Samantha swaps rotting fish for sewing machine

Apr 22 2008 by Chris Knox, The Journal

A CIVIL engineer has satisfied her creative instincts after quitting her job at a waste management plant to set up her own curtain making business.

Samantha Burnish set up Lynn- wood Interiors in 2005 at her home in Bardon Mill, Northumberland, after becoming tired of the office politics and dirty work she had to carry out at the plant in Newcastle.

The 33-year-old, who hand stitches luxury curtains and soft furnishings, has seen her business Lynnwood Interiors grow and has just been asked to provide 100 metres of curtain for a luxury barn conversion in Tynedale, the biggest contract she has won.

She said: “I was going to turn 30 and I really wasn’t happy in my job and wanted to do something creative that could earn me a living from home.

“I had had enough of office politics and sitting in port-a-cabins on a very busy waste transfer station. Even going the toilet involved putting on a hard hat and a high-visibility jacket and walking across a rubbish strewn transfer station yard past 40-ton lorries full of waste or stinky skip-wagons full of rotten fish. I would go home smelling of waste and a horrible dusty feel to my clothes and hair.”

She first picked up a needle and thread when she was nine after watching her mum make cushions for the family home in Wylam, Northumberland.

Since then she has completed a distance learning sewing course run by the National Design Academy in Nottingham, and has stitched a number of patchwork duvet covers for friends and family and even a wedding dress for her sister’s big day in 2001.

She has also produced a number of textile artworks using her antique industrial sewing machine, which she sold at local arts and crafts events.

“My mum was always making cushions and pin cushions using hexagons and I wanted to do some patchwork too,” she said.

“At the time I was mad about Laura Ashley and loved the fabrics and wallpapers and spent hours looking through the catalogue. I bought 10cm strips of fabric, mainly from the sale section, as my pocket money did not stretch very far. I now make curtains for some exclusive clients in some stunning homes and I have had no complaints, just more orders.”