Category Archives: Uncategorized

I’ve had the first chance in a long time to start organising my sewing room. This whole winter seems to have been a string of book deadlines and illness, so I’m happy that there is a little warmth at last in the air.

Last month I hosted my first small workshop here at The Wilderness and it was heaven. There were four of us in all and that was just how I wanted it for the first one. Cosy, intimate and warm. I lit the fire in the sewing room and laid out the table, which in allContinue reading “A Cosy Little Workshop”

You were incredible! I want to do it all again. From stitching in a chateau, to lunch in Bordeaux to a book launch in London, it was just great. I’m back now in my cottage, deep in the middle of Autumn and looking forward to Winter immensely. The woodshed is full, the garden is becomingContinue reading “Oh, October…”

Many autumns ago, before my daughter was even one year old, I knew an old lady. She had the look of someone who had led a life less ordinary – her hair tied up in a tidy chignon, sparkling earrings dangling about her face like crystal chandeliers, smoky eyes, a slip of pink lipstick, aContinue reading “The Magic Buttons”

Isn’t it funny how life sometimes gives you what you need, not want you want, and then you realise that what you needed was actually what you wanted? Not in the way, you understand, that people say – “I told you so”, or –  “It’s for the best”. I mean when you really, really justContinue reading “The Wilderness”

  I love old things, I always, always have. When I was a child, we used to go on holiday to France. We would travel from our home in Northern Ireland all the way down through Wales and England, always stopping off at Grandpa Bob’s house in Dorset overnight before catching the ferry across theContinue reading “Roses and Chateaux”

“What do you want to do today?” asked Mr. Nick one Saturday morning a few weeks ago. Now normally when I’m asked this question I never really have an answer, I’m usually happiest when I’m at home, just hanging out with my little family and squeezing in as much knitting and sewing as I’m allowedContinue reading “Two counties, a windy day and much mousin’”

It’s hard to know where to start when writing a brand new blog so I’ll begin by telling you that I have just finished a bowl of hot, cassoulet soup and am watching out of the window of our tiny cottage, waiting for the snow to arrive. My ginger cat George is asleep by myContinue reading “How To Snuffle Your Truffles”