The veggie garden in flower

Seeing as I've found my blogging mojo again (yeah!) here are some photos I took earlier this week of the veggie garden. After a few days of rain the weeds will no doubt be appearing pretty quickly again.......

Runner beans.....

Broad beans.....

Courgettes......

peas........

the first cornflower........

Californian poppies adding a splash of orange.......

It's been a funny week, lots of time spent glued to the computer putting together leaflets on our courses and doing a bit of P.R. At last I spend the whole day out in the workroom today and it was bliss. Some samples are off in the post, winging their way down to London, so fingers crossed they are magazine worthy.......

Right, off to walk the dog and pop in on some friends for a glass of wine. Have a great weekend.

L x

Courses at Primrose Hill

As I've mentioned before, we're running courses over the summer months here at Mill of Fyall. Never having done this kind of thing before I'm very aware of not biting off more than I chew, something I've been guilty of in the past! So, we're running three courses over the summer, quilting, keeping chickens, and gardening. The dates and details for these are as follows:


19th & 20th July - Quick Quilt in a weekend - with Rachel Simons, award winning quilter and fellow blogger! Great course for anyone wanting to try their hand at quilting, by the end of the weekend you will go home with a lap quilt. 10am - 5pm, £60 per day. Max. of 4 people.


15th August - Patchwork for busy people - Day course exploring time saving techniques in quilting, again run by Rach. 10am - 5pm, £60 for the day. Max. of 4 people.






2nd August & 31st August - Beginners Guide to Keeping Chickens - run by me! A day learning all there is to know about keeping a few chickens in your back garden. You will go home with a half dozen eggs from our flock and hopefully the desire to get your own chickens! 9.30am - 4pm, £45 per day. Maximum of 8 people.




6th September - Herbaceous Gardening - with John Munro, my good friend and gardening guru! John studied at the Royal Botanic gardens in Edinburgh and has lectured at Askham Bryan College in York. He has gardened all over the UK, his last being in Orkney where he had a daily open garden and was in the Yellow book. Now living in Perthshire, he has a wonderful garden that has provided him with many more challenges and again is about to become part of the open gardens scheme in the yellow book. The day course will cover all aspects of herbaceous gardening, both theory and practical. Everything from designing, planning and choosing plants, to division, cuttings, propagation and maintenance. You will go home with plants and also have the oportunity to buy plants. 9.30 for 10am -4pm, £45 for the day.



All of the courses will begin with coffee and scones in the morning, a home made lunch of soup, bread, salad and cheese, and then afternoon tea and cakes.

If anyone is interested in any of the above courses, drop me a line at info@primrosehillinteriors.com and I'll send you the information leaflet.

L x

3 years on......

On the 8th of July 3 years ago we got the keys to our little shack in the country. We were about to embark on a new journey in our life together. Over the last 3 years there have many ups and downs, lots of hard work and far too much blood, sweat and tears shed! Amusingly, I've heard that Gregg was dragged here kicking and screaming to live the life that I wanted........I know that he kind of likes it here, he tells me pretty much every day! The man does have a voice after all, if he really didn't want to move here, I don't think he would have.......

We have met so many wonderful people over the last 3 years, many of which I know we will be good friends with forever as they are very special folk :)


The menagery of animals has grown over the last few years, we still have our two loyal cats, Bud and Lexie, and we have added Chrissie the dog, 22 chickens, William II the cockerel, our two very friendly geese Florence and Felicity, 10 ducks - 8 of which are our ducklings hatched this summer, and a new arrival is coming to join us next month.................

We are gradually getting on top of the garden, the veggie plot has come into itself this year and we only have a tiny bit of fencing left to be done! Gregg has built me the most wonderful studio and shop, a true labour of love. The house is still a bit of a shack, but plans are in hand to sort that out..........
Anyway, I shall leave with some photos of when we arrived to how it is now, a bit of an improvement I think...

Projects......

Time is flying by, it's July already and I've been in the studio for a whole month. The divide between work and home is so much better, Sundays are our day off now, and we love it! The house is just about back to normal, although there is still a rather large pile in my old work room to be sorted out.

I had a great excuse to get tidied up at the weekend, this lovely lady was coming to stay. We had such fun catching up with each other and also planning the first of our summer courses. Rach is coming to do a weekend course "Quick quilt in a weekend" on 19th & 20th July, as the title suggests, you'll go home with a gorgeous lap quilt after two days of expert tuition from this award winning lady!

Along with Rachel's courses we're also going to be doing "Beginners guide to Keeping Chickens" and a gardening course on "Herbaceous Gardening". The leaflets will be finished by the end of this week so if anyone is interested drop me a line at info@primrosehillinteriors.com

Another project that I am working on is really quite exciting. I have been asked by Visit Scotland to produce a collection of work for them to take to the Festival Interceltique in Lorient, Brittany. I don't really do tartan twee so this has been a bit of a challenge, plus there are only so many things that you can make at trade and still make a decent profit. So, my harris tweed stash has been raided and some sketching of thistles has been done.......

I've decided to go for an earthy-grassy-sea inspired pallete of colours, not my usual bright and breezy stuff, and I'm really enjoying the change. The deadline for the finished work is fairly soon, so I'm going to be burning the midnight oil I think, what's new eh!!!

The pictures are of the fabrics I'm using and of the progress I've made today.

Auction love

Fiona commented on my last post that she loved my red dresser, so I thought it was only polite to tell you a little bit about her. I found her loitering at the back of the auction that I frequent, she had my name written all over her, no matter what, she was coming home with me.

She wasn't in too bad a condition, lemon yellow and white, not too ghastly and nothing that a lick of paint wouldn't sort out. So, in my usual fashion, I got round to "doing her up" all of five days before the opening, she had been living in the garage since last summer, shame on me, the poor thing!

Seeing as red is the order of the day in our house, it would have been rude not to paint her red and white. She's told me that she loves her new outfit, wants to live with us forever more and will gladly look after all the lovely things that we put in her..........

Everyone else loves her too, she has received many an "oooh" and an "aaaah", and "ooooh my Granny used to have one of those"!! My nana had one too, I fondly remember playing underneath the counter as a child and constantly banging my head on it........

I think she may be getting a sister soon.......................

L x

Buttercup meadow

From this.........

.......to this.............

I didn't have the heart to cut off all their little heads, and I like the idea of the garden being interesting rather than just a big slab of green grass. The little race track around the bottom of the garden draws you to wander all the way down and look at all the wild flowers.

The Studio has been busy with people popping in and me getting some sewing done, I'm loving having this new space to play in! For those that are local or on holiday in the area we are open:

Monday 12pm - 4pm

Wednesday, Friday & Saturday 10am - 4pm

Or call to come along at a more convenient time and we'll make sure we're here to welcome you.

Some lovely new goodies arrived in the shop today so I must give you a guided tour later on in the week.

Be back soon,

L x

The opening

Well, what can I say? We made it just by the skin of our teeth, some extremely late nights and early starts were had, but it was worth every minute of it. By Saturday morning we had moved into the studio and the shop was all set up, ready and waiting for customers. The other stallholders were all raring to go, lots of plants, cake and candy and vintage bits and bobs were on offer, and the tea tent was brimming with the most yummy selection of cakes I have ever seen.

So did anyone turn up? Gosh, about 200 to be precise! On Saturday the place streamed with people, the sun shone and there was a real magical buzz about the place, it was a really special day, one we'll never forget. Sunday was nice too but the weather broke later in the day, we had a lot of old friends that had come to visit, some that we hadn't seen since we'd moved up here, so it was wonderful to see them all. All in all a fanstastic weekend.

My feet haven't hit the ground since, hence the reason I'm just getting round to posting now! I'll get some better photos taken this weekend, all I can say is that I'm loving working in my studio, I'm having to be dragged out of the place! And amazingly we've had customers every day this week so far! Long may it continue!

I'll leave you with some pictures of the weekend, will be back soon.

L x

The big countdown

Only 4 more working days to go, yet so much still to be done! but, we're getting there slowly. At the beginning of last week the windows went in (made by Greggs fair hands too), now we've just got the floor to lay, skirtings to go on and the sockets to wire up. Outside there's still lots to do, we're not going to get the deck laid in time, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day! The photo above is of me contemplating how much still had to be done!

Here's how we left it tonight, the roof is up, the walls are clad and painted and the lights are up too, it's all coming together really nicely. Just need lots of stock to fill it now!!

On the sewing front, I'm disappointed in the lack of stock I've got made, I just didn't appreciate how much organising this would take and also how much painting there was to do!!! Hopefully in the next day or so the sewing machine will be working over time!

On the animal front, over the weekend the ducklings hatched, 8 little bundles of fluff, the cutest little things I've ever seen, and boy do they hit the ground running!!! I'll get some decent photos of them this week, as they grow at a tremendous rate.

So, I'm off to get a bit more sewing done, it would be nice to get to bed on the same day as I got up.........

Will try and post photos of it all before Saturday, wish us luck!

L x

The red door

What do you think? When we were up North I was inspired by a little white cottage with red woodwork and doors, I fell in love with it! So we now have a lovely red reclaimed door and the windows are going to match. Only 3 weeks to go until the grand opening so we're on the big count down, fingers crossed it all comes together!

L x

Another step forward...

There are some parts of the business that I love, and there are some parts that I feel I'm constantly chasing my tail with, forever. Yep, you guessed it, the website. Whenever I talk to anyone in business about web sites I'm constantly met with the comment "they're great but they just constantly need updating!". It's true, no sooner have you uploaded your latest additions than you're thinking about how you're going to change it again!

So, at last we have made a huge change to ours, we've added a "click and buy" system, it's been long enough in the making, but I'm actually quite pleased with it. It's no great shake, loads of sites have it, we've just been extremely slow in getting round to doing it. The desire has always been there, but time is never on our side! Me being me, I was never going to be happy with using the standard Paypal buttons on offer, so I messed around for a while until I got something I was happy with, simple, but rather good looking, I think so anyway.

I say "we" as it's pretty much all of Gregg's hard work, I provide photos, text and design direction and he does the rest, without him, I wouldn't even have a website. For that I am extremely grateful. Aren't husbands wonderful things..... ;)

Have a look and let me know what you think, all feed back is greatly appreciated.

Happy Friday for tomorrow, I'm painting the studio door, making up a couple of orders for new shops that are opening and hopefully a little bit of gardening too. I might give you a sneeky peak of that door if you're lucky.

L x

The swallows have arrived.....

Summer must be on it's way as the swallows arrived this weekend. Sunday was such a glorious day, made even more special by their arrival, sat twittering away on the wire above. One pair has arrived, so hopefully there will be more to follow.

It's all go here at the moment, we have set a date for the "Grand Opening", Saturday 31st May and Sunday 1st June, so do come and join us for our tea party in the garden. The studio will be open with a new range of products (in the process of being made at the moment!) along with a collection of work from other artist friends. Katie's fab felted jewellery, Rach's stunning handmade quilts, Lynne's gorgeous felt and feather brooches, Claire's organic range of soaps and smellies, Ali's beautiful handmade cards, aswell as a nice little collection of gardening goodies to tempt you with.

We're having a marquee in the garden with a few other stalls in it, Pat selling her wonderful range of herbs and flowers, Katie with her range of vintage bits and bobs (she's a very busy lady!) and hopefully a local girl who sells the most divine cake and candy. We'll be serving tea, coffee and lots of home made cakes all day from 10am until 4pm, so if you can make it along it would be lovely to see you.

Over the past couple of years I have met a range of extremely talented people, so the plan has always been that as soon as I had my own dedicated space we would start to run day courses here too. I have managed to cajole a few friends into agreeing to come and teach others their wonderful skills so we will be holding classes in Keeping Chickens, Dry Stane Dyking, Needle Felting, Quilting, Knitting and Willow Weaving to name a few. Having done a few courses up at the pottery, the best bit (other than learning a new skill!) has most definitely been the great spread of food we've had throughout the day, from morning coffee with fresh scones, a great lunch and then afternoon tea with a huge selection of cakes, yum! We will most definitely be following suit in that department! So, if any of you are interested in the above please do let me know as I'll be getting dates in the diary fairly soon.

It's another sunny day here today but it's back to the sewing machine for me!

L x

P.S. The gorgeous posy of flowers are courtesy of my gardening guru and great friend John, fresh from his garden. x

Exciting times ahead

This week has been an exciting week, all the pieces of the jigsaw are starting to slot together now. When we came back from the Western Isles last summer I was very inspired by the Uists Open Studio event that had been on while we were there. When we were on Orkney earlier this year they had a superb tourist Craft Trail, the art up there is second to none, but more on that another day. So, I was really excited this week when I discovered that Perthshire is hosting it's own Perthshire Open Studio event later on this year, and we're going to be a part of it. This is exactly what we need to promote all of the small designer/makers thriving in this area, and I'm hoping that on the back of it all we shall be able to have a permanent art trail around the county.

The event will take place from Saturday 27th September through until Sunday 5th October, a bit like the Pittenweem arts festival, taking in two weekends with the week in between. We don't intend on being open 7 seven days a week normally but for this event we'll be open right through, which will probably be quite a good thing as I'll be mad busy making for Christmas by then!

Hopefully it will bring in lots of tourists, but also it will allow local people to see the vast amount of talent that is on their doorstep. So off you go and pop those dates in your diary!

Have a great weekend.

L x

Taking stock

Today has been stock taking day to coincide with our financial end of year. I have never done this previously but seeing as I have a fantastic new accountant things are all done "properly" on the paper work front now. I never quite appreciated how much of a relief it would be handing over receipts and invoices at the end of every month and somebody else just "dealing" with the rest for you. She's very good and very focused and understands exactly what I'm doing here. She shares the same vision I have for the shop and can see the potential. She also likes to drink coffee and have a good old natter while counting things! I think we're going to get on rather well.

I feel like we're a grown up business now, all we need is for the studio to be finished and then the skies the limit as they say!

L x

P.S. Mr. Mouse has managed to keep out of the claws of the cats. Him and his friends will be for sale on the web site very soon. x