How Sam is navigating her way through lockdown

Sam Luxford started upcycling vintage and used navigation charts and turning them into hand-stitched art and cards, as a full-time business towards the end of 2019. Here she talks of adapting during lockdown and, not least, stitching nearly 2000 face masks

I have been a stitcher and a sailor for all my adult life. I love the coasts and estuaries of East Anglia and have had the privilege of working with our beautiful Thames Sailing Barges, most recently Sailing Barge Thalatta sailing out of Ipswich. I wanted to find a creative outlet that incorporated some of my passions. However, it was also important to me to find something different and unique. I was inspired by an image that I saw on Pinterest of a family that had stitched their road route of a holiday on to a map. I had some old navigation charts to play with and started stitching into them. My first piece was just following the coastline with a simple compass, this quickly evolved into boats and other nautical inspired images and NaviStitch was born.

I love maps and charts, and charts very quickly become out of date, particularly with the shifting sands of the East Coast. I hate to see these charts just be thrown away, and I have rescued many from being disposed of. I like to hope that I am preserving them for the future and enhancing them with my stitching. Where I can, I also like to upcycle some of my frames. I like to pick solid wood frames and give them a new lease of life with a coat of paint in a colour to compliment the chart and threads that will go in it.

A year ago, my creative business was exactly where I wanted it to be. My journey has been a gradual one – I had slowly tipped the balance between paid employment and my own work. Late in 2019, I made the final step to work full-time on NaviStitch with a lovely studio space to work in. At the beginning of 2020 I was full of optimism and had a full diary for the year ahead of events across Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex. I love attending local events such as Woodbridge Regatta, where I make sure I have pieces that cover the local rivers and coast. I love chatting with visitors in person and discussing how I can create a piece that is personal to them. I really enjoy watching people looking at my greeting cards, when they see a pun that amuses them or a location that is significant. I was really excited for the year ahead having booked more events than ever and looking forward to pushing my business even further forward.

2020 didn’t turn out to be the year that I had anticipated! All my planned events were cancelled. Making the best of the unexpected time I had available, I have put more effort into my online presence. I have worked on my website and reopened my Etsy shop. I have added new products such as unframed originals that are easy to send by post. I added lots of new card designs including Christmas cards which I was stitching in the garden in April! My attitude was that NaviStitch will come through this stronger, taking the time to step back and work on what I can grow rather than focus on what was lost. On a personal level, I have missed spending time with my family, I have missed my Sailing Barge Thalatta trips, I have missed my friends and social time. But I have tried to stay positive throughout and focus on the things that are within my control. 

I have moved more of my business online and thought about items that can be sent by post. During the first lockdown, I introduced my ‘Stay in Touch Packs’ – Send six smiles (a pack of six random greetings cards for £6). My hope is that people use the cards to stay in touch with loved ones that they cannot see in person. They are kind of a virtual hug by post as everyone loves to receive a handwritten message. Cards are often treasured and kept, to look back on, and much more personal than an email. Not only that, with so many great designs available, they are often framed. It’s a lovely way that the public can support artists for only a few pounds.

The other major adaptation was I turned my skills to making face coverings. It wasn’t something that I intended to do but I was gifted a really great pattern by another local business. I made a few art masks and some using nautical fabrics and things rapidly spiralled from there. For a while I couldn’t keep up with demand, all triple layer, hand-cut and made on my vintage sewing machine by me. I am really enjoying choosing fun fabrics and not just nautical anymore. Making the face coverings has bought me an income to replace the missing events and I am very grateful for the support. I stopped counting after 1000 but I think I’ve made somewhere between 1500 and 2000. I think I could make them in my sleep now, but it has kept my hands busy.

I am full of optimism and staying positive. I hope that by early to mid-summer that I will be able to exhibit at outdoor events again. I am looking forward to getting out and about and chatting with customers face to face. I am also looking forward to seeing my family and friends again. I can’t wait to have more than two around the dinner table and sharing a nice meal and wine with friends. Most of the places I exhibit are on the coast (for obvious reasons), so I am also just looking forward to getting back in the car and visiting our beautiful East Anglian coastline again, breathing in that salty air and taking a big deep breath.

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