In the making...

Wow it's already December! This year I singed up to 2 Christmas fairs along side running Family Tree as I am a maker as well as a shop keeper. I got no idea how things will turn out but I have been busy making stocks for the festive season.
I will be at Rosemary Works school fair this Sunday 12-3, It's a small family orientated fair, nice little one to test my stall holder skills. Then I will be at Crafty Fox Market on 17th Dec at lovely Geffrye Museum 4-9pm.

Everything takes ages when you are making, preparing all by myself! But I'm getting there and very satisfying to see little neat piles of finished products. Here's some photos I took.

Tonight, 3rd Dec, we are having late night opening at Exmouth Market. Brewing up warm and spicy mulled cider and hosting a christmas decoration making (with peanuts) workshop 6-9pm.
Please pop by to our shop Family Tree, 53 Exmouth Market.

Nearly there...

My new venture I've been working on last few months has been coming along nicely. It took really a while but I enjoyed working with like minded local crafts people to get this off the ground.
I have designed 15 greeting cards, some with modern calligraphy by Myrtle & co, they will be hot foil blocked with copper and silver. Four Christmas designs supporting RANA where we adopted our Tunisian rescue cat. Here are super sneak preview and some snaps from Dot Studio who's been very helpful and professional choosing paper and suggesting different finishes. Of course everything is produced carefully using only high quality FSC certified uncoated card stock and 100% recycled paper envelopes. I'm so excited to starting something new.

Linen shoulder bags

I made a linen shoulder bag with riveted leather strap while back. I have been really enjoying using it since, and most importantly it stood the test of time and held together. So I made couple more to be sold at my shop. I've seen one of the leather bag makers punching holes at Design Junction and totally stole the technique and this time it was almost effortless making holes in leather. I especially enjoyed hiding pea green leather washers behind straps and rivets! I just sold out of linen tops, last one went to a lovely girl who is a painter. Hope these bags will find a good home soon too.

East Central Cycles

I have just entered t-shirt design competition at East Central Cycles, my local bike shop on Exmouth Market where I got my bike built. Their original logo features bike wheel and greyhound. I have applied my own illustration twist to it. Hope I will win! (winning is not everything but losing sucks...) Watch this space!

Mina Perhonen in the making

Just watched this serene and calm sequence. I enjoyed seeing the process of how the textiles and garments of mina perhonen were born and eventually bought by customers from their shops. So satisfying to see hand drawn images turned into textiles by skilled crafts men in Japan. 

End of summer

This is our last weekend before the new school term starts.  We have managed to fit in one more little break away from London. It was freezing and I had to pull the toggle of my sleeping bag in the middle of night to snuggle my head in. But glad we did it!

Shoulder bag making

I recently made little purses and clutches with luxurious Scottish linen. Then I experimented to make one of them into a shoulder bag with a leather strap. I got the basic principle from a friend and bought hole cutter, rivets and natural leather strips from a local leather merchant. I made some leather washers first to test out the cutter. Massive whack with a mallet on our kitchen table but it only made a little impression onto the leather! It was actually not as easy as I thought but eventually I managed cut through nice little holes onto 4 washers, 4 holes onto strap, 4 holes onto a linen pouch. Then another sharp whacking to fix rivets onto strap and bag itself. I need to find out if it's better to use something like steel block or it will ruin the teeth of the die cutter? There must be a better way! Anyhow here's a end result which I'm really happy with. This is a very first sample I will use and see if there's anywhere I need to improve. So far it has been a perfect little bag to go out with, really hope my riveting will stand the test of time.

Tree House

We booked very special tree house accommodation for our Welsh adventure. It was totally worth booking one year in advance. Everything fits, works and luxurious! Tree house was built  or more like cramped on 4 stilts of tree trunks. It tolerate swaying and floats when it's windy! Really enjoyed cooking, get the fire going, composting loo and woodland shower! Yes, water get heated by wood burning stove, you go down the spiral stairs around the tree naked or towel wrapped to have a shower dangling under the tree house. There's a modesty cubical but it's so liberating to have a shower in a middle of a wood.

Trefriw Woollen Mill

I had a little summer break and visited Wales for the first time. Second day raided all day, we gave up nature walk and instead we drove out to visit Trefriw Woollen Mill.
We learnt how the traditional woollen tapestry and blankets are woven from woollen fleece to all the way to be made into products.

So much wool and smells like sheep, in a nice way! We saw working spinning mule like victorian times.

This is a process called warping. Wrapping yarns which will be lengthwise on the loom. It have to be right colour, right order and right tension.

This is shuttle weaving loom. Man and machine collaboration. Shuttles are sent back and forward by power loom but he needs to stop the machine every few minutes to top up the yarns in a shuttle.

Display of original tapestries, some dating back 200 years ago.

The loom is powered by the water turbine. Factory is built by the local stream. Such a clean energy!

Some example of finished textile. Then Finally...

Turned into products to be used! I'm little sad that only tourist visit here. Seems like locals think they are ancient and out of fashion... Didn't witness any local shops selling traditional products like these. But I love them and I want to visit here again!

Antique linen tops

Finally the idea I have been slowly working on turned into a physical form. It's only a initial stage but feels good to get one of my dreams off the ground!

I made these SIMPLE tees to be sold at Family Tree, my another business, using very old French linen in mottled green/grey/blue tone. 

I cycle everywhere on my road bike so mostly wear jeans or chinos on my bottom, I had an idea of making a top which has little or no design twists, more about the material and possibly the prints of the textile. By taking away cuts and shapes from the garments they hang beautifully and looks flattery on. I will keep working with this shape, lighter cotton would be nice for the hot day like today, would love to print my own pattern eventually too.

Photos from Scotland

Following up last post, I found lots of mind cleansing photos from our Scotland adventure. I'm sharing few here...

This is a walking path to Coral beach looking across Isle of Skye. We've been lucky with the weather.

Applecross's famous Langoustine at Applecross Inn, the only pub in the village.

Sara's willow basket with freshly laid eggs.

We visited Croft woollen mill. The owner Tom weaves blanket from his sheep's wool naturally dyed by his wife. Below is basket full of beautiful yarns...

Geese! Trumpet was sitting on her egg and Daddy-O has been very protective of her, causing havoc.

Tasting Aron's award winning Hot Cross Bun ice cream.

Thumbs up!

Aron was a chef at Moro before he became ice cream maker so we were constantly fed very well duration of this holiday. This is his mighty shepherds pie. (so many food photos...I was originally intended to post more of stunning highland nature...)

Lastly this is their beloved English bullterrier Onion. Very clever and sweet girl. I can smell their wood burning stove again looking back these photos.

Sarah Paramor Baskets

I recently designed a little logo for Sarah Paramor Baskets. Sarah and her husband Aron moved to Applecross in Highland, population of 240(!) 3 years ago from London. Now they live in cute house surrounded by ducks, geese, chickens and 2 dogs Onion and Compost. Aron has set up new business Applecross Ices which recently swept 8 awards in highland ice-cream show! Sarah has started to learn basket weaving in her spare time using local willow. They kindly invited us this Easter so we drove all the way over 2 days going over narrow rocky cliff edges to Applecross. Everything about the life there were extreme polar opposite of London one. We've enjoyed fresh local seafood, large open beaches, collecting freshly laid eggs in the morning, mountain walks, breathing in pure air, coming across with sheep everywhere.
I thought gaining new skills to sustain living and to be able to trade and offer what you can do to your community is such satisfying thing! I'm not quite ready to give up waking up in the morning and popping in to local shop for croissants and a cup of latte. But this holiday really opened my eyes to see there are wonderful ways of living outside of London worth considering for the future.