 by Verona McWhinney, Beryl and Diane have been regular visitors and attendees
joined by husband Rob, and much loved by local quilters and of workshops over the years and then in the spring of 2018,
those who travelled from far and wide over the years. In 2018 Diane sent Beryl an email saying, ‘your dream has come true’
they announced their intended retirement and sale of the as it had been announced that the shop was up for sale. Beryl
business. Step up to the plate, Beryl. and Andy agreed that they would investigate, and although
slightly admitting that it was almost done in jest, soon found
Beryl’s childhood was in Lancashire and Cornwall but her themselves pursuing it properly. When they arranged to go

husband, Andy’s roots are in Suffolk where they have lived and talk to Verona and Rob the first time Beryl found herself

for many years with their sons, Jordan and Nathanael. Beryl saying ‘I’m nervous, why am I nervous?’, at the same time
and her older sister Diane grew up with a mother who was a realising it was huge and it was momentous. As negotiations
lifelong sewer and knitter. Early memories are of being in the began to take place in earnest they tried to temper
kitchen with the old Singer sewing machine and the wooden expectations and progress positively while being beside
lid becoming a boat, a castle, anything a child can imagine, so themselves with excitement.
learning to sew was as much by osmosis as anything. Beryl
was a teacher when she became pregnant with Jordan. She One of the people this was all hardest on was Diane! Regularly
decided she must make a pram quilt and her mum, who lived going to lessons and workshops, Diane was sworn to secrecy
in Lowestoft, said they needed to drive over to Sew and So’s and when conversations would take place about the ‘new
to get fabric. Since Jordan is now 26, it is true that there is owner’ she couldn’t say a word, although had heard she
some gravitas to Beryl’s prophetic words, ‘one day I want to was, ‘apparently lovely’. When Rob and Verona introduced
own Sew and So’s’. the new owner, Beryl said, ‘it’s me, it really is me’ and from

20 British Patchwork & Quilting FEBRUARY 2020