Christmas Greetings from Blacketyside

Things are winding down now towards the end of the year. Time to tidy up, sort out and clear the head, ready for the new season. I know we are in the middle of doom and gloom with the recession and the credit crunch, but we soldier on, and hope that our creativity doesn't desert us, and we rise to the challenges of the New Year with a host of fresh new designs for our cards.
A little bit of R and R over Christmas should help. We will close the door on the workshop for a few days, and join the rest of the country on our respective settees in front of the telly, fuelled with tasty bites and a glass or two, catch up with our family and walk off the excesses along the beach.
Then when it's all getting too much, I'll sneak back into the workshop, open my sketch pad, tip out all the fabrics and threads and happily become absorbed in creating the "new designs".
I hope all who read this have a happy time over the festive season.
Merry Christmas and all the best for 2009.

The Wee Cat

Apparently no blog is complete without photos of the family cat, so I thought this one would raise a smile. This is the Wee Cat, so named because our last dear departed pet, Leo, was one massive moggy. The Wee cat arrived on our doorstep one day and decided to call it home. In this photo, which is completely unstaged by the way, we spotted him posing beside the pottery wemyss cat and grabbed the camera. It all happened in seconds, which is why the quality of the picture isn't that great. But the look on Wee Cat's face says it all - " OK, so who's better looking, me or that impostor!"

Country Living Christmas Show at Glasgow

Our stand at the Country Living Show.
This was my home from home for four days a couple of weekends ago. The picture shows the calm before the storm, as once the show opened each day, it was packed out. The Show itself was a lovely event, with hundreds of beautifully dressed stands with a country Christmas theme.

Christmas at the Embroidery Workshop

This is the "little shop" part of the Embroidery Workshop. The photos will get better, I promise.

Everyone likes pictures, I know. As soon as I can find a minute, I'll add one or two to brighten up this page.

In The Beginning...

First, an introduction. Welcome to the cottage industry in the Kingdom of Fife, Scotland. The cottage started out back at the beginning of the 20th century, as far as I know. I wasn't alive then. It spent the first eighty years of its life as a home for a succession of farm labourers who worked in the fields round about. It probably didn't change much over that time, apart from a bit of a makeover just after the war, when two new rooms were added to it to give it all of three bedrooms.

Then suddenly it all changed. The cottage was sold, along with others on the farm, and the incomers were not farm workers. They were a teacher, his wife and two children, plus a cat. They moved in, and soon things started to happen. The wife, yes me, had started a small business creating handmade cards - remember, this was 1989, many years before QVC. The handmade cards business took up the kitchen table and sometimes the living room floor, but soon it started to creep into other places in the house, and it was time to move out - into the garden. So the workshop was built, and it hosted embroidery classes as well as a place to work and a little shop to sell the cards.
The teacher gave up his job after a while because the business was growing and needed an extra pair of hands. The children lent a hand now and again too, not always willingly.
The cottage industry was beginning to take shape.
Come up to date - the children have grown up and spread their wings. The cat has gone, and been replaced, twice.The business is the now the child, and a demanding one.
I'll explain more next time.