A Post With a Point.

Just a quick post today as I am a little busy and a little poorly too...sympathy please! It's nothing much but my head feels so full of cotton wool as the last dregs of a summer (ha!) virus recedes into the mist - and rain - that I really feel I am sewing in a cloud rather than my sewing room. Still, it's nothing that an early night won't see the end of and as I am rambling I shall proced to the point - yes, there is one - of today's post. It is not pertaining to the ducks, though I felt an update on progress was necessary just because...

So cute aren't they? Ahem, the point is actually to do with these Ship Ahoy Beach Bags which are on offer until Friday 1st of July (that is this coming Friday for those of a similarly fuzzy headed state) as I desperately need to make some room for new products on my shelves. These bags have a hand embroidered panel of a jaunty boat in wavy sea and are lined with ticking to make them very durable for those trips to the beach. They come in two sizes: Adult sized with an interior pocket and little bag of shells collected by the Cornish fairies (me and the children) from around our coast

and child sized, also with a bag of shells which can be added to on similar beach forays.

The adult version is reduced from £24.00 to £20.00

The child's version is reduced from £18.50 to £15.00

By the way, thank you for such lovely comments about the Berry Cushions which are already pleasingly popular on the website.

So did you get it? This was the point of the post....

Thank you from a fuzzy Pip (which sounds like something rather horridly mouldy and is similar to how I felt this weekend...poor me) x

Berry Lavender Cushion by Pipany.

I am still feeling drawn to all the gorgeous fruits burgeoning in the garden: the redcurrants, plums and cheery cherries dangling from the trees. They have inspired me to make this newest item in my Pipany range - a Berry Lavender Cushion.

This bowl of redcurrants picked from our old bush made me decide to add a Cornish Blue inspired appliqued bowl

and here it is...

I used a mix of techniques including hand embroidery, freehand machine embroidery and applique to get the effect I was after.

The reverse can be personalised with the name of your choice & a butterfly or two.

Who could fail to be inspired by such beautiful, glowing colours?

Not Isabella that's for sure.

So there you have it: a Pipany berry inspired lavender cushion, lovingly stitched by me in my little sewing room in (finally) sunny Cornwall & available here!

Do you like it? (Oh, I do hope so!) x

Growing Away.

Not many words today, but plenty of pictures of how I waste my time by watching the ducklings doing what they do which is mostly swimming on our pond.

and eating

followed by a little more swimming

which makes them hungry so...

I guess you get the picture.

Sweet May and little Pecan, growing huge feet and long beaks, but gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

That's it apart from a peek at the makings of something new in the fruity line which I do work on when not duckling distracted.

What is catching your eye today? x

Last Weekend's Escape.

We have had a truly dour week in my bit of Cornwall weatherwise with rain which filled the wildlife pond back to overflowing and cold, dark days. Not the best, so I thought I would pop back to last weekend when we escaped on Mermaid for the day in hot, sunshiney weather which suggested summer had arrived - hah!

Lucy had a magazine to hand.

Elias, Davey and I set up our rods for a spot of fishing which, as ever, brought nothing...not even a bite. One day ...

Clear seas revealing golden sands and all kinds of shells.

And then on to the beach where drifts of pretty sea pinks lined the rocks.

Not all the shorelife is particularly pretty as this sea slug demonstrates, but it was fascinating to see so many of them along the shoreline.

Isabella's clothes were hung to dry within about five minutes of arriving, as is the norm.

Isabella was not sure what to make of the slugs

deciding to head off for wildlife of a less slimy disposition.

The boys took Mermaid off for a little pootle around the bay before we headed back after a hot and blissful day on the beach. As I sailed her home she drifted quietly in the evening breeze and we all drifted with her, thoughts calm and voices quiet. True bliss!

Wonder what this weekend will bring x

The Design Process.

I thought I would show a little of how the design process works for me. Sometimes it all comes so easily and other times ... well, let's just say I'm sure I am not the only designer/maker who litters her workroom with a kaleidoscope of fabric pieces, abandoned half-worked designs and the clumps of hair she has ripped from her head in frustration. Okay, so slight exaggeration there but you get my point.

All my designs are inspired by the things around me, the things I encounter on my way around my Cornish home or the things I do in my Cornish home. They are all things I am passionate about and therefore become part of that other area of my life so closely interwoven in my world - my Pipany business. On this particular occasion I had been wandering around the garden checking on the progress of things in between feeding the ducklings and cooking the dinner as you do. I had no thoughts of designing in my head, just the enjoyment of seeing the fruits growing heavy on the trees - the apples, plums and gages all beginning to weigh the branches down with the promise of good crops ahead...

when my greedy eyes fell on the redcurrant bush, an old and somewhat scrappy specimen which is always covered in fruits despite the fact that it gets uprooted by gales every single year no matter what I do to support it. I grabbed a bowl and filled it with these most beautiful globes of purest scarlet, the light catching every tiny ball and making it glisten.

As I picked I started to 'see' various pictures of berries as components of journal covers and lavender sachets; I could see the way the bowl or basket could be appliqued and how the branch would swoop down towards it. I took a number of photographs of the currants to have on hand if I didn't get to work on the design while the currants were still around, but really the next bit was to get into my sewing room and go for it.

The first piece came together easily, the freehand embroidery of the branches appearing on the fabric exactly as I wanted, the working of the berries taking a little longer, but the colour being perfect with the stripes of the ticking used for the basket. I added some hand embroidered blades of grass but felt this piece told its story through the red berries and kept the rest of the design as simple as possible.

To pick up the ticking I used a darker colour than I normally would for the personalisation at the bottom, the slightly wavy line of the text perhaps suggesting a path or some uneven ground (and believe me, our garden has some very uneven ground!).

So, there you have it - beautiful scarlet berries from our garden

transformed into a gorgeous Personalised Berry Journal by Pipany - available here.

Hope you like it xx

Babies all the way!

It has happened - Davey and I are grandparents with the first beautiful baby to be born to one of our gorgeous children.

She arrived safe and sound after an awful lot of work from her poor Mamma who did it all brilliantly.

She is perfect and we all love her to pieces.

Welcome to the world little Scarlett Elizabeth and the hugest of hugs to her very clever mummy xx

Sigh..... x

P.S. Off to take our five year old to school now - funny old world isn't it?!!