Textile designer, author & tutor Ruth Singer, has won the Haymarket Shopping Centre's Big Idea competition to kick start her creative business. Her mission is to get Leicester sewing & making by opening a studio and running sewing and craft workshops.
To get to this stage, Ruth had to submit a proposal, get past the Dragon's Den style panel of experts and win the public vote! Haymarket Shopping Centre have given Ruth a month's rent-free shop unit in the centre and a cash prize of £1000 to spend on the business.
The Big Idea competition ran at the end of 2011 and was an initiative set up by the Leicester shopping centre to give a local entrepreneur the opportunity to get a new business launched.
Ruth's Big Idea is to run a craft & design studio where anyone can learn new practical skills. Ruth will use this opportunity in Leicester city centre to run a month of taster workshops and activities for all ages to raise the profile of her studio.
“I want to run a craft and design workshop where anyone and everyone can learn new practical skills, to make and create. I want to share my skills as a professional textile designer-maker to help the people of Leicester rediscover the pleasure of making things themselves. Sewing and making workshops are popping up all over the country – it is time Leicester had one.” says Ruth Singer.
Phil Toyne, Centre Manager at the Haymarket Shopping Centre said “We are really pleased to be welcoming Ruth to the Centre. It is great to be able to give her the support to get her new venture off the ground and it is even better to know that our shoppers have chosen this idea.”
The studio opens in the Haymarket Shopping Centre on 29th March for a month, to see full details of the workshops visit the events page of the website.
In addition to the workshops there will be a small retail area with Ruth's own kits & patterns, vintage fabrics, sewing patterns, haberdashery and lots of books including Ruth's own Sew It Up and Sew Eco. Visitors to the studio will also be able to see and buy Ruth's work including wall panels, customised clothes and small gifts.