About me

Hi there! So you would like to know a little about nooshka? Well my name is Casey and I am 26 years old.I was born and raised in New Zealand and I am a mother to my darling little girl Sofia Rose, who is nearing school age,scary!
I have a loving and supportive partner, we live in a half renovated house in a beautiful place called Tamborine mountain.Tamborine mountain is a volcanic plateau on the eastern side of Australia.Surrounded by rainforrest,views,wildlife,cafes and crafts it is the perfect place for our little family and the most inspiring and relaxing place I have ever lived.
I work part time in a sewing shop on the gold coast. Two days a week I sell machines and on Thursdays I teach "know your sewing machine,over locker and embroidery machine" lessons.
I started to sew not long after Sofia was born, so about four years ago.My first two projects where failures, so I paid for a few lessons with a sewing group.They didn't go so well. I had so many questions to ask that it became embarrassing. I almost felt like I was interrupting my teachers social time with her sewing friends.So after three lessons I left feeling disheartened with my woeful bag and half finished top.I decided not to give up and started studying up books on sewing techniques..I found the old books in the library to be the best.I began sewing dresses for Sofia to improve my skills. The first thing I made her was an apron with a waterproof covering. I thought it was pretty cool, but as soon as I put it on her she cried until I took it off.
I continued sewing smaller things for around the house until I answered an ad in the paper for a lady that needed some help with her own at home sewing business. I went around to her house for the interview and she told me that I would be appliqueing names and pictures onto towels and pillow cases. Applique...what is applique?? She gave me a quick demo and then put me on a trial run to see how I would go.Soon I was turning out appliques of unicorns and spaceships.Although the pay was next to nothing the experience was worth it and I'm so glad I did it because now applique is my most favorite form of sewing.

It wasn't long until Sofia started to enjoy the summer dresses that I had made her and people where starting to ask where I got them from.The orders started to come in and I started my first etsy shop called "the white lotus". It went well and some of my dresses where stocked in a boutique on the mountain but I found my true calling when I made my first doll. I made twenty large one of a kind dolls and then decided that I would follow my enthusiasm for softies and I started nooshka.The dolls flew out of the store! All off my stock sold and I was soon filling custom orders.Offers for wholesale came from all around the world and I started to stock for two shops,one in Geneva and one in Paris.It was a very proud moment.Within four months I had started my shop,supplied custom and wholesale orders,started a blog and made over 90 dolls.The inevitable happened, I worked so hard that I had burnt out just before the Xmas rush.  Nooshka was "on vacation" for 11 months! Now I have started nooshka again with new passion and enthusiasm. I am pacing myself and enjoying the creative process, and most importantly listening to my body. My designs I feel have improved, all of my designs are taken from my own sketches and this year they are more stylized and varied. In the future I would like to build nooshka to the point where I have my own website, my own studio and to one day work from home. Its a dream I no I must share with many other artists around the world. My aim also is to open my studio so that I can run small classes and have a social sewing group.
I love sewing, it is my passion and whenever I speak to any one that thinks they might be interested in sewing I always say " sewing was the best decision I have ever made, I could never live without it. It is my meditation and has brought me so much joy" Just give it a go, you never know what it could bring you.For me it has brought - freindship, pride, responsibility, purpose and more happiness then I could ever have imagined.