Snapdragon's garden

A New Year

One of the things that has changed most since leaving office work is the way that I see this time of year.
When I worked in the city, toiling away in a basement office under fluorescent light I felt like Persephone - half my year was spent out of the light - it was gloomy when I walked to work, it was gloomy when I walked home, I had no way of knowing what was happening outside the building and no sense of the seasons.  November to March was a time to be endured.
Now - now that I work for myself - this time of year is the start of my year - the harvest is in, and I am buzzing with plans for orchards and herb patches.  Next week I dig the trenches for the tulips, my favourite job of the year.  Everything is humming underground.
So now that I am outside in the seasons my New Year has become Samhainn - the  Celtic end of summer - (merged through the centuries into Halloween), the beginning of dreams for the Spring.
We shall build fires and light candles, we shall make plans and look forward.
And the children will go guising for sweets!
On Snapdragon's Chat we are discussing how to move from off the peg to bespoke crafting 

Christmas stuff onto the website - only 3 weeks late

(Photo copyright Jane Robertson 2007)

I have finally got around to putting some of my Christmas stock onto the website.

I just don't know where October has gone - at the beginning of the month I was confident that there was acres of time, that I was well on track.  Now we are almost in November and I haven't done half the things I meant to.  Partly this has been because out internet has been down until today and I have been having to access orders and emails at the library.

I really should be ironing out all the spacing problems on the website and writing to wedding magazines to let them know about me.  I really should be planning my stall out for the Hopetoun House Fair.  Never mind.

My friend Jane Robertson who is a very talented photographer has been taking some photos for me - most of them were of the garden before it turned to sludge for the winter but some are of Christmassy things like this candle holder that I wrapped with sprigs of rosemary.  It isn't an innovative design (Paula Pryke makes similar pots to hold flowers on wedding tables) but it works because it is so simple.  There is a brief "How to" in the next Park Life magazine.  I shall also put a version up here when I get the time.

Autumn leaves

On Thursdays after school, Zoe goes for her piano lesson in Balmaha and Katie and I spend the half hour mooching about together. If it is raining we go to the Oak Tree for a lemonade and a packet of crisps but if it is at all nice we go for a walk in the woods.
This week it was beautiful - the leaves were dry on the paths and we collected great fistfuls to dry at home.

One of the things that I love best is lying on the ground looking up through tree branches to the sky.  It is pure relaxation, the solid earth below me, the airy sky above and the patterns against the light moving gently in the breeze.  On Thursday I was able to lie there watching the leaves drift down. I wonder how long it would take to be covered in a blanket of leaves.

The colours were amazing - far brighter than anything that grows there in the summer.

We took our leaves home and pressed them between A3 pieces of paper stowed under the rug in the living room.  When they were dry I dipped the leaves in melted beeswax - Martha Stewart dips  her leaves in wax to make them last longer without curling up and crumbling.  I love the smell of beeswax and thought that the colour would be better, so we went with that.
The leaves curl up in the heat of the wax so they went back under the rug to flatten and then today we have begun to glue them onto wire rings.

The leaves when waxed look a bit like leather but are much sturdier and easy to work with.  This is a small ring which is now propped on the dining room mantelpiece.  I am about to make a much larger version to put against the hall window so that in the morning the light will shine through all the yellows and ambers.

This morning we all went for a walk with Jasmine and collected up some beautiful oak leaves - I think that I shall press these and perhaps gild them to make golden ring.

On Snapdragon's Chat we are discussing the nerves that go with commissioned items - or not.

Christmas Fair - Witches hat, Croftamie

Just a reminder that the first Christmas Fair of the season is tonight at The Witches Hat in Croftamie 7pm-10pm.
It is a fund raiser for Milton of Buchanan primary school and a chance to start that Christmas shopping.
As well as my stall there will be Lucky Cats soap and candles, Lorna Buchanan's silver jewelery, a couple of stalls selling beautiful glass, felt bags, childrens' clothes, books, Guatemalan textiles and a cookery demonstration by Scotia Spice.
All are welcome - entry is £5 but it covers wine, nibbles and a raffle ticket.
I think that it will be a good night. Katrina, the hostess knows how to party.

Painting the town very tastefully

Though I love buying craft books - and have a very bad Amazon habit - I have gradually come to appreciate that, when I want to learn something new, there really is no substitute for being shown the ropes by someone who knows what they are doing.  While I might experiment myself with yarn and fabric, if I want to try basket making, felting or joinery I need to find a teacher. 

Otherwise I just spend money on tools and materials which - after a frustrating week of trying to make something - get heaped into the garage, where they sit sulking in a guilt inducing pile.

In March - whilst in the middle of the busy Country Living Scottish show I caught a virus, turned a disgusting grey and completely lost my voice.  Jo and Sally came to the rescue, sending me home to bed, working way beyond the call of duty and pulled me out of a hole.

I decided to thank them by organising a trip to a course.  With one thing and another (work, holidays, children) we didn't get around to actually going anywhere until yesterday.  Along with my Mum - who deserves the biggest thank you as she is always rescuing me - Sally, Jo and I went up to the small Perthshire village of Dunning to learn how to do basic decorative paint finishes with Cait Whitson of Carte Blanche a specialist painting firm.
We had a ball - you could hear the laughter over the road from the converted church where we were painting.  We all came back with a selection of boards we had painted and grand ideas about what will be transformed in our own homes - My favourite finish was this very subtle crackle finish which I think would transform the panelling that I want to put in our new hall . . .if it ever gets built . . .

One of the things that Cait and her husband are working on at the moment is developing stencils to be used with plaster - propped against the wall of the studio there was an absolutely stunning sample board with a raised design of willowherb, covered in translucent creamy tissue.  It was the most beautiful wall finish I have ever seen.

I feel another course coming on.

On Snapdragon's chat I am discussing commissions v. off the peg crafts.

Chairs for cushions for chairs

I am confined inside this afternoon as Zoe and Katie are hammering away in the shed making my Christmas present.  Nothing like being organised.  I just need to pop my head out of the kitchen door and they begin hissing at me to "Go away, go AWAY"
It is fairly miserable outside anyway, so I have been making up some cushions for my stall on Thursday.
Over the past few weeks I have been experimenting with cutting out large flowers from my stash of fabrics and appliqueing them onto plain backgrounds.  I love large scale floral patterns, enormous magnolias, giant chrysanthemums - fabulously printed curtain materials.  I can't resist them but then I get them home, fold them into drawers and they lurk there, being very impractical for the kind of small scale things I tend to make for the shop.  Using just the motifs on plain backgrounds makes them much more usable, less chintzy, more contemporary. They have worked out even better then I thought they would.
Flowers - so far, so predictable- most things I do are very flowery.  Then, yesterday reading the Saturday papers in bed with my coffee I came across an article about the "50 best chairs" or some such. Looking at all the photos of button-backs and chesterfields, I suddenly I remembered that ages ago I bought a material covered in drawings of chairs.
I love the style of the drawings - like those illustrations in 1950s Vogues with scribbly lines and casually applied wash, a studied nonchalance that is so, so stylish.
I wondered what they would look like as plain appliques.  I sewed them onto thick wool suiting to give them a tailored look with 3 buttons at the back.  I think they work.
Now having been hissed at for taking the photo I shall return to my machine and make some more.

A little bit of recycling magic

Today was one of those days when, almost as if I sense the storm of activity that has to start next week, everything went slowly, I walked slowly, I took my time to talk to children and listen to their replies, I chatted with people without twitching about undone tasks. 

Everything that I did today was in some ways at the heart of the business, the bit that I think is central to its ethos.  At the same time, everything I did today was completely opposed to the money part of the business.

This morning I was at Drymen Primary School helping the children to make a giant flower arrangement from recycled materials - the photo shows a small corner of this - it is part of a competition so I daren't show any more.  I was amazed at the creativity of the children and quite how they manage to capture the essence of flowers with crisp packets and yoghurt pots.

This afternoon I showed a potential flower grower from Cheshire round what is left of the garden and answered her questions about bulb planting depths and marketing.  I am very excited that so many people seem to be considering small scale flower growing - it gives me great hope for a network of British growers.

Snakeshead fritillaries

A bride who is getting married next April wants a gathered bouquet of fritillaries - like the ones in the photograph.
A bouquet that looks like she picked it herself in the spring dew.
A bouquet that needs a lot of tip-top fresh as a daisy blooms.

So yesterday I planted 500 snakeshead fritllary bulbs to supplement the ones in the garden.

Little women

My little girl is growing up, she is not much shorter than me now.  She would hate to read that as she thinks that growing up is no fun at all.

Zoe's ideal life is to sit tucked up in bed with a cat reading, actually in her very ideal life she would also be eating coco-pops but she has a horrible mother so that is never going to happen.

She returned to school this year to find that the rest of the girls in her class had discovered make-up, boys and mini-skirts over the summer holidays.  Zoe doesn't understand any of this and I must say I am a bit perplexed, is my memory askew or did hormones kick in later during the 1970s?

Lisa's death affected her very strongly, so strongly that she won't talk about it at all, won't cry, won't acknowledge that it happened.

This has all been worrying me a lot for the past month or so - so it was lovely to see her happy in Paris.  We had gone on a special us two only shopping trip the week before and she chose lots of new clothes in T.K.Maxx and she looked fabulous and relaxed in all her new slouchy jumpers and jeans (not  really a miniskirt girl my Zo).

The breakthrough, however, came on our first evening in Paris - Euan and his brother went off to watch Scotland play rugby so the girls and I decided to watch a movie.  Zoe is reading Little Women so I took along a DVD of the Winona Ryder version and we curled up in bed together, turned out the lights and watched.

Now I am terrible with Little Women - any version - I cry at the happy bits, I cry at the sad bits, I snivel in between and somehow that made it OK for Zoe to cry too, so we and we snuffled and wailed right to the end, mopping our faces on our PJs. 

Katie looked on perplexed saying things like "so how exactly did she die?" and "who will get the piano now?"

Gearing up - Christmas presents for men

Suddenly we seem to have come to a point where it is OK to mention Christmas . . .I am getting people phoning up about their Christmas wreaths and the first Christmas Fair is just overa week away.  Terrifying.

This will be my 4th year doing Christmas Fairs.  Up till then I sold completely through word of mouth and to a very small customer base.

Last year I felt that I did too many fairs,it became stressful, the same people saw me all the time and it was a classic case of diminishing returns.

So this year I am restricting myself to 4, Katrina's in Croftamie on 25th, Hopetoun House in Edinburgh (a biggie) in November, The Green Gallery in Buchlyvie on 1st and 2nd December and Amanda Reid's at the end of our road - on a date still to be decided.

Today I have been trying to decide what to take to each of them - they are all very different venues and I don't think that I can just come up with a "one size fits all" stall.  I also had a call from a customer this morning asking what I would have for sale at Katrina's that would be suitable for men.  She wanted to buy from me there as then a percentage goes to charity.  That also got me thinking for, though my range is not girly at all, it does tend towards the floral.

So I decided to repackage our chunky gardeners soap in a lovely french ticking material - the soap - made for us by lucky cats organic soapmakers - is wonderful on its own but somehow making it its own waterproof bag makes it more of a present.  The finished result is in the photo above - and on the website - and I am very pleased with it - I used buttons from our button tin as fasteners (oh I am so pleased to have a machine that makes button holes easily) and the overall look is very elegant and understated.

And now I feel that I should be really making something else to fit in with the elegant French style soap - perhaps I am still in Parisian mode.