Project Patchwork

We know Myleene Klass is a bit funny about money.

Back in November she got very confused, angry and totally irrational about the suggestion that, as a millionaire, she might have to contribute £3,000 more a year if the government brought in a mansion tax.

And then last week someone dared to ask her for a tenner.  

On Thursday Myleene publicly shamed a mum at her kids’ school for suggesting that friends chip in towards a Kindle for her daughter’s birthday rather than turn up to the party with a ton of surprise presents. And ever since the cash vs. gifts debate has been raging.

Perhaps asking fellow parents for ‘a suggested £10’ in an email is a bit awkward. And maybe if Myleene's friend had known her private email was going to be read by millions she might have pitched it differently. But far from being a ‘bonkers' request I think it’s an entirely sane approach to gift giving.

Surely it makes sense to ask friends and family to contribute towards something your child really wants, rather than letting people waste time, money and the world’s resources buying stuff they don’t need?

Over the weekend media commentators joined Myleene's attack on modern day, middle class ‘madness’ and the uncontrollable greed of spoilt, private school kids demanding excessive and expensive presents from their party guests.

But the private emails that Myleene shared suggested the opposite – an entirely common sense scenario that most parents responding on Twitter, calling into local radio shows and posting threads on Mumsnet could relate to – a child who wanted just one thing, a mother who suggested a whip round and some friends who were happy to help.

I find it strange that millionaire Myleene should be so deeply offended by such a simple request and I'm totally baffled that she should begrudge giving a child a tenner. But what I find most offensive is her “get what you’re given” response which, not only shows her distain for people who dare to ask, but also shows how out of touch she is with most families living in austerity Britain.

Most children don’t go to private schools, most kids don’t have playrooms full of too many toys already. Most kids aren’t racking their brains for the one expensive and impossible thing they don’t yet own - like the 'real life unicorn' that Myleene suggests for her daughter in her own mock gift request. Most kids just want a bike or a playhouse, or some Lego for their birthdays. And many parents today are wondering how they can afford them.

Myleene might think she’s mocking a crazy new middle class fad. But she’s actually misrepresenting a common sense, working class tradition.

The whip round is making a come back in schools up and down the country not because of middle class greed but because times are tough and people are skint and parents are having to become more collective and resourceful when it comes to gift giving.

Myleene clearly doesn’t get it. But if a few well-to-do mums at her private school have picked up on the idea then surely that’s a good thing.

I say I write a blog. It would be more accurate to say 'I forget to write a blog'. Time goes so fast and I guess I'm just too busy to stop most of the time.

But I know that's when I should.

I started this blog to keep me sane as I set off on my journey to build a business. It's been a place to quietly but publicly put my thoughts and my worries. 

The good news is I have less worries. The bad news is I also have less time to think. 

Me chatting to Vanessa on BBC London about what I think of Gary Barlow and why we should all be proud to pay our taxes.

LISTEN HERE:

1. Make sure you like them

2. Make sure they fit

The Challenger's Almanac isn’t your average business book. It's a book about people who are "led by their ideas, who take the road less travelled and have created businesses worth much more than the money they make".

Over the last year the team behind the Almanac have collected these stories and combined them with practical advice from some of the people who are helping to build Challenger brands.

And guess what? We're in it!

I've seen a copy. It's brilliant and very beautiful. The sort of book that feeds and soothes, inspires and reassures you at the same time and looks very lovely on the coffee table.

The team have just launched a Kickstarter campaign to help bring the first edition to life. And having had lots of interest and support already have now doubled their target to print more copies for the world to see. 

I've just put my quids in and if you want to support a good project and get yourself a great book you can do the same here.

It is hard being a parent and running your own business at the same time. 

I don't know how people do it. 

I know how I do it. I do it with a HUGE amount of support and help from my husband, my friends and my family.

Last weekend I needed to be in Manchester for the National Wedding Show. My husband was helping me and so we left the kids at home. Usually they'd be with my Mum but she couldn't have them this weekend. So they were looked after by eight different people.

Everybody gave what time they could to the kids and handed them over to the next person with their little kit bag and instructions for the next drop off.

I'm not saying it was ideal. But it worked. Hippy, collective parenting organised like a military operation.

And the kids had a great time. Growing up with their family and friends on the streets around them, they are used to being looked after by an extended family. And they found this weekend of patchwork parenting a lot of fun.

I think the only real victims were the kids' teeth. They told everyone the 'one packet of sweets on the weekend' rule. 

At a wedding fair a few weeks back I met a bride who had fallen in love with a wedding dress she'd seen in a magazine. Discovering the company was exhibiting, she had come to the show explicitly to try, and hopefully buy, the dress. 

Standing in tears in front of me it was clear things hadn't worked out as she had hoped. She'd arrived at the bridal boutique to be told she was 'the wrong shape' for the dress she wanted and that the company 'really wouldn't recommend' her trying it on.

Now the woman in front of me was woman shaped. 

Her dimensions - the fact that she was average height, perhaps a size 12, slim and athletic - are actually irrelevant. The only thing I would say about the appearance of this very attractive woman is that she probably looked even more beautiful when she was happy and smiling. But I didn't get to see that.

The biggest draw on the stage that day was a celebrity diet 'guru'. On that weekend I discovered a liposuction stand. And spoke to a handful of husbands-to-be worried that if their beautiful brides got any thinner they would, as one bloke put it, 'start to look like a spoon'.

I've met hundreds of brides over the last couple of months. Being actual human beings they come in all shapes, colours and sizes. And there is absolutely nothing 'wrong' about them. Ever. 

Last night we hosted our first 'patchwork project'.  We had a handful of helpers come to the shop to offer their time and talent to a local writer whose just published her first Kindle book and wanted some help to pitch and publicise it. 

Sitting at a table of professional writers, editors, marketeers and wine drinkers, it was a fun and productive night. 

The debris of the evening will easily be cleaned up this morning. Thankfully Bibi has some more lasting treasures to take away:

"I'm so grateful to have had such a rare opportunity to talk about my project with a group of helpful and talented people. The beauty of such a session is that everyone is rooting for you - you don't come across that kind of support every day of the week. Thanks so much to all of you for your brilliant ideas and your enthusiasm." 

If you'd like to read Bibi's book you can go here. It's a delightful escape and at a same time a wonderful commentary on love and life in the modern world. If you've got two hours and a packet of biscuits, tuck in. 

When I was engaged to be married I went to a wedding fair. Since starting Patchwork Present I've been to a few. I've now seen the good, the bad and the ugly. 

Good:

Feeling the love while listening to couples talk about their 'big day'.

Meeting a diverse range of people with such different dreams.

Hooking up with other like minded businesses doing amazing things.

Discovering the Bailey's fountain.

Bad/ugly:

Watching women bullied into panic buying things they don't need. 

Witnessing the embarrassing lack of diversity and difference when it comes to products and suppliers.

Discovering the liposuction stand.

Opening this goodie bag. 

Working in our Brockley studio for the last six months we've met lots of lovely local people doing lots of very interesting things. From artists and writers to dress-makers, film-makers and cake bakers, we've discovered a hugely talented bunch of people on our doorstep. People who have already achieved great things on their own but who would also benefit from a bit of support, idea sharing and problem solving from each other if we could only connect. 

The good news is that we can. So this is the plan:

Every month we're going to invite a local person to share a particular creative, business or campaign challenge and then get a bunch of brilliant people together work on it.

Maybe you've got an idea and want some feedback? Maybe you've got a problem you'd like some help to solve? Maybe you'd just like to offer up your brain to help someone else...

At the end of December we held a little evening for local freelancers without a Christmas Do to go to. It was fun, you can read about it here. But we discovered something too. Turns out there are a few local freelancers who don’t just want to hook up for drinks every now and then. Some actually want a place to work that isn’t their kitchen or the local coffee shop.

So we’ve had an idea.

If you live in Lewisham and are looking for somewhere to work one day a week, or even just for an afternoon, get in touch. We’ve got desk space, wifi, a kettle and we’re also quite nice.

This article was written for Postconsumers. But as you're here, here it is:

Last week I was feverishly retweeting George Monbiot's article about the 'bullshit industries' selling us stuff nobody wants for Christmas. The week before I was sharing a piece by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett about how the festive period should be about celebrating love not money.  Watching the relentless ads in the last couple of weeks - whether cute from John Lewis, tongue in cheek from Harvey Nichols or just plain creepy from Toys R Us - it's easy to see how we're all seduced into wanting stuff. And so both articles were timely reminders that consumption is not in fact what Christmas is supposed to be about. 

But for me there is a conversation missing between the big advertising campaigns selling us stuff for Christmas and media columnists telling us that all kids want is a walk in the woods. 

And it’s a class conversation. 

George Monbiot's list of expensive and unnecessary gifts - the mahogany skateboard, a papadelle rolling pin and a tin of garden twine - were indeed silly and obscene. He rightly suggested families wondering whether to spend sixteen pounds on some garden string in an old looking tin should consider putting cash towards a better cause. And I agree. 

But most families aren’t making a choice between buying those unnecessary stocking fillers or putting the £300 odd quid towards a better cause. Most families don’t have the luxury of ‘deciding not to do presents this year’ because there’s nothing they really need.

No presents is fine when you’re just snuggling down in your cashmere socks to play board games and drink champagne in front of a roaring log fire before the huge roast and country walk.

But that’s not most people’s reality. 

A company blog has to celebrate a business, share ideas, inspire a community of users - it's the sunny, shop window of a company. This blog is the opposite. It's is the dark, backroom blog. It's the 11pm panic, the six in the morning stream of consciousness. It's not a blog I write to grow my business, it's a blog I write to keep me going.

Different but connected.

I write about the good stuff but also about difficult decisions, disasters, the things I worry about and stuff that hasn't worked out. I'm not saying it's always cheery in here but it's true. 

I'm not sure what hot topics business leaders are blogging about right now. I'm guessing the frustrations of being skint, the new perspective to be found cleaning a bathroom floor or the healing power of gin are not in the top three. But writing about about these things helps me. And if they reassure anyone else out there all the better.

A day in my life is busy. Writing a few words at the beginning or end of everyday is cathartic and calming. It's a way to tell the world how you feel without anyone in particular having to sit and listen. 

It's clever that. Means me and my husband and kids have more time for the important things in life.

This article was published in The Guardian I just thought I'd put it here too:

It was day one. I’d recruited a small team of women to help me launch my business and during our first lunchtime chat we discovered that we were all proud feminists.

So that afternoon, I decided on the perfect welcome gift - a gold name necklace. Although as we all knew our own names, our necklaces just said ‘Feminist’ instead.

 We wear our necklaces everyday and we love the conversations they start with curious commuters, people in the pub and strangers in the street. It’s reassuring to know that most people you meet – when you get down to basics - share the simple belief that men and women are equal and should be treated as such.

So what has come as a shock is just how much fear my feminist necklace has stirred up in the boardroom.

We don't actually have a boardroom. We’re a startup working out of a small studio. But I've had business acquaintances, PR people and even one of our own investors "warn me" that "being openly feminist" could be "damaging" to our brand and business.

A bit like admitting I'm a cannibal.