Snapdragon's garden

Finished at last!

This week I have finally finished the camper van needlepoint cushion from Pearl and Earl that I started about 3 years ago.

In my defense I did lose it for 18 months of that period having "tidied" it away when we had a party and promptly forgot where I put it.

It is pretty typical of me though - I have a terrible habit of starting projects and then not finishing them.

Which is why I was delighted when Jacqui Pearce told me that she was bringing out a book of supersize needlepoint patterns -

projects in other words designs that are big on style but which shouldn't take years to make (unless you lose them)

I love this rainbow tea cosy and think I may convert it into a cushion

There are also lots of projects which could be easily made by children but which aren't at all twee.

I am thinking of asking my youngest to make me this eggy picture for the kitchen.

A new page for Snapdragon

I am not a natural business woman. My background is largely academic - my degree was in Art History, my post grad in Museums studies and I happily immersed myself in the rather rarefied world of museum galleries until I decided one morning that it just wasn't what I wanted to spend my life doing.

So I left work when pregnant with my younger daughter, retrained in horticulture and started to grow flowers, selling them from a vintage citroen h van in the drive and at local farmers markets.

(wet flowers)

The change in the climate and a period of dragging illness gradually ruled that out as a properly commercial business but by then I was embroidering things, selling them at fairs like Country Living.

We bought an airstream, I moved the business out of the kitchen and had a proper workspace.

I began to sell wholesale to shops - I took on a team of helpers, we built a wooden cabin in the field behind the house

A work space which - as you can see - we quickly outgrew.

It became obvious that unless I managed to clone myself then I would have to expand the non embroidery side of the business.

So we developed the printed side of the range - and I am so delighted with it.  Every single vehicle mug we make makes me smile.

But really - from month to month, year to year there has been no plan, no strategy just a kind of frantic pedalling.

Last week I found that Snapdragon has been accepted onto Scottish Enterprise's High Growth Pipeline

Which basically means that we have been identified as a business with exceptional growth potential, as a business which would repay some investment of time and expertise.

I am pretty overwhelmed that my little old kitchen table business seems to have grown up while I was busy with other things.

And so, here we are on a new page - a page that will be immensely exhilerating and challenging, a bit frightening and definitely in need of a plan.

Light

Lack of light is a great problem in Scotland at this time of year.

It was one of the main reasons that I gave up my job as an art gallery curator back in 2000 - my basement office had no windows and regular working lunches at my desk meant that it was perfectly possible to see no daylight during the week.  I decided that was not cut out to live my life as a mole.

So when we altered and extended the house here a couple of years ago, getting as much light as possible into the house was my main priority and we made a room off the main living space with 2 walls of windows

Somewhere to sit with a coffee and a book, gazing out into the garden and soaking up as much daylight as possible.

and just as importantly, somewhere to keep my scented leaf geraniums over the winter. 

It is amazing, it can be dark and dreich outside, but just brushing past the lemony leaves takes me right back to long summer days.