Snapdragon's garden

Bespoke

I love doing bespoke work - particularly one off pictures - particularly when they are full of meaning for a particular person.

It is, to be honest, the side of the business that would give the Dragons in the Den a fit as its not scalable.

I fit it in when I have the workroom to myself, but I enjoy it so much, and it pushes my skills so much, that I am always delighted to make one offs.

Last month I was contacted by Helen about an Emerald Wedding Anniversary present for her parents.

She sent me this photo

and we decided that I would try and copy it in fabrics, add in some text and a meadowy setting.

It is such a beautiful photograph - for as you study it you get a real feel for the couple.  The way that their figures are overlapped (something you only find out when drawing the various elements of the design), the way that the clasped hands are at the centre (Helen told me that her parents still walk hand in hand)

and I tried to emphasize those elements while keeping it as faithful to the photograph as possible.I enjoyed making it so much - it was a sunny afternoon, the workshop door was open, music on . . .

This is the finished picture - with the text and the meadowy flowers in 2 tones.

I hope that Helen's parents like it and that they had a wonderful celebration.

Take your dog to work day.

We always have 2 dogs in the workroom - Jasmine sleeps in a basket at my feet all day

and Dixie annoys everyone by wanting in and out and in and out.

But today we have been joined by Bailey (Valerie's gorgeous lab)

and Corry (Fiona's devoted spaniel)

 They stayed mostly in the dispatch area and away from the sewing

Mugs . . .

One of the things that I have always found most difficult is deciding exactly what Snapdragon is.  It evolved from a completely different business (growing cut flowers) and I've always been a bit woolly when asked what exactly I do. Most of the past five years have been spent narrowing down, focusing, finding the essence - saying No.

That sounds a bit poncy I know - for in reality I embroider stuff - but this sifting is the thing that drives the business more than any other.

Last year I began to recognise that what the retail side of Snapdragon does best is short run bespoke.  The way that we work, making to order as a team, means that we can embroider messages, incorporate customers' fabrics, tweak designs without having to alter the work flow, without having to charge a lot for the personalisation.  We now do it so well that this is now the fastest growing part of our wholesale business too.

However I wanted to be able to expand this into non-sewn things.  Specifically I wanted to be able to do the same with mugs.  A few years ago I designed a few mugs with McLaggan Smith and I loved the way that the embroidery looked on the ceramic.  However, I wanted not only to be able to put my embroideries onto mugs, I wanted to be able to have each mug with a personalised message.  I wanted the messages to be embroidered rather than a computer typeface. I wanted them to be something no-one else was doing, something obviously "Snapdragon". I wanted the mugs to be dishwasher and microwave safe. I wanted a lot.

I did a LOT of research - but last week we finally unpacked the kit that we needed and began to experiment.

And I am delighted, it is working even better than I hoped - I can embroider the messages and then incorporate them into an image which is printed inhouse directly onto the mugs - no transfers that can scratch off - the process I am using makes the colour part of the fabric of the mugs and is guaranteed dishwasher safe for a year.

We have put the first two designs - a gingham heart and retro initials - up onto the website here.

You can chose any message for the back - up to 9 words works best - whether it is a loving message to your mother, a thank you to a teacher, or a witty in joke for a friend.

Isn't it great when something you have been dreaming about comes together?

 

Influence

Influence is a strange thing.

Last month, at the time of the magazine photoshoot I moved a pen and ink drawing that a family friend had given Euan and I as a wedding present from the hall to our bedroom.  I always find that moving a picture makes me see it anew.

It is a meticulously worked drawing of a man, musical instruments and topiary.  I have always loved it.

At the same time I was designing a tea towel as part of our London 2012 range, it was to be a London skyline - silhouettes like our cats and dogs cushions, with some fine line embroidery in the background.

I spent a lot of time sketching London landmarks, cutting them out, sticking them together and then last week began to piece it all together.

Today I finished it off and I realised that it has been influenced immeasurably by Glen's picture.

It makes me wonder what it would have looked like had I not re-arranged the pictures.

Now the finished embroidery goes to Kate who scans it onto the computer, makes sure there is no errant fluff and sends it down to the tea towel people to sort out the printing.  The finished tea towel should be up on the website some time next week.

New things

Last month I was invited down to the HQ offices of the Not on the High Street website (www.notonthehighstreet.com) as I sell many of my products through them.  There are lots of independent sellers on the site and each year some get invited to Richmond to put faces to names and discuss plans for the future.

I got a chance to say how I see Snapdragon growing in 2012 and they got a chance to say what kind of products they feel would sell well on the site.

Sometimes I am guilty of being a bit of a country bumpkin.  Weeks can go by without me leaving our land - a trip to Glasgow is a big adventure.  So I hadn't really planned to do anything connected to the Olympics or London, or the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

Until I was asked to.

I am designing a range of things - these are the first - glasses cases with an iconic London double decker on them;  One an applique in red cord

The other an outline sketch.

Both are embroidered freehand by me and can be personalised with text in the number plate and numbers in the bus blind.

You can get to the website by clicking the photos.

I really enjoyed designing these - particularly the outline one it must be said (though it is the more difficult to embroider- surprise, surprise)

Back in the saddle . . .

Today the schools went back and we all came back to work.

I have been doing the odd bit of work over the holidays - some retail orders, some organising and proofing printing, that kind of thing but there hasn't been much of a flow and it is brilliant to have a full workshop again.  I have missed the team.

However we are having to hit the ground running - on Friday I head down to London to set up for the Top Drawer Trade Show at Earl's Court.

It's the only Trade show we do now and its a chance to show off our new designs, meet up with stockists, and tell the story of what we do face to face.

Every year the same thing happens - sometime in October I begin to think of what needs to be done for the show, I maybe do some sketching, I make up a couple of prototypes . . . and then the Christmas rush starts and all our energy is taken up with just keeping up.

and suddenly I am spat out the other end of festivities and have to finalise designs, work out the year's pricing and sort out packaging/order forms and getting everything down to London all within a week.

In a week that is already buzzing with post Christmas orders . . . .

Thank goodness I only have to make 1 of each design.

The photographs here are of some new postcard designs which we are launching at the show, but which should be up on the website by the end of the week.

 

Today is our last order date for Pre-Christmas delivery

After posting yesterday about trying to keep our order dates as late as possible I was really amazed at how orders continued to pour in - quite a different pattern from last year.

I began to get worried that we would end up posting orders out at the last possible minute.

I began to get worried about weather forecasts and rumours of vomiting bugs sweeping the area.

I don't really like the stress of hoping that people get their orders delivered on Christmas Eve.

I don't really like getting phonecalls from people who have just remembered that they need their order for 15th and can I speed it all up a bit.

So we have decided to blink and to make today our last order date before Christmas

Just making the decision has made me feel a lot more in control - and now I shall go and concentrate on getting the 560 orders we have waiting made, packed and out the door in an efficient and happy manner!

Hope you all have a fantastic day.

I had great plans

This year I thought that I would be organised and had several customer newsletters prepared to send out pre-Christmas to encourage people to buy their presents . . .well I needn't have bothered!

It has been so busy - with well over 100 orders coming in a day for the past week - that I daren't risk sending any of the newsletters out!  I'm now glad that I didn't take out any Christmas adverts!

In fact Valerie and I shall be having a meeting first thing on Monday morning to decide whether we need to stop taking orders for certain things  . . . . we can't risk not being able to fulfill orders and there is a limit to how fast even supersonic sewers and packers like us can work!

So now I'm off back to my machine to start work on embroidering some glasses cases . . . probably one of the things we shall have to take off the website on Monday!

Goodness is that the time . . .

This year has been whizzing by - and it seems to be getting faster as we head towards the end.

I realised today that we are very near to the last order date for framed versions of our Art Prints if you want them for Christmas - the very last, non-negotiable, not-at-all-flexible order date for them is 1st December as I need time to get them framed properly.

There are 2 prints - a groovy alphabet one which is printed from my original vintage fabrics appliques

and looks wonderful both in adult or kids parts of a house.

and a Land Rover one - again printed from my embroideries

I am now very excited as I have worked out how to embroider new bespoke number-plates for the land rover

they are embroidered onto vintage linen and then heat sealed to the print - the photo shows one of these - in fact the printing of the background itself is so good that you can hardly tell the difference.

So if you know someone who would love to see their Land Rover immortalised - well you know where to go. www.snapdragongarden.co.uk

But please, please - if you want a framed one - let me know soon!

A find

This morning I was searching through the shelves of fabric looking for some old linen to make a poppy tea towel.  I pulled out a piece about 18 inches square and found this

It is obviously done from a transfer pattern - first the transfer has been put onto the linen and then individual elements have been put onto fabrics which were then cut out and glued to the linen back.

some pieces are then painted - though I am not sure whether they could have been supplied ready painted as a kind of kit.

I suspect that that may have been the case as a lot of the painting seems a bit more assured than the cutting out, particularly on the woman's face.

I'm also assuming that there should have been stitching along all the transfer lines.

Obviously I'm not the only one to pile up part finished projects in a drawer.

I'm not  sure who gave this to us - the linen was folded and looked plain from the outside.  It is a great treasure though - I shall have to think of what to do with it - for it deserves to be saved.