Yesterday we sailed to an enchanted wood. We went on a boat to an island in the middle of a lake and there we discovered the Faraway tree
So we stayed a while and expored
a long time
and went home for hot chocolate on the shed veranda
Oh I wish I knew how to photoshop out all that rubbish in the background - its waiting to go to the dump!
This week is officially a holiday - Euan is off work - and although I am preparing for a wedding on Friday we are making time to get out and about. We have discovered that the way to keep everyone happy is to choose flat routes so that the girls can cycle and Euan and I can trail behind with Jasmine - seemingly walking is hard work and tiring whereas cycling is fun.
So at the weekend we walked/cycled along the tow path of the Crinan Canal which was idyllic, time to meander along in the sunshine with posh yachts passing us and a great lunch at the Crinan Hotel.
We passed these two cabin houses
One exuberant and colourful
The other cool and elegant.
They are neighbouring plots and rarely have I seen two things that so strongly appeal to the different sides of my character.
This morning was a packaging day - wrapping up orders and taking them to the post office so this afternoon I decided to let myself play about a bit, make something that wasn't already ordered.
For ages I have been wanting to make some tea-towels. I don't know why. Euan thinks I am mad but there is something about the idea of beautifully stacked linen tea-towels (and they have to be linen) that really appeals.
It took what seemed like ages to source a supply of really good plain linen tea-towels and they arrived last week. Since then they have been tempting me from the shelf in the caravan and I dutifully ignored them all weekend while we went walking and cycling and sat drinking wine.
Today they have proved the ideal antidote to brown paper and string and I have loved playing about with my designs - working out how they can be simplified and made extra-durable (for no-one wants to have to re-mortgage to buy a tea towel, or buy one that can't be chucked in the washer).
It has helped that today has been a hot and windy day which allowed me to made, wash, dry and iron my prototype in less than an hour and a half. A hot and windy day that makes photography of tea towels on a washing line into sports photography (Oh no missed it again)
Here it is
and again
and finally - having given up on the action shots - flat on the caravan floor
What do you think? Am I the only person who likes tea towels enough to buy fancy ones? Is this a step too far?
J
x
I am here blogging away- glass of wine at my side - while the rest of the household watches Top Gear. This is a big thing in my house - the girls are curled up with hot chocolates under a duvet on the sofa - time with their Dad. Personally I believe Top Gear is a children's programme - a very well made children's programme.; For me it is a chance on a Sunday evening to answer e-mails, do a bit of surfing - have some peace. This may be surprising as I am the person who is instrumental in initiating the scrap yard accessories that litter our land - first the Citroen H-Van; then the Morris Ambulance and then the Airstream. But then of course these were all bought for their design and not for their speed or torque (?)
The H-van is my flower stall and the Airstream my workroom which just leaves the Morris ambulance - originally this was earmarked as my office but with one thing and another (most paperwork being done at night) this never really took off. Instead it is to become a really cool den for the girls - so they have been sanding (Zoe) Priming (Katie)
and putting together a design.At the moment Morris looks like this
but I gather that we are going for a Hippy traveler look with lots of flowers. . . and then they want to borrow my sewing machine to make curtains - with the state of the house at the moment I may just move in.
My favourite thing in the world to eat is cherries. Dark, warm, luscious cherries. I am so envious of people in the South with roadside stalls groaning with trays of cherries - driving round Sussex one June I ate pounds and pound of them.
I had always assumed that there was no point in planting a proper cherry tree here as it is too cold. We have a morello cherry - the only proper tree in the garden - which is a favourite with the blackbirds who beat me to the fruit, but they like north walls so are quite different.
2 years ago I planted some saplings to divide the drive from what will be the front garden - they were meant to be bird cherry - to flower twiggily in February - but it quickly became clear that we had the wrong variety.
I was going to dig them out and move them to the boundary hedge when they began to fruit - dark, juicy, luscious cherries - pictured above. I am in heaven.
J
x
I have now finished the 4 large meadow cushions that a Country Living magazine reader commissioned me to make - this is them in the late evening sunshine yesterday. I have really enjoyed making these and am now working out the logistics of another potential commission - for some curtains in the same design, something that I think will look stunning if I can work out how to do it without the bulk of the material getting in the way.
This is the time in the garden when I can see which plants are getting out of hand. In a couple of months Fiona and I shall be sorting out the long borders that run the length of the cutting garden and chucking out the thugs that are taking over. When I say chucking out I actually mean "moving to a more appropriate place" but it does occur to me that I shall have lots of plants left over and it would be good to sort out a new home for them in advance.
The first on offer is the leopard lily - not really a thug at all, except for in this garden. Anna Pavord visited last year when it was blooming gloriously, she is writing a book on lilies and had been unable to get it to grow for her at all. So obviously it is a soil and situation thing - we are slightly acid, lots of rainfall, retentive soil - and the 30 bulbs I planted 3 years ago have romped away, squeezing out anything less robust. I love this lily - it has healthy looking whorly leaves and then between 5 and 15 dark orange turks cap heads. I shall be replanting these in rows but there are probably about 40-50 bulbs going a begging.
The next is a thug - but what a beautiful thug - white willowherb, the white version of that railway siding flower. This is the first year that the flowers of this have not been eaten by deer and it is absolutely gorgeous - but it is already 1/2 way across the border and I know it will not stop.
I once saw a photo of white willowherb growing in a meadow and I think that I shall move ours down to the orchard where it can look ethereal in amongst the grasses.
However, thug or not, this would be ideal for anyone who has an area away from other plants that needs lightening up. Again - I suspect that come October I shall have a lot of roots of this.
I am quite happy to pack these up for free but I would need postage refunded - but if anyone is looking for lovely robust plants this is your chance - e-mail me for more details.
EDIT - GOODNESS YOU ARE A GAME LOT! ALL THESE SCOTTISH THUGS ARE NOW RESERVED AND SHALL BE SENT ON THEIR WAY IN OCTOBER
J
X!
When I first began to make things for a living - the height of my ambition was to have my goods sold in shops, any shops. I thought that it would be a mark of having arrived. That if a SHOP wanted to buy my things then they must be good. All conventional wisdom says that it is important to get your brand out there. I've changed my mind.
Now - having had a whole heap of wholesale enquiries over the last month (gallery owners being avid readers of Country Living Emporium) - and having re-visited the basic economics of the whole thing - I can definitely say that I do not supply wholesale.
As I see it - for me to supply wholesale either I suffer or the customer suffers. The mark up in a shop or gallery is 100% plus VAT; so something selling in a shop for £14 nets the maker £6. Something that the maker charges £10 for costs the customer £23.50. I'm not arguing that shops don't deserve this money for their rent, staffing, tissue and bags but explaining the problem as I see it. What then happens is that you either have to set your retail price very high (and some makers manage this well, their brand becoming aspirational in itself) or you pay yourself very little, way below the minimum wage in my experience of fellow crafters who seem to count any work done after 5 or in front of the tv as somehow not counting in the figures.
What I am trying to do is to set a price that is fair to me - that will allow the business to grow, and not end up a hobby business with Euan funding tissue paper and phone bills, but a price that also allows people to afford the things I make. The prices that I have settled on for the website are approximately 40 - 60% less than they would be in a shop or gallery and that seems fair to me. As it costs me less to sell from my website to existing customers there are also special offers for newsletter subscribers along with free gift wrapping and postage for those special customers.
Which brings me onto the photos in the post - this fortnight's newsletter is now out - e-mail me if you are not on the list and want to be - it is about making lavender sugar and sowing biennials this time, along with a special offer on my doorstop.
J
x
The late bedtimes and long evenings of the summer holidays are nicely stretching the days so that I don't feel bad about having to put in some work most days.
Yesterday I beavered away making 4 large embroidered cushions which were commissioned by a Country Living reader after she saw my small scented cushions in the magazine.
Then - there was still time to go out for a cycle
From Callander to Kilmahog (good pub) along the railway line.
I was able to indulge my love of rust
and lichen
To bask in the beer garden and then to get back to Callander in time for fish and chips from Eat Mhor Fish.
Definately a chip shop worth traveling to.
This morning I went to the florist wholesaler Country Baskets with Karon to see Jane Means, the gift wrap guru, demonstrate wrapping presents
It was definitely worth the trip - I always wrap orders in tissue and ribbon anyway - but now with some of her simple but very effective ideas, things can get a lot more spectacular and pre-Christmas I shall be offering a proper gift wrapping service.
Now, back home - the shed roof is now red and beautiful and we are all going to wash the Morris ambulance that is the girls' den so that they can decide what colour to paint it.
Photos of that another time,
There is a mistaken impression that I am techie - this is because I blog regularly and designed my website. What people don't realise is that both of these are basically the same as word processing. No tech needed.
In fact I am pretty much a technophobe - I have what Euan describes as a "learned helplessness" when faced by dvd players central heating programmers and mobile phones. I just stay away.
So naturally, for my birthday, he bought me an i-phone. And it is wonderful - I now phone, I text, I e-mail!.
Ostensibly it was so that I can get orders through no matter where I am - and goodness I do love selling things while walking the dog - but really the thing I use it for is listening to pod-casts.
Now I know that there are many ways to listen to pod casts - that you don't need an i-phone - but I never really got the hang of it. I would start them up on the laptop in the kitchen but the speakers were so tinny that as soon as I chopped or whizzed anything I lost track of the conversation. Now I can cart them round on my phone and plug it into the radio wherever I am and just listen to sections. This has opened up a whole world of podcasts that I never listened to as they are much too long for one sitting.
So yesterday I listened to a few Craft sanity podcasts (and yes I know that everyone else has listened to them all and I am late as usual) but it occurred to me that the podcast done with Alicia Paulson back in 2006, shortly before she closed her shop, is really the best thing for anyone wanting to make a living from craft to listen to. She is frank and honest about the problems of money, trying to sort out wholesale, customers who "love what you do" but never buy and are shocked when the shop goes, and the fact that her husband (like mine) brings in the steady wage that allows her to have her dream job. It contains the best advice to the craft entrepreneur that I have heard. I'm working my way through the other podcasts (Emily Martin's is excellent too) - while getting prototypes ready for photography. I like the way that Jennifer Ackerman Hayward manages to ask the practical nuts and bolts "so how many orders did you get after you were on Martha's show" kind of questions.
The photos sprinkled through here are of my new design doorstop. After tea, needing some me-time, I took myself off to my caravan, locked the door - plugged in the i-phone - and happily busied myself designing and making a new doorstop. I wanted it to be neat, to be different from anything else on the market, to incorporate my embroidery and most importantly to hang on the door-handle when not being used. The photos show the final prototype in vintage wool blanket and Harris tweed.
Meanwhile, the girls made an office next to the kitchen and drew up a draconian list of household rules which they decorated in felt pens. Euan painted the shed roof.
