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one spectacular summer

I'm feeling a bit guilty as I've done so little blogging of late but only as I've had the most spectacularly busy summer with....

photos by Craig McBeth

....my beautiful sister's and cousin's weddings....

....my eldest sister and family visiting from Australia....

...a holiday on a boat...

...and falling in love with Scotland again on a trip to Assynt...

...so you see I've barely had time to concentrate on my own bits and pieces...

....and that's not to mention my work.....

...I've started a blog and facebook page for inis the fashion boutique I'm working for and have been working hard to get it going and am loving every minute of it! It's a great challenge and I thrive on finding inspiration from the clothes and accessories instore and turning it all into an attractive and hopefully interesting post. Please have a look and let me know what you all think!

thank you

L x

RADish

Who knew one could find art dans le supermarché??? More pics from le grande voyage soon....

Finished Fashion Fabrics!

Still waiting on results coming in..............

My brief was to produce a shaped front panel for a garment designed with a style icon in mind. I designed a 70s inspired playsuit for indie/folk singer Jenny Lewis, encorporating frills, bib, smocking and lace, and of course my favourite colour of yarn.......... .................please click to enlarge images - they're much more interesting close up!

today I am mostly....

....photoshop-chopping, cycling to the shops, eating hula hoops and drinking coffee, not doing chores, listening to Cloud Control and looking forward to going to the mighty Sandy Bell's with my wee bro and Px before heading to the Edinburgh College of Art degree show. Hurrah for Thursdays!

Things you might not know about me No.4

You may not know that I am a country girl at heart.

I've really been blessed with an idyllic upbringing on my dad's sheep farm in the Scottish Borders along with my two amazing big sisters and coolest little brother. After a few stints in the city and overseas I now find myself, through circumstance, living back at home and actually wondering where else I could possibly live that would bring me an equaled sense of belonging and content.

Here's a picture of the view from dad's 'office' where I helped him mark lambs over the weekend.

Mrs Scott's Wonderful Sewing Box (and other treasures)

A few weeks ago my friend Gina very kindly asked me if I could make use of a sewing box, knitting needles and yarns which had belonged to her granny who sadly passed away a wee while ago. Of course I jumped at the chance and said yes I'd love to give them a home and called round to collect them. Well, what a delightful pile of goodies I did receive! A bin liner full of yarns, a carrier bag of knitting needles and this lovely little box of treats! And buttons! Hundreds and hundreds of lovely buttons! I cannot wait to have a really good rummage through, organise it all and start crafting with all these lovingly collected materials.

Receiving this wonderful gift has made me realise what a personal thing a sewing box can be, with a lifetime of work and skill unravelling inside. Although I don't think I ever really met Mrs Scott I feel honoured to have inherited a little piece of her life and thank Gina and her mum for sharing this with me.x

I love love my job!

I've had a pretty exhausting and varied week at work making changes to the website, stock taking, photographing and even modeling! However without a doubt my favourite task was making up and sending out my first ever newsletter. As I've only recently started using Photoshop this was a great achievement for me and now i'm feeling super inspired and can't wait to get started on the next one! I really hope its a success....in fact why don't you sign up here!

(credit to Px for his amazing photography skills!x)

I've also fallen a little bit in love with this white Hobbs dress and am desperately trying to justify buying it for my holidays! What do you think?

Stringy things!

Remember a little while ago I started hand spinning some yarn for class? Well this is the final result! My inspiration was 'dry stane dykes' and I used a variety of materials to capture the essence of these beautiful structures in the form of crafted, hand-spun and machine spun yarns.

At the end I had loads of test yarns left over which I decided to knit into a little patchwork rock cosy to display how the yarns might look when knitted up - it was so fun!

I'm pretty happy with the result and am dreaming of making these yarns into some beautiful jewelry like this by Heather Goldberg, oh so pretty!

Zing - M.I.A

Sad news. Poor little Zing has been lost in the post - somewhere between Scotland and Australia. Have you seen him? I hope he's ok, its been weeks since we last saw him. I'm hoping he met a nice lady cat on the plane and stopped off for a romantic tour of South East Asia, or maybe a nice little girl or boy found him and took him home to hug and squeeze forever. If you see him please tell him we love him and miss him very much and to hurry home.

Things you might not know about me No.3...... and a birthday treat

You may not know that I love tea. You probably also don't know that I have a particularly special favourite type of tea. Have you ever tried Jan de Vries Dutch Herbal Tea? You should try it - its magnificent.

These are some ingredients: peppermint leaves, rosehips, strawberry leaves, juniper berries, sage leaves, golden rod herb(?!), birch leaves, lavender flowers, passion flower herbs and many many more deliciously chopped up tiny wee pieces of plants! WoW! Now I'm not really a herbal tea fanatic - I'm more of a coffee kinda girl but this tea has converted me - I've been raving about it for weeks - and Px loves it too so I've been buying it in bulk!

The other day I tried to make my own dandelion tea from the over grown mass on Px's lawn. I picked off all the little yellow heads and boiled them up. The result was surprisingly palatable (helped along with a spoonful of sugar!). I used the heads but I understand the leaves are good too when dried out. I'd like to try making some strawberry leaf tea this summer, I bet its super tasty.

This is my special little Spode tea cup and a pretty little bag of cookies my friend Marianne baked for me last month for my birthday. Lucky Loulou! They were so tasty with big chunks of dark and white chocolate mixed through. Thank you Marianne!

A New Creative Space

I've recently been in the very fortunate position of having a huge room at my parents house (actually my wee brother's old room) where I can spread out all of my arting and materials and do my work in. However, my mum is reclaiming the space as another spare room is needed for the guests coming to my sister's wedding in August. I've had this in the back of my mind for the past year so have never fully organised the room and haven't spent much time making it into a nice homey workspace knowing I'd be moving out anyway. So here's a little glimpse of my room as it is - its not pretty and I'm not particularly proud of it but its done the job......

SO....fortunately we live in a big old farm house and have a little playroom 'up-the-backstairs' where we spent countless hours as children playing dress-up, Sylvanian Families and listening to LW Radio Atlantic 252 (remember that?)! I love this wee room and have always dreamt of converting it into my studio and now its finally happening!

HOWEVER, this room is also a shambles with decades of the junk, treasures, toys & memories of a family of six accumulating and never really being tackled....until now. This is the 'playroom' as it is.....

Up the backstairs.....

Look at my lovely view of the woods!

Narnia is a crumbling wall.

Needless to say I've got my work cut out for me! I'm waiting for the plasterer to come and fix my walls before I can paint then start moving in! Watch this creative space!