Merry Christmas x

Late as ever, but I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas full of peace and love and fun. Thank you to all the wonderful people who have made 2010 such a fantastic year for Pipany the business, and also for Pipany the person!



So many plans for next year which I can't wait to work on, but for now love and best wishes to you all,
Pipany xxx

Noticings.

Things I am noticing:

1. It is cold. This is for the terminally unobservant who may not have noticed. I felt it needed saying as I am perishing cold and trying to sew with mitts on ... and this is Cornwall!!! Obviously I am a wuss as most of you are enduring far worse than me, but there we are. Playing Christmas songs takes my mind off it for a while (and copious amounts of mulled wine helps - no, not now! I am a responsible parent!!!)



2. There was a chilli trying to ripen in our courtyard, bless it.



I rescued it and turned it into a delicious Thai dish (hmm, not sure that actually constitutes 'rescuing' does it?) with much ginger, coriander and a bunch of spring onions. I would like to say I am telling you this in a manner reminiscent of the wonderfully buxom Nigella, but frankly I am sadly lacking in this department and my shoulder blades would make a better show of it.



3. The ducks are eating as though it were their last meal. The pond has frozen solid and has to be smashed each day to allow them to swim. Why on earth one would wish to dip one's feet not to mention one's nether regions into a punishingly cold pond of mucky water is quite beyond my understanding, but then I am not a duck (though have frequently been called quackers). Groan.



4. There are still plenty of berries left in the garden for the birds and other wildlife.



From where I sew I watch the myriad antics of mice, a sweet shrew and an endlessly changing parade of birdlife including a pied wagtail who hovered outside the window for ages chirruping away that he was starving and would appreciate it if I would supplement the berries with some other stuff. I may not be a duck, but I have a Do-Little-ish understanding of other birdlife and their twitterings y'know.



5. The camera does lie. This fact was brought home to me by two pictures I took of this morning's sunrise which was in fact pink of hue. The camera took my sunrise and changed it to the golden-bathed images you see here



very lovely in a sort of early eighties Tampax commercial kind of way, but not what I was looking at which was more like this:



So, there we are. Enough of my noticings and back to cold and chilly sewing. Normal tone will be resumed next week when I may have thawed a little!

What are you noticing today? x

Snow and an offer.

What an a very un-Cornish weekend it's been: we woke to a scene of snow on Saturday which looked so beautiful in the bright sunshine and then were snowed in yesterday as more fell, billowing over the landscape and turning our steep hill into an icy impassable skid bowl. Of course, I forgot to take any pictures!

So, no school, no post bring my much needed box of notebooks and envelopes and labels and definitely no getting orders to the post office.



Instead Isabella and Daddy steamed the Christmas puddings they had made at the weekend



Lucy and Elias played - trains followed by Tarot with Daddy to the sound of Edith Piaf floating on the air



and as for me? Well, I sewed of course! Thank you by the way to everyone who entered my giveaway and well done to the winners. For the rest who may be interested, I have put a special offer in place for the Dove and Mistletoe Christmas Hearts. They are now available for £14.00 each or £23.00 for a set of two until Monday 6th December.

In the meantime, the sun looks set to shine here so it's back to normal routines...sigh.



Have a good day x

Giveaway Winner(s)

The giveaway is over and the winner as chosen by the Random Generator is.....

The lovely Donna Flower!

Of course, me being me I felt mean that so many of you sweet people had entered and so decided to give three more hearts away. The numbers chosen were for the equally lovely:

* Julia Crossland

* Gemma Mortlock

& * Roslyn Mitchell



As Donna was the first and therefore the 'real' winner I will send her two hearts - one of each design because I'm quite nice like that!



Please send me your addresses ladies - poltiskofarm@talktalk.net - and I will post them off to you this week.

Well done and thank you all so much for entering. Another one soon methinks!
Happy Sunday x

A Little Heart Giveaway

As a celebration of the fact that we now have computer access and I am no longer floating around in the ether I have decided to do a little giveaway.

The prize will be one of these ...

Either a Mistletoe Peace Heart



or a Dove Peace Heart



Both of which can be seen in my pipany shop along with a whole host of other goodies.



All you have to do to win is say which heart you would like and tell me what you plan to do with it - hang it by the fire, give it as a gift, throw it in the bin...hmm, I so hope not!



The closing date will be Sunday 2pm for no real reason other than that popped into my head as I typed. I shall announce the winner later that day and will post the prize off in about January!! Of course those of you who have waited for previous giveaways from me are probably nodding sagely about now thinking that would be early by my standards, but I promise to be good on this one and post it out next week.



So there you are. I hope you will all enter and pass the message on to other bloggers as I love it when new people visit. It is open to all as ever - new visitors, old (!) friends and those who have won before. Here's a snowy picture to get you in the mood (and we have sun here today typically).



Oh and I nearly forgot to say that if you look on my sidebar you will see Pipany now has a Facebook page. Do pop over for a look please as it may be very lonely over there!

Have a good Thursday x

I'm Back!

At last, we have bitten the bullet and bought a new computer. Our old one has been worked on, gone wrong again, worked when it felt like it...you get the picture? We brought the ancient laptop into play, but it couldn't cope with all we needed it to do. Dear son, Sam, lent us his computer and even that started to go wrong! Definitely time to accept defeat, especially when you run a mostly online business and it is the busiest season of the year.



And oh my, has it been busy!



Having spent seven days a week working from about 7am till way past midnight for the last goodness knows how many weeks I can honestly say I have learnt a few lessons:

1. I need sleep!

2. There is no such thing as too much stock in hand.

3. When your partner and best friend (who has a three week old baby I might add) are frantically cutting out, your children are stuffing Christmas hearts and helping package orders for wholesale and even your daughter who lives a long way away is sending down packages of notebook covers all ready to be hand embroidered then it really is time to consider employing!



Pipany has really taken off this year which is so exciting for me as I had a plan when I started it with my tiny baby in tow - I wanted it to gradually grow over four years ready for when Isabella started school full time which happens in January. When one baby moves on the other will be waiting for me and I will be able to push it to the next stage. And that means employing.

One thing about sewing almost all day (and all night) is that your mind is free to wander. For me this means I have a whole host of ideas for how to take the business forward.



All I need now is for Christmas to arrive so that I can actually sit and plan out how to make it all happen!



In the meantime, it is back to work. Apologies to all who have enquired about how we coped with the recent floods - we are fine thank you as we live high on a hill so were unaffected unlike so many other poor souls. Apologies also to any customers who may be waiting to hear from me! Now we have a computer that works I will get there I promise!

Oh and look who's beautiful daughter graduated last week - congratulations my beautiful, talented, totally gorgeous Lauren. We love you x



Have a good day and see you soon x

P.S. The Christmas Emporium is now open!

Going fast and Going Slow.

Yet more old photographs I'm afraid. Still waiting for the return of our computer and thus still using ye old and slow laptop in the meantime. Things could be worse though as I can at least access my orders and believe me, dealing with orders is pretty much all I seem to do these days.



It has been unbelievably busy with midnight seeming an old friend as I work away on the ever-increasing invoice list. The Notonthehighstreet Christmas catalogue is now out and orders for my Garden Journal have gone through the roof, far exceding the projected order figures.



This is all fantastic news and definitely helps to build my belief in what I am doing though I do miss eating properly, cooking properly, sleeping for a whole night and of course, blogging but that is more down to the lack of a decent computer. Hopefully it will return to us soon.



Watch this space! In the meantime, I will dip into blogs when I can though leaving comments is beyond my patience for now as it takes sooo long on the laptop.

Missing you all. Have fun x

Frustration!

Our computer is ill, so ill it has gone to be repaired and I have a laptop that takes frequent breaks instead. This is bad - no comments to be left on blogs; no blogging as such and highly stressful business runnning to be had.



So, I am popping in to say I am here, sort of, but not in any real way until the darned thing is back. Apologies for lack of commenting though I am reading on and off.I will also post a lovely giveaway win when I can get some pics to show you (thank you Vivienne).



In the meantime, have fun and sorry for these ludicrously inappropriate photos which are pretty much all that's on the laptop...sigh.

Bye for now x

Paper, Packaging and post.

Well, so much for me blogging about a new make. I haven't had a chance to complete it let alone photograph it as the orders have been piling in since the Noths catalogue came out. Very good news indeed. The postman has brought me a few new things too: bolts of gorgeous linen/cotton fabric which provides the perfect background for most of my hand embroidered designs.



There is something very exciting about a whole roll of fabric, however large or small it may be. But then, I also find a stack of tissue paper really exciting,



particularly when combined with sparkly red ribbon.



Still it's not all work here. A very lovely friend visited today and brought treats. Yummy choc chip cookies



and equally yummy iced cupcakes. The icing had a hint of jasmine and was just so delicious.



There were more, but I have been rather hungry! Ah well, I'll show you one of the Cornish Aromatic apples from the garden instead (though I will heartily agree if you think there is no comparison in the yum stakes. Much as I love apples, those cakes were sooo delicious).



One last bit of good news before I go: a very lovely lady is soon opening a gallery close to the beautiful Cotehele House in Cornwall and has placed a (very large) order with me to stock my products. Hurrah! I am very excited about this and my lovely Lauren is coming home for the weekend to work for her Mum as my first employee! Thank heavens for a daughter who has her degree in textiles! More about the gallery in the near future.



But for now I must go. The children need feeding and I have an evening of sewing ahead.
Have fun whatever you are doing x

A Sunny Sunday.

Wasn't the weather just beautiful this Sunday afternoon? A soft light filled the air turning even the hot sunshine into a misty-edged gold. We went for a walk through the town looking at the boats in the harbour en-route before heading off to the beach for a chilled out couple of hours.



The waves crashed in as though they were in a hurry, white frothy tops curling and breaking onto the sandy shore in a manic rush



as the turbulent sea surged and swelled making ready for the next onslaught.



We searched for shells, but there were few of these pretty flat winkles in evidence for once.



Colours seemed to gleam in the misty light, even the bright, bright pink of Lucy's cardigan taking on a softer tone as she clambered over the rocks.



Isabella busied herself by bashing a rock against the limpet shells in a determined effort to reduce them to sand.



Fortunately they were already broken before she got hold of them!



The strong breeze was exhilarating and did away with the need to chat as we sat soaking up the day with our backs against the hot stone. So wonderful to just watch it all happening just in front of us, the noise of the waves overladen every so often with the peep-peeping of oyster catchers. These graceful birds are one of my favourites, the sound of their calling reminding me of watching them as a child on the beach at Bude in north Cornwall where I grew up.



Rock pools to investigate



Running with the wind in her hair, sea-soaked skirts billowing around her legs



And a thoughtful Mr Davey strolled across the sands.



In the distance we spotted some brave/mad souls wading through the swirling water to reach the larger rocks.



The waves grew higher and higher after they left, finally covering the rocks as the tide raced in.



Very beautiful to watch with sillhoueted rocks seeming forbidding in the haze.



The weekend didn't only consist of the beach however, not with a brand new cardboard box in the house. No, much sellotape and marker pen ink was used as they created a clubhouse;



one which I note I am not allowed to enter (despite being the one to clear it away at the end of the day!).



So, it was a good weekend in all, helped along by these scrumptious chocolate chip muffins courtesy of Dave and Isabella.



Back tomorrow hopefully with a new make for my website. Have fun x