And we're moving......

Not in the real sense......... just in the blog sense whilst we re-design/clean-up/sow some seeds sense - to here.

Note great swathes or aforementioned green - with purple...

Sowing seeds

 

On such a filthily cold day, my happiness comes from the above, or in fact a studio filled with the above. There are hundreds and hundreds of seedlings in various states in here,taking advantage of all the light. There have however been some spectacular failures, so a re-order has been made. It doesn't seem wasteful at £2 a packet for what could deliver between 30 and 300 plants. Truth be told these disasters could have been avoided. I was too early sowing but I couldn't look at those seed packets any longer. The one warm and sunny day in February (remember it?)lulled me into a false sense of Spring and I just wanted to get my hands in soil. I belong to the gloves off gardening club, which is a good thing as when I belonged to the gloves on sector, I usually lost one fairly rapidly which defeated the object entirely.

So thank you Nicky's Nursery for coffee coloured foxgloves ( I know I know - too fantastic) amongst other delights, and my own garden(s) where seeds have been dutifully gathered from fallen plants over the last few years. I'm hoping there is no orange or purple flowers lurking in there as this would be upsetting. I've always disliked these colours in city gardens - perhaps I'm missing out on something, but I think not. When you are walled in on three sides, it is green you need and great frothy swathes of the stuff - just to balance out all that concrete and grey. I could of course reject the city garden restrictions and move to that ramshackle farmhouse mentioned earlier. I might then let purple in - but never ever orange.

Sowing seeds indeed.

Storytelling

 

40,000 words delivered ( well just under....) and seven days of shoots completed. I am thrilled - well beyond thrilled actually. A wonderful photographer and a great publisher. Every image is telling a story - through cloth, because I think cloth is one of the greatest storytellers. It talks of travels near and far, people you’ve loved and some you’ve lost. It talks of huge life choices and sometimes just a simple, lovely shopping experience. In my next book, Hungarian linen jostles next to mud cloth from Mali. My favourite Japanese silk looks perfectly happy with vintage army blankets and khadi cotton - well it just looks beautiful and home is of course at the forefront of everything I make or write. Old and new, fine and rustic, every piece of fabric or project has a story and place. One more shoot next week and we're off in book layout mode (did I mention I have an amazing book designer), then the fiddly bits and then it's out. October 2013 - I'm looking forward to meeting you.

Thank you The Guardian

 

Always slightly alarming when one is confronted by a DPS of oneself! Hey ho... Lovely Hannah Booth at the Guardian wrote v nice things about me over the weekend.

The best thing is that there is (abbreviated) instructions of how to make one of my favourite quilts - so click here and all will be revealed. If you want the detailed instructions, it is of course all in Quilt Love.

Mindful making

I've finished renovating our house, 2012 and my next book - all culminating in the same week! The garden is still rubbish and I'm not looking my most glamorous , but seed lists are being drawn up as we speak and the glamour - well it's nothing a bit more sleep won't sort out. 

I am however  really happy with this book, as although it is a making book, I hope it is also a thought provoking book.  I know it will be propped in the craft section of bookstores which is absolutely dandy, but I  just wish there was a section called Mindful Making - because I think of good making as thinking with your hands. 

Waterstones in Kensington call their craft section  Practical Art  - which is a little better, and an old local book store has craft books next to 'mindfulness' books - but I don't think that was intentional. I worry that craft and craftmanship are sliding further and further apart with craft becoming very much a bish, bosh, bash approach and craftmanship slipping further out of reach. We all used to make because of both necessity and desire and it was mostly great stuff. I wouldn't be the me I am today without the teenage 'making experimental fashion' years - and I get positively grumpy if my hands aren't active, but I have never thought of myself as a 'crafter'.  

I haven't made New Years resolutions - mainly because of the first line of this post, but I know that 2013 is steering off into a slightly different path, where my hands and my mind are a little more closely engaged.

I can't think of anyone who lives and breathes MM more than Dosa or Alabama Chanin.

A nice piece

A nice piece from the very nice people at The Simple Things. I must find another photo....

Quilt Love is officially on sale today - thank you for the lovely emails so far.

A lovely event, a free pattern and the chance to make something lovely for someone who needs it...

We’ve all known people who need some comfort – it could be a friend, neighbour or someone you don’t know at all. It’s not often that we know quite how to help them. One way I’ve tried to make a difference is with a quilt that I’ve featured in Quilt Love based on this idea.   It’s a quilt I love and have made for people (and the occasional dog) when I know they need some comfort and warmth.

It can be made from leftover pieces of fabric, a blanket or two and is really easy to make. It’s a great way to use up old clothing, or fabric stashes. With the help of a few friends it can put it together in an afternoon and make a real difference to someone in need.

I’ll be hosting a drop-in ‘making‘ event for everyone to put together quilts and I’d be delighted to invite you and your friends to come along to:

The very lovely Raystitch, Islington,  London - Monday 29th October from 10am-10pm.
 

If anyone would like to come along they just need to book a space by contacting Raystitch on 020 7704 1060 or info@raystitch.co.uk.

If you can't make it, you can download the pattern free here. Make it, share it with friends, families or colleagues. I hope that you and they will be able to create something together for someone you know (or maybe don't know).

Last but not least, you can also be involved by simply sending some fabric. We need pieces of fabric that are around 33cm wide. Anything you could slip into an envelope would be great. Or you can donate blankets or larger volumes of cloth - just need to get in touch.

All the quilts we make will simply be given to someone in need – someone on the street, someone suffering a loss or someone that just needs to be noticed.

I hope to see some of you on the 29th.

 

On napping

On a little shoot today, this makes me want to have a nap....

Some sneaky peaks

Just two of the projects from Quilt Love - two of my favourite quilts. Tomorrow I have exciting news for a great event that's happening at the end of the month - yes it's about the book, but actually it's so much more than that. I'd like lots of busy hands, because it will make lots of people happy.

Two Roads

I've had several interviews over the last few months - mostly to talk about Quilt Love, but some just about me. I've discovered that changing your path, or defining your own path seems to make other people hopeful that they too could be the different/better version of themselves they dream of. It's not easy, in fact sometimes it's agonising, but I know that not catching the train to somebody elses office five days a week, has made me not only happier but truer.

Six fireplaces

When you buy a period property, you usually want some period features. Estate agents are desperate to point out even a whiff of these features if they exist. Maybe some cornicing or corbels not yet destroyed or original panelled doors not yet replaced by ghastly mdf. Oh - wooden floors - yes please. 

What we really hope for of course, is a fireplace. We don't even seem to mind if it doesn't work. We just want the idea that our room has a central point to gather around and somewhere to celebrate our existence. We want somewhere to put precious items on and somewhere to hang our 'good' art or mirrors. We also want a proud place for birthday cards and party invitations, ticket stubs and favourite photos. It's never really just a fireplace, but more a central focus of our home and family. If we can light it up and truly gather round the hearth while it crackles away - well life would be pretty good.

So imagine our delight when we found our home - We have six!

Our living room has two marble fireplaces - that work. They straddle either end of the bookshelves and hold our favourite things.

Our bedroom fireplace holds Ed's treasured pots and a favourite photograph of my sister and I as a child.

F's bedroom fireplace holds the first piece of 'proper' pottery she bought for herself - she has good taste - and a special jug from New Zealand.

The fireplace in Ed's study is in a state of - well a state really - but we love it just like it is.

And the kitchen fireplace - we still can't quite believe that it was still here - well that has the very important job of storing wine and hiding Mr Darcy's tennis balls.....

For the love of books

 

This is just lovely. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all books could be made like this.

Mollie Makes - book excerpt

 

In this issue of Mollie Makes,  (I think subscribers received it over the weekend) you can make the lovely quilt above. It is of course from Quilt Love and is the first quilt in the book. I hope you like it.

 

Tunnel vision

Renovating a home is not easy full stop. Renovating over a very limited time (four months), with a limited resource makes it tougher. When you are doing most of the work yourself whilst writing and making a second book, working on the launch of the first plus other important work - well ridiculous. 

I've ripped out walls (thank you pilates), built kitchens, filled, sanded, painted, drawn electrical and plumbing plans, fired cabinet makers, delighted in my super electrician, plasterer and plumber, bought more furniture (some new,some old, some rickety) than I thought we would ever need - and somehow we are almost finished. I was very happy when the leaking roof stopped leaking into the studio and euphoric when we actually had a downstairs roof - although the company who put in the glass roof had me in tears most days. Simple things such as 25 cracked or broken panes of glass have been replaced and suddenly the rooms stop looking so shabby. F's room has changed colour three times - the last I mixed myself and it looks like a beautiful mill pond.

We have a beautiful large bedroom with glass doors, which I created from two small and vile rooms and we delight in our simple linen curtains (yes I made them) and our working fireplace. We have a dining conservatory where we eat under the sky and this makes me ridiculously happy. We finally have special pieces of art on the wall that had nowhere to go before and of course all the books are out.

So, I'm almost done, and then I'll be back in a week or so and I'll be wearing a dress instead of filthy t-shirts and combat trousers.

We've got a beautiful book to launch, another lovely one to shoot, our first patterns coming out and a new website - oh and a holiday!

What I really want to know is why am I looking at dilapidated farms on the internet................

Charleston event

You can book now for our special day at Charleston. It's going to be lovely.

£95.00

Tuesday 2 October

10am - 5pm

Bound by the threads that hold them together, patchwork quilts represent so many different areas of life. By including treasured threads in your own patchwork quilt you can begin to create a way of capturing your memories. In past workshops, the scraps of people's lives have been included to emotive effect; from wedding dresses, to collars of city shirts to children’s worn denim. Rummage through the drawers of fabric you have at home, from times gone by, and give their content a new lease of life. The comfort of these blankets extends beyond their surface appearance.

Includes artisan lunch