The perfect working day

Today has been the perfect working day. The sun has shone, while out walking Chissie this morning I stopped to let the sun beat down on my face for five minutes, that always sets me up well for the day.

A bit of sewing was done this morning, then a friend popped round for a quick cuppa, some cake and some gardening chat. Photos were taken of said sewing done this morning and a wander round the garden to see what else was in need of some camera love.

Seeing as it was such a lovely afternoon, the wellies stayed on and some gardening was done.

A bed was cleared ready for planting and some seeds were sown, sweet peas and cornflowers. I've come in rosy cheeked and full of fresh air.

Here's a picture of Mr. Bud cat giving my wellies some love and the next one is of him watching the world go by.

A wintry Easter weekend

It was to be expected I suppose, given that Easter is so early this year, that we would have snow in between fleeting visits of the sunshine. We've just had the most horrendous blast of wind, hail and snow all mixed together, and now the sun is out in it's full glory, Spring showers in their truest form I think.

The above cherry blossom tree hasn't quite come out yet this year, when it does it puts on a beautiful show of tiny delicate pink flowers. I've brought some branches in and hung the Easter decorations from them, the stove is lit so hopefully the warmth will bring the buds out fairly soon.

The dining room also looks a bit like a florists shop at the moment, jugs and jugs of daffodils and masses of branches of flowering currant. Gregg will come home and complain that it smells of cat pee, but I quite like the smell, I think it's almost earthy, a real spring smell. I've volunteered to do the flowers in Church tomorrow for Sundays service, so hopefully the daffodils will come out in the warmth of the stove too. One of the joys of living in the sticks is that there is still a lot of "by the gatepost" selling. The daffodils came from a local farm, they leave a couple of crates with bunches made up and an honesty box, 25p a bunch and locally grown, so a dozen bunches were bought for the church.

Our little enterprise of selling by the gate is also doing well, we now have 20 chickens and a bunch of regular customers that either collect their eggs or I deliver them on a Friday when I'm down in the village. It was Easter last year that we put the sign up, it still amazes me that we get so many people popping in, especially walkers with a little room in their rucksack to squeeze in a half dozen eggs!

Some of you might remember that we hatched our first lots of chicks last year, 9 in total, 3 hens and 6 cockerels. The three hens are doing great, one of them is a real little madam, she jumps up and pecks me on the leg every morning, although I am getting wise to her now! I'm obviously not quick enough in giving them their grain! Anyway, your probably thinking, what did we do with the six cockerels? Well, one of them went to a small holding up the road and as far as I'm aware he's still doing well. We ate the other 5. They were delicious. I'm now thinking we should hatch some free ranging table birds and then start to breed them for ourselves to eat all year round. We shall see, we need a bit more land and I'm still working on that one, hence the reason we have no pigs as yet :(

We also had to despatch our much loved cockerel William, he was very ill with an infection that hadn't cleared up, so he's now buried in the garden. I cried when we had to do that but it didn't bother me at all when we had to kill the others that we ate. I quite happily plucked them and got them ready to roast for Sunday night supper. So, we now have William II, he's another Welsummer cockerel and is enjoying strutting his stuff in front of the ladies and crows away quite the thing on top of the fence post.

I also mentioned the other day that I had to try and catch one of our drakes, we currently have 2 drakes and 3 ducks, all Indian Runners, as our little call ducks got eaten by something when they decided to sit on eggs and we couldn't find them to bring them in at night. Anyway, as you can imagine, with it being Spring and all, the drakes are rather randy at the moment and have decided that three ladies is just not enough for them, so our two chinese white geese, Florence and Felicity, have been getting chased to the point where they dissappear down the burn and don't know how to find their way back! One of the drakes has to go, we could eat him, but I'm going to give him back to Diana (pottery friend!) as she's just lost her drake to the fox. He has been given a reprieve at the moment as I've not had time to go up to the pottery, maybe this weekend, then hopefully peace will be regained in the hen house!

So, I hope you all have a lovely Easter weekend, we'll be dodging the snow showers, hopefully getting some more studio building done and a bit of gardening. We might even go and roll some eggs!

Love,

L x

WRI night

Tonight is the monthly meeting of the Mount Blair rural, yep, I've joined the rural, or should I say WRI. And no I've not started putting a blue rinse on my hair and wearing a pleated tweed skirt before you ask! Our group has a real mix of ages and some real characters. The first night I went along I was warmly welcomed and taken by the arm by one of my egg customers (a dear little lady who lives up the road) and she took me round and introduced me to everyone, now how sweet is that? I've made loads of new friends and really do feel like I'm a part of the community now. I've been cajoled into entering competitions and the like, and if I'm totally honest I absolutely love it.

Tonight we are having a joint meeting with the Kirkmichael group, over at their hall. The talk tonight is "A day in the life of a vet" by one of the local vets from Blairgowrie, I'm really looking forward to it as it's one of the many jobs that I fancied doing when I was a child. For me the best part of the evening is most definitely the supper, some groups just have tea and biscuits, whereas our group really goes to town with a full supper of savoury and sweet goodies, so no dinner is required before you go!

The competitions this evening are a bowl of bulbs and a jar of marmalade. As usual I checked the programme at the beginning of this week (always at the last minute!) and luckily had some hyacinth bulbs flowering, so I've titivated them with some pussy willow twigs and raffia. I made marmalade a couple of weeks ago with some lovely organic seville oranges, so bobs your uncle I'm all sorted for tonight!

Right, better go and get on, eggs to collect, dog to walk and a drake to catch, more on that one tomorrow!

L x

And the winner is.........

Drum roll please.............






The lovely Katherine at Chatiry World is the winner, a tea cup and saucer cushion will be winging it's way to you this week, can you send me your details please?


Right, off to walk the dog and let the chooks out, will be back later with tales of our trip to Orkney.


Bye for now.


L x

The month that was February!

Well, February has been and gone and we're well into March now.......where has the time gone? It was a busy month, so much happened........

I met up with this lovely lady for a day in Glasgow, we had great fun shopping for fabric and trimmings, I took her to VV Roleaux.......need I say any more!

I received this amazing gift in the post, not only is she a great friend she's a very talented lady - could you whizz up one of these in a weekend?

A friend recommended her hairdresser at Christmas time when I commented on how lovely her hair was, so I went and got a new hair cut, 5" off as I hadn't had it cut for over a year, very drastic but I'm now getting used to it. I'm not a fan of going to the hairdressers but I think I'll go back again...!

The reason behind the hair cut was because we were going to a christening here and a wedding here, a post about this will follow as I've got so much to tell you all about it!

It was a busy month with work too, lots of sewing for Valentines orders and lots of shop orders winging their way out of the workroom.

We've also been busy with the studio - what do you think so far then?

Ooh and it was also my birthday on March 1st, my mum and my two sisters came and visited for the day and then we had friends round for supper. Gregg cooked, Greek lamb with lemons and feta, I made pud, marmalade ice cream and chocolate brownies - good food and good company, what more could a girl want?!

So, now that I'm back out of hibernation I shall do the cushion draw tonight and post the winner tomorrow.

See you all then!

L x

P.S. Hope you like the spring cleaned look of the blog!

Keeping out of trouble....

....yet I feel a little bit naughty, only 4 posts in January, that's a bit slack isn't it? Well, all I can say is that I've been a very busy girl, even though I have really struggled with the January blues.

Last week saw some new designs coming out of the workroom,
and a stack of lavender hearts and bundles, can you tell Valentines Day is just around the corner?! I also managed to buy some lovely new fabrics that I'm enjoying being creative with, so keep an eye out here for new things arriving soon.I also popped down to Glasgow on Sunday to the Scottish Trade Fair. I'd been a couple of years back, and to be honest it was pretty rubbish, so I was glad to see a huge improvement this year and felt it was well worth the visit I'd paid.

I've also been busy planning for this, which I'm getting really excited about. The roof is hopefully going on the studio this weekend so I'll post some photos next week.

Seeing as this is my 100th post ( I know, it's taken me ages to get here!!!) I thought I'd do a little giveaway, the lucky winner can choose one of the above cushions. So either leave a comment or drop me an e-mail (info@primrosehillinteriors.com) and your name will be added to the draw.

Good luck!

L xx

Fun in the snow

Friday's fun in the snow was make or break day. I had to decide whether to stick with snowboarding, give it up and try skiing again (I've not been on skis since I was a teenager) or just give up the whole snowsports thing, because constantly snowballing down a hill just isn't my idea of fun....

So, what was it to be then? You can probably tell from the smile.........

I'm sticking with the snowboarding, I was pretty much linking my turns ( where you turn the board from edge to edge in order to snake down the hill) by the end of the most amazing day I've ever had on the slopes. You see, for those of you that aren't into this mad sport where you throw yourself down a hill strapped to a very slidy board, it's not easy. I have struggled with it for years, and only getting a smattering of days a year at it probably doesn't help. It looks really simple when you see others doing it, but building up the confidence to point the board straight down the hill in order to turn from side to side is not for the faint hearted. Physically having to lean your body down the hill, rather than naturally lean back into the hill is a tricky thing to get your head round, but I'm getting there....

On Friday, I had my determined head on, took loads of snowball like tumbles, but came up smiling every time, more and more determined to crack it. There were no tears ( a first for me ) but lots of bruises, and I have to say the impact shorts and wrist guards are worth their weight in gold. If there's anyone reading this and thinking about taking up the mad mountain sport I would thoroughly recommend you buy yourself some.

We had a perfect day of blue sky weather, amazing snow conditions, and we spotted loads of wildlife, Snow Buntings, Black Grouse, stags and white mountain hares. It made me realise why I truely love living up here, to have all of this on our doorstep really is quite breathtaking, lets just hope it lasts......

On the sewing front, I'm busy getting orders finished that weren't essential for Christmas, making up samples for the new Spring collection and off to visit a new stockist tomorrow. So it's a busy week, but we'll maybe try and squeeze in a bit more snowboarding if the weather's good.....

L xx

Getting back to normal.....

This week we've been trying to get back in to the swing of things, routine, boring, boring, I find it very difficult! It's hard enough to get into the swing of the holidays, not always having something to do, then, just as you begin to relax a bit the holidays are over........yep, you guessed it, the January blues......................

Anyhoo, today Katie and Lynne were round for coffee and scones while discussing lots of crafty things. It was fun. They also sorted out my prize draw for me that I did over the Christmas Fairs, a basket of goodies for one lucky winner..........June Heggarty from Dunblane, it'll be winging it's way to you some time next week!
So, seeing as it's Friday tomorrow, and there's lots of snow up in them big hills called Glen Shee, we've decided to have a cheeky wee Friday off and go snowboarding for the day. Now, the last time I did this I broke a bone in my hand..................... and I cried loads...................hmmm, off to find my impact shorts (they make you look like you've got a HUGE arse but save you having a very sore bottom from falling ALL the time!!) and wrist guards..................


See you soon, hopefully with lots of photos of the two of us flying down the slopes and no broken bones!!!! The photos above are of us snowboarding in Canada three years ago, THE BEST snow ever!

L xx

Fond wishes for 2008

It's been a while, so I do hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and wishing you all a warm welcome into 2008. As usual, the run up to Christmas was a bit mad, the decorations were only just up by Christmas Eve and all of the parcel wrapping was done that night, some things just never change in this house! It was lovely though, to be giving lots of home made pressies this year, and I think they all went down rather well.

Much celebrating has been done, we brought in the New Year with good friends in their lovely "newly extended" home. Lots of good food ( Rob's game pie was fantastic!) was eaten, not too much whisky was drunk, and much merriment was had! New Years day consisted of a hearty breakfast, a good walk and then lots of tea and cake, my idea of heaven!

Today, the snow has arrived, just as Gregg went back to work, typical! So, we're cosied up, the fires are roaring and lots of candles are lit. Bliss. I do tend to hybernate a bit at this time of year, but that's ok, it is January after all. I like to spend this month planning ahead for the coming months, plans for the business, the veggie garden, the flower garden, the extension, holidays..............the list goes on a bit! But it's all exciting, don't you think? What are all your plans for 2008, anything exciting happening?

I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone over the next couple of weeks and hopefully making lots of new friends in blogland, that's the fun bit don't you think?

L xx

A fab weekend

Well, we're onto the last push this week, it's more mad sewing for our Open Day this Saturday (all welcome if you're in the area). We had a fab time at The Green Gallery Fair this weekend, we were beside some lovely stalls in the conservatory, it always helps when you've got nice "neighbours" at these things.

I love the fact that quite a lot of bartering goes on between the stall holders, I did swaps with Emma of Pumpkin Sputnik who was next to me, she makes the most fabulous stationery, have a look at her site. We're hopefully going to work on a project together some time next year.......

We were also kept well fed and constantly tempted by The Cookroom, the most delicious range of cakes, all gluten and wheatfree. The Fair was their first weekend of trading so I really hope they do well in the future.

I also got to meet the lovely Jane Keith, the sister of my friend Sara Keith, both extremely talented textile artists. Jane was there with her fabulous range of hand printed and painted silk ties, I think we're planning on doing swaps too, she loves our dotty aprons and is getting one of our dotty door stops for her Christmas..........!

Right, must get on, loads to do this week, plus the house looks like a bomb has hit it, so a fair bit of tidying will be required before Saturday.........!

Bye for now,

L xx

P.S. the pictures are of Katies gorgeous felt jewellery, it flew off the stall this weekend. x

All work and no play.....

This week has been a bit mad, the fair on Monday and Tuesday went really well, which to be honest I was really quite surprised at. I had felt previously that it had been more of a "social" fair where people go to catch up rather than shop. But this year we did really well, hence the reason this has been a bit of a mad week, no stock left! So amid a mad flurry of sewing, we've also been trying to get the web site updated (always late doing that, one of these years I might actually get organised and be updated with xmas goodies by October, but to me that would just be boring, I much prefer to fly by the seat of my pants!). Plus, other than wanting to get the shop updated before December is upon us, we've also got a lovely little article in The Scottish Farmer about us this week, so by midnight last night my head was spinning slightly!

So, this afternoon I'm heading down the road to Buchlyvie to The Green Gallery for their annual Christmas Fair this weekend, one I always enjoy as there are always so many familiar faces, given that the area used to be home. It's my last fair for the season other than our open house next weekend, and boy am I looking forward to getting home on Sunday night, I'm pooped!

Off to get on with some last minute sewing, label printing and packing my bag, roll on Sunday night, a big hug from Gregg and a log fire to come home to!

Enjoy your weekend,

L xx

A few photos....

I'm absolutely pooped! Not long home from another fair, a big one in Perth that was on tonight and all day tomorrow - if you're in the area do pop along to say hello, there are some lovely stalls there........

The fairs are all going well, some better than others, but that always tends to be the case in this game, you can just never tell...... I should really be going to do some sewing now as we've sold out of a few products tonight, it's very heartening to see that it's the handmade goodies that are selling out, it makes all the hard work worthwhile!

Seeing as I've not shown you any photos of the studio build for a while I thought I'd post a few tonight, it's really coming on.......

The roof trusses inside, it's going to be open plan to make it feel nice and airy....

The sarking boards going on the roof......

At the end of this weekends work, roof water tight, the back wall clad and the side wall started.......

A rather blurry photo of Gregg on the roof playing with his favourite toy, the nailgun.......!

Right, I suppose I'd better go and get a bit of sewing done before I go to bed, it's going to be a long week I think!

Night, night,

L xx

A quick post.....

Morning all! Just a quick post to let you know our next fair is tonight and tomorrow at The Edinburgh Academy School. Tonight (7.30pm - 10pm) is a ticket event, £10, which includes champagne and capapes - very posh! Tomorrow is open to the public from 11am - 4pm. There will be approx. 50 stalls so it should be rather good. I'm really looking forward to it as I haven't been down to Edinburgh for ages, hopefully this afternoon Katie and I will manage to squeeze in a couple of art exhibitions, so I'll report back on Monday!

I also want to tell you all about the latest happenings here on the animal front, I've

been trying do a post on it for ages, but never quite get round to finishing it! We've had our first experience of eating our own poultry produce, but all I'll say for now was that it was very yummy! Don't worry we haven't eaten William the Cockerel.............

More next week, off to pack the car, it's a very frosty morning!

L xx

Friday Fair

As usual, I forgot to take my camera last night to take a picture after the set up, but never mind, better late than ever eh!

As you can see, that's not me standing behind the stall, it's Katie, my great friend, who I'm doing all the fairs with this Christmas. Katie makes the most beautiful felt jewellery, and lots of other gorgeous little bits and bobs and trades under the wonderful name of "Vintage Squirrel"! We had a great time today, met lots of lovely people and lots of friends came along too, so a successful day was had by all.

So it's stocking up time next week as the next fair is a week on Saturday, no rest for the wicked as they say! It's also an exciting week here, but more on that at the end of the week.

Have a good weekend, hopefully the weather will be good so more progress can be made with the studio, cladding on the walls this weekend!

L x

Progress

Just a quick update with the progress of the studio, it's coming on, as you can see......

We have decided that we're probably not going to get it completed for a Christmas opening, which is a shame, but we'd rather not rush it just for the sake of being open for a couple of weeks, plus the weather is bound to turn sooner or later...............!

So, I've started making plans for the grand opening next year, probably even more exciting than a Christmas opening actually, but more about that in the new year.

Julia, you mentioned in your comment about having a wood burning stove in the studio, well funnily enough that's exactly what I was thinking!! It's all dependent upon space as it is a bit of a luxury and there are certain things that I must fit into the studio, but hopefully we'll be able to squeeze one in somewhere. It would just be rude not to have a stove for Chrissie to lie in front of now wouldn't it!!

Tonight is a tagging and organising of stock evening, the first Christmas fair is this Friday at Letham Grange Hotel, from 10am - 4pm, so if you're in the area do pop in and say hello. I've been sewing like a mad woman for the last few weeks now, so hopefully I'll have enough stock made. We set up tomorrow evening so I'll take some photos and try and remember to post them!

Anyway, better get on, loads to do tonight. I promise I'll come and visit you all very soon.

L x

P.S. Blogger was playing up so I've only just managed to load up the photos after umpteen attempts last night - it seems to be behaving a little bit better this morning! x

Birthday wishes

It's the first of October already and Autumn is really with us now. We've had a few nippy frosts but amazingly the garden is still in flower. I'm loving the changing colours that are slowly starting to emerge, showing signs of the garden going into hibernation until next year.

Today was a special day for a couple of reasons. It's my little brothers birthday today, although he's no longer little! Twenty years old today and a good 6ft 4", he more than towers over me!

It's also the 4th Birthday of Primrose Hill Interiors. I can still remember my business adviser telling me to pick a date and work towards it - so I did. I'd spent the whole summer working on the first collection and getting all the "business stuff" done. By that Christmas we were supplying our first outlet, The Fotheringham Gallery, and I was selling work. At last I'd made it, I was my own boss!

So it's quite fitting that now, four years on, we are in the midst of creating a studio for me to work in. I will at last have "somewhere to go to work"!!! It's all too easy to get distracted while working from the spare room, washing to hang out, a bit of tidying to do, you know how it is, and I do struggle at times! I'm soooo looking forward to packing up my little lunch basket and tootling across the drive to my little studio, where I can be creative all day and turn a blind eye to the chaos that resides in the cottage!



A little corner of the studio will also allow me to "play" shopkeeper!, this is the bit I'm most looking forward to....... Being able to go back to the roots of my degree and really get creative, oooh I'm so excited, can you tell?

So, in between sewing, I've been holding bits of wood for Gregg, and at the end of day three we now have the floor joists down and the back wall frame built, not bad huh? ( the photo shows the end of day two).


I'll keep you posted on the progress!

L x

Loving this life

It's Friday, yet another week has flown in, and it's truely feeling like Autumn now.

I wasn't really prepared for the heart warming feeling you get when harvesting from the garden, it really is quite magical. We had our first carrots tonight, along with some peas (we've had a bumper crop of them this year) and some broccoli. It always amazes me how the simplest things in life can make you so happy.

I'm loving going for peaceful evening walks, enjoying the last of the sun low in the sky.

Lighting the fires, the smell of the wood.

It's our wedding anniversary this weekend, 7 years, where has that time gone? We're both happy and settled and enjoying the peace.

Have a good weekend.

L x

A gardening day

Inspired was how I felt yesterday, truly inspired. I came home and made a list of seeds and plants to buy for next year. Where did this inspiration come from I here you ask? Well, earlier this year I joined a gardening group and yesterday was a day out nosying at other folks gardens, bliss!

We visited two gardens, both close to home, so coffee and cake was provided here at Mill of Fyall in between visits. The fact that it was a gorgeous day helped too mind.

The first garden was large and terraced, the views across the valley were quite amazing. The borders were filled with stunning roses, an abundance of clematis, aswell as many other beauties. Every time you turned there was a different scent lingering in the air.

The second garden took my breath away, the owner, a garden designer, has a little piece of paradise on her door step, I could have stayed in that garden forever. Quite formal, but flowing effortlessly, your eye was constantly pulled on to the next episode of the story and your nose was tickled with the scents of sweet peas, lilies and more delectable roses.

So, a rather large list was made last night, Sarah Raven here I come!

L x

P.S. If you fancy a cosy country break, the second garden that we visited has holiday lets, have little peak here.