Christmas decorations

A Merry Christmas to all my readers!

It is Boxing Day today - a day when I traditionally do nothing other than deal with the turkey carcass.
We had storms before Christmas and more are due tonight and tomorrow but today dawned bright and sunny and I managed to easily persuade my husband to accompany me for a walk.  We went up to the Caledonian Canal and had a gentle stroll along the tow-path past the Clachnaharry Locks and out to the sea lock then back along the other side to the Muirtown Basin.  At this time of year the sun is so low in the sky that there is little warmth in it and although the breeze was quite gentle, there was a wintry bight to it suggesting that the forecast snow is not far away.

Once home, I set to work carving the remaining meat off the turkey and making a rich stock from the carcass.  We should have plenty of nourishing soup to see us through the rest of winter.

Then I sat with my feet up for the afternoon and finished reading my book - The Physician by Noah Gordon.  I had read it before - a big fat paperback, but this time I was reading it on my Kindle.  There is something very comforting about re-reading a good book.  When you know what happens, you perhaps take more time to absorb the fine detail rather than rushing.  I enjoyed it every bit as much in electronic format and was interested to read that it has been made into a film.  A bit of research on the internet seems to suggest it is due for imminent release, but I am not a great cinema fan, so perhaps I will wait till it is available on DVD.

I recently got a new camera and thought I would try it out on my Christmas decorations.  This year, with Christmas Day being mid-week, putting up the decorations was quite a leisurely affair.  I started on Saturday by going out and collecting bits of greenery and branches. 

The first thing I decorated was the front door.  I made a simple wreath by twisting some lengths of rowan twigs together and securing pieces of fir, holly and ivy and then adding a few highlights such as some small apples that were still on our little apple tree.  There were too small to eat but look pretty in the wreath.

My husband set about putting up lights in the garden.  At the front of the house these are quite understated - just a strand of little blue fairy lights spread through an evergreen bush that grows below the living room window.  But at the back of the house............. it's something of a winter wonderland!  Lights have sprung up around the sheds and the garden pond and I think it might be bright enough to be seen from space!

Inside is my domain.  I started with the Christmas tree.  We don't have much space so it is just a small fir tree on top of a small chest of drawers in our hallway.  I decorated it with a combination of my Shetland Angels and Tartan and Celtic Hearts, and nestled at the base of the tree is our Christmas crib.  This is a hand-carved olivewood set that Len brought back from a visit to the Holy Land many years ago.

In the living room I took down a couple of paintings from the wall and in their place I fixed a few rowan twigs tied onto the picture hooks to hold them in place.  These twigs are decorated very simply with a couple of strings of lights - one set is made of lovely rattan globes and the other is tiny LEDs set in a string of little gold leaves.  I also twisted trailing ivy through the twigs and the only ornaments are various gold
coloured glass baubles of varying sizes that I have collected over the years.  The remaining gold baubles were tied into 5 bundles and each group hung from one arm of a little chandalier, with my big gold ball in the middle.  It's a simple thing to do, but very effective.

I made up a couple of arrangements of greenery - one for the mantlepiece and one for the top of a bookcase, which I surrounded with a collection of red glass baubles. 
The only other Christmas thing in this room is a basket in the hearth (one I made myself several months ago at a class) that I filled with various gold coloured hand painted eggs.  These are real eggshells that I have blown and then decorated over the years and range in size from quails eggs to ostritch eggs.

Our dining room is tiny - just big enough for a table with a maximum of 8 people round it.  There is a limit to what one can do in so small a room, but as this is where the feasting happens, it has to get "the treatment".  We stretched clear nylon fishing line across one wall between two door frames, held in place with small panel pins, these lines support all the many Christmas cards that our friends and relatives have kindly sent.  It makes for a very colourful display.

On top of the wall cupboards that hold our everyday crockery there is a space of just a few inches.  It does nothing more than gather dust for 50 weeks of the year, but it is just big enough to squeeze in a couple of trays with blocks of oasis.  So I have filled the space with greenery - and another set of lights!

Above the table we have a light fitting that has 6 arms.  I made another wreath for this with branches of greenery and tied this in place with ties that also held bunches of decorated eggs - this time in different shades of red.  It all looks very festive - we just have to watch our heads if we reach across the table!

After Church yesterday we had a lovely family celebration yesterday with our daughter, son-in-law and two teenage granddaughters - great company, good food, in a lovely setting and a relaxed atmosphere.    Today was a beautiful day - very relaxed, and all is set for the remaining ten days of Christmas to be equally enjoyable.  I hope all those reading this post are also enjoying a merry Christmas.

Winter has arrived

St Margaret's Day (16th of November) has significance in my life as it is when Len (my husband) and I had our first date (40 years ago!).  But it also has significance for others as it is traditionally reputed that we get the first fall of snow within the octave of St Margaret.

Yesterday, Mary and I took some of our warm cosy Harris Tweed products and had a photography session.  Each year I produce a calendar to give to my trade customers and so I like to get new images for this and for the catalogue which I need to produce for January.  We should try to do more of this in the summer months when it is warm, but there never seems to be time.

We went to South Kessock for our "photo shoot".  The sun was shining and with the autumn leaves on the trees across the firth, it all looked ideal.  We started off quite well - photographs of our Hebridean Hoods (left), followed by some with our lovely Harris Tweed wraps (right - in this photograph you might almost believe it was summer except for the long shadow and the autumn shades of the far shore), but once we started on the hats and scarves it got difficult.  The wind picked up and we were very aware of the winter bite in it.  It became impossible to get the scarves to stay still long enough to photograph.  Just as well our hats are designed to stay on in a wind, so we did get some of them pictured - and at least our ears were kept warm while we were doing it.  But within minutes of the wind picking

up we had to acknowledge that it was too cold and headed home for some warming soup.

Pictured left is Mary sporting a Morag hat teamed with a matching polar fleece lined scarf and a deep shoulderbag - all Harris Tweed.

Watching the weather forecast after the news last night, we were told that there would be snow on the hills.  Well, our part of the world is barely 10 metres above sea level so I don't think it counts as hills!  This morning I woke up to a thin covering of snow on everything, ice on the garden pond, and as I write this, the snow is falling faster and thicker.

So......... Winter has definitely arrived, and the first snow did fall within the octave of St Margaret!
Time to look out those warm clothes - and if you don't already have one ...... or two or three......... time to get a warm and cosy Anna Macneil hat and scarf!

 Callum hat - this warm and cosy hat is suitable for both men and women - made from Harris Tweed and polar fleece - completely reversible.

Mairi hat - inspired by the traditional bonnet, this Harris Tweed hat is elasticated at the back and comes down over the ears - a great style to keep your ears warm in a strong, cold wind.

Decorations and Dog Coats

Ten days ago at the weekend I was working from home - part of our new regime to avoid seriously hefty electricity bills at the studio.  It is strange how things come in clusters.  I have not been asked to make a dog coat for a long time, but on Saturday I had 5 to make!  They all featured embroidery in some form or another, so that had all been done at the studio on Friday and I was simply putting them together at home.
One of the coats was for a company called Highland Dog.  They have recently had a new logo designed and wanted the logo embroidered onto a dog coat so it could feature in photographs on their website.  I think it looks pretty good!  The coat is made with Harris Tweed and lined with Dress Stewart cotton tartan.

Another two coats were being made for them as well, but for one of their customers, and as I understand they are to be a Chirstmas present, I don't want to give the game away by posting the photographs here.
Next up was one for one of our own customers. She had come to our studio with her mother a couple of months ago when her mother was discussing having Mary make her an outfit in some silk tartan and had spotted our little model dog coat.  A few weeks ago she was back to choose tweed and place an order.  This coat features Celtic knotwork embroidery around highly reflective silvered fabric - ideal for walking the dog on these dark nights.  It is lined with polar fleece - so really cosy.  I got the coat finished on the Saturday afternoon and when I called her to say it was ready, she came round to collect it.  Bobby came with her and was delighted with his new outfit though at first he was a bit reluctant to smile for the camera!

The final dog coat remains a secret for the next few days as it is featuring in a fashion show that my daughter is organising - 2nd November at Bogbain, just on the southern edge of Inverness.
All our dog coats are made to measure so if you are interested, contact us through our website.

Once the dog coats were finished, I had a complete change of direction and spent the rest of the weekend making Christmas decorations.  There has been demand all year for both our Shetland Angels and our Celtic and Tartan Hearts, but we always need more in the run-up to Christmas.  This weekend just past we had a stall at a craft fair in Strathpeffer.  I arrived with an almost full basket of angels, but by the end of the first day it was obvious there were not going to be enough to see out the weekend.  So Saturday evening was spent making more and they continued to fly out of the basket all day on the Sunday.

Our next craft fair is at Eden Court in Inverness - 15th to 17th November - so we will be making more in time for that.  But if you don't live anywhere nearby, just go to our website.  These delicate little decorations are so light that they can easily fly anywhere in the world.

I left Mary to do the packing up at the fair and headed across to Ullapool to catch the ferry to Lewis.  I spent a few hours weaving and am looking forward to finishing off this particular length so I can take it to Carloway Mill to be washed and stamped with the world famous Harris Tweed Orb certification mark.

When I went to start writing this post I had a quick look at the blog statistics - data that tells you how many people have visited the site and where they come from.  I was pleased to see that it has just topped 10,000 page views!  But spread the word, share it with your friends, and do come back and visit regularly.  I also welcome comments if anyone feels so inclined.

Shades of Autumn - another weaving adventure

While writing this, I am sitting in the marshalling yard at Tarbert, Isle of Harris waiting for the ferry to Uig on Skye.  This is an extra sailing put on because the Stornoway to Ullapool ferry was cancelled.   In theory the ferry was supposed to sail at 8pm but it is now 8.40 and the ferry has only just arrived.  It will have to unload, so I can’t see it leaving before 9.15 at earliest - suggesting 2am before I get home to Inverness!

So, the upside is that I have time to write something for this blog - first chance I have had in months.
I have had a really busy summer one way or another.  On many occasions I took photographs with the intention of including them here, but have had no time to edit them.

This is me on my way home from another weaving trip - thankfully a very successful one.  I arrived on the island on Tuesday and spent the afternoon making a new warp.  Inspired by the lovely autumn shades that glowed in the sunlight as I drove from Inverness to Ullapool to catch the ferry, I selected yarns in various shades of oranges, rusts and browns.  I have set the warp up so that it changes from one side of the loom to the other - mostly brown on one side, mostly orange on the other.

On Wednesday I spent the morning in the kitchen making things to fill up Mother’s freezer.  Spending this amount of time in a kitchen is not something I get to do very often and I really enjoy it when I get the chance.  I made soup, apple pies and gingerbread.   As the week progressed I did a few more things and now the freezer is packed full and should last until I get back at the end of the month.

In the afternoon a neighbour came down and helped me beam the warp - the process of getting the prepared warp wound onto the back beam of the loom. It is a job made much easier by having an extra pair of hands so I was very grateful to Donald for his assistance.  Once it was on, it was back into the kitchen to prepare our evening meal and then I started the tying-in process.   Just before I came to Lewis I had visited another weaver - Sam Goates - who has a selection of looms at her studio in Buckie, including a Hattersley loom similar to mine.  I had commented about how I found the tying-in very tiring and resulting in sore muscles both in my small of my back and my calves.  She showed me how she does it - sitting on a very low desk chair.  I thought it would be worth giving it a try but found that if the seat was low enough to get my legs below the beam, I couldn’t get my arms in the right position to pick up the ends for tying.  However, I played around with various positions and finally settled on kneeling on a stool padded with a 3 inch thick piece of foam.  I will need to speed up my technique though - it still took a total of 3 hours to tie in all 696 ends.

On Thursday morning I headed off to the west coast to deliver an order to the Calanais Visitor Centre.  Angus was pleased to see me as he had hardly any of our products in stock.  There were some American visitors in the shop when I arrived and they were choosing things to buy straight out of the bags before he had a  chance to put them on the shelves! 
From there, I headed north to the Carloway Mill and bought some more tweed - another lovely selection which will be used to make hats and bags.

In the afternoon I finished off the loom preparation and started weaving.  My care with the warp had paid off as the weaving was trouble free.   Over the next 48 hours I got several lengths woven enough to make about 20 scarves.   However, it will have to stay on the loom until my next visit when I will weave the remaining 20 metres of tweed before cutting it off and taking to the mill for finishing.

Something I have done that is making my weaving more efficient is that I developed a little database for my iPad. When I weave, I do enough length to make a scarf or wrap and then wind on an un-woven section which later becomes the fringed ends.  It is important to get the right length, and as it is all wound on the cloth beam of the loom, you can’t easily tell how much you have done. People have various ways of working out how much they have woven, but I like to measure as I am going along.  I measure each time I come to the end of a bobbin, which can be anything between 10 and 20 cm depending on the yarn I am using.  Previously, I had to just jot down the measurements in a notebook and work out the totals.  With this system on my iPad, I can just enter in the amount and it adds it up for me.  I have also done it so that I can keep a photographic record of each length woven, and it shows me how many scarf lengths I have woven in each colourway.  It is proving to be a simple and efficient way of keeping track.

In the evenings I spent my time making more Shetland Angels.  This is a job I really enjoy as they are made entirely by hand, sitting back in a comfortable chair, watching the telly as I work.  These angels are heading to the Liquorice Tree at Edinburgh Airport and Highland House of Fraser in Inverness.  Once I get home, I will be making more for stock to sell at the various craft fairs we will be attending in the coming weeks - see the website for more details.










I am now sitting on the ferry, having enjoyed a good chicken curry in the ship’s cafeteria and watching the monitor which shows the position - just off the north end of the Isle of Skye, about to enter the bay.  Probably about 30 minutes at the most to get to Uig.  After that, an hour’s drive through Skye and then an hour and a half back to Inverness.  I just hope that next time I come there is no such trouble.  Mary is organising a charity fashion show on 2nd November, and as Anna Macneil will have things on the catwalk, I can’t be late for it!  See Mary’s facebook page for more details.



P.S.  Arrived home at 2am after one of the most horrible drives - winscreen wipers on full all the way, nasty gusts of wind threatening to blow me off the road and in a constant stream of traffic on twisty roads in pitch black.

Isle of Lewis - another weaving visit

I am once again visiting the island - here to see my mother and to do some more weaving.
Last time I was here I took the plunge and decided to re-thread my loom. I had managed to get the reed (beater) re-threaded by the time I left, but had still to thread the heddles. I have now got them all threaded and about two thirds of the warp tied in. It will only be when I start weaving that I know whether I have got the sequence right.

The weather here has been considerably better than in many other parts of Scotland. Yesterday we had lovely warm sunshine all day, with only a gentle breeze.

However, I didn't get the chance to enjoy it yesterday as I spent the day at my loom. Today was a different matter. I had several orders to deliver and tweed to collect from Carloway so I took the car and headed over to the west coast. First stop was Morven Gallery which opens for the season next weekend. Janis was delighted with the selection of wall hangings that I had taken. From there I headed to Shawbost where I purchased a good selection of plain tweeds. Next stop was the Blue Pig Studio where Jane selected several wall hangings and some bags. Jane is an artist who paints lovely pictures, many featuring her favourite birds - oystercatchers. She also makes interesting cards and prints.
By this time it was lunchtime so I headed to Calanais to the visitor centre at the standing stones to make my final delivery - hats, scarves, bags and our ever popular Hebridean Hoods - and have lunch.
As it was such a lovely day and I was not in a hurry, I took the time to visit the two smaller stone circles. I have seen the from the road too many times to count, but had never taken the time to get up close. The first circle has just five large stones still standing, but is still impressive. From there it was just a few minutes walk across some rather boggy moor to the second circle which is actually a double circle. The stones are a bit smaller, but there are more of them.

For some reason, I didn't finish this post.  It is now May and since my last visit in have been to China and back.  I am now back on the Isle of Lewis and have been really busy for the last few days.  I have been weaving much of the time, but this morning I got up early and painted the yarn store. The sun only shines at the back of the house early in the morning or late in the evening.  It took two hours but the shed is now fully painted.

After that it was back to the loom and by late afternoon I had managed to finish the tweed......  Well, almost finished it.  I had about 2 metres of a 44 metre warp left when I had something of a catastrophe!  A sudden snap and one of the heddle boards stopped moving.  Investigation showed that it had come unhooked at the bottom.  I hooked it up again and did a few more passes of the shuttle and then there was a much louder bang.  This time, the bar at the bottom of the board had snapped in two.  I decided that it would be much easier to replace the bar once the tweed was off the loom, so sacrificed the last of the warp and cut off the tweed.  I will take it to Carloway Mill tomorrow for finishing and stamping.  Repairs to the loom are underway and it will be ready to put on the next warp before I head back to the mainland in a couple of days.

Photo Session - supposed to be spring!

I had several things that I wanted to photograph.  Since it is now officially spring and my granddaughters were free this morning to do some modelling for me, we headed out to Clava Cairns a few miles from Inverness.

It was a biting cold wind, reasonably bright, but no evidence that spring is anywhere near, other than that the primulas in the planter at the front door of the studio are in full bloom.

Clava Cairns are ancient stone burial chambers quite close to Culloden Battlefield.  They were built around the same time as the Egyptian pyramids.  There are three large cairns and they are ringed with standing stones.  There are also lovely trees all around, so it makes a good venue for photographing our wares.  For more information about the site, click here. It is an unmanned site, free to enter and managed by Historic Scotland - well worth a visit if you are in the area.

We took with us several of our ever popular Hebridean Hoods and our Wide Embroidered Wraps, plus a selection of bags, purses, hats and scarves.  The girls are now old enough and tall enough (ages 14 and almost 16) to be really good, co-operative models, but still young enough to enjoy running around and playing.  Lauren decided to climb a tree with this muff purse!  

After an hour or two of photography, we were quite chilled and it was time to take the girls back into town for their skating practice.  They are off soon with their team for the Scottish championships.  I then headed out to the studio to catch up on work.  Since I came home, I have spent the evening going through the photographs, putting some of them on the website, updating some pages and changing pictures.

I hope this selection give you a flavour of what our morning was like.

Lauren wearing a Maggie hat - Harris Tweed bucket style hat with polycotton lining.

Rachel wearing our most popular style - Morag.   We were not the only people to think it cold today - some ladies came into the studio this afternoon and two of them bought Morag hats - to put on right away!

At the end of our session I asked the girls to choose their favourite thing and I photographed them together - they both chose a Hebridean Hood.  These short capes are made with Harris Tweed, have large hoods that are lined with polar fleece, trimmed with real sheepskin and fasten with a single large hand-made button.

The green one is tweed that I wove myself - a lovely herringbone pattern with a subtle striped look. I used the same warp to produce several different shades of green by varying the weft colours.  You can see a different variation in an earlier post - click here.  Below, you see the girls inside the chamber of the largest cairn - sheltering from the cold wind.

In this picture, Rachel is wrapped up in one of our wide embroidered wraps - this one stitched with a metallic bronze coloured thread on a brown/olive herringbone tweed - a wonderfully warm extra layer that looks equally good whether teamed with denims or a silk ballgown.

Weaving - whatever the weather........

It is February, so it is hardly surprising that the weather was a bit dismal during my recent trip to Lewis. This was the view on Saturday from my mother's house, looking across the saltings at Coll.  Fortunately, no gales to stop the ferry sailing, so I got across the Minch for another spell of working at my Hattersley loom, and home again.  In the week I was there we have had some breezy sunshine, some horizontal rain, but little that could be even remotely described as pleasant.

During my January visit I spent my time making warps - one for me to weave, 2 for other people to weave up for me.   I brought with me a contraption that my husband had very kindly made just before I left Inverness.  I had struggled with the arrangement I had for warping in my mother's garage because the walls are too far apart - not quite far enough apart for easily getting a car in and out, but too wide to use for warping because if I made a mistake or some yarn broke, it was too far to reach across and sort things.  What we made is a trestle arrangement with holes through which I can take the yarn from the bank so that between there and the stakes it is just an easy arm's length.   It has proved to be a good arrangement.  Not only is it easier to correct mistakes, but it is easier to avoid them because I can see the individual ends of yarn more clearly.

By the end of that few days in January I had two warps chained up and deliuvered to Carloway mill and another ready to beam - and then hit another problem.  Previous warps I had made had been beamed on other people's looms.  This was the first I was doing under my own steam.   The handle for the loom was too long to use when the beam is in the raised position for beaming.  I didn't have much time left on this visit, so I just left things ready to go and took the loom handle away with me so that I could get a new, shorter handle made before this visit.

So........ back on the island and ready to go.  One of our neighbours came to lend a hand with beaming the warp.  He wound the handle while I hung onto the warp to keep it taut.  It took a while, there were a few times when we had to stop and try and sort out little tangles, but after about 40 minutes I had the warp fully wound onto the beam.  Then it was a question of tying on all 696 ends - and many of them had to be rethreaded through the heddles as there had been a lot of broken ends when I was finishing off the last tweed.

This is a link to a short video clip on YouTube of me tying in the warp - taken by strapping the camera onto the spreader at the top of the loom.  I am sure there is a more efficient way of doing it, but I got there eventually.

By the end of Saturday I was almost done but not ready to start weaving.  On the island, Sunday is very much a day of rest with nothing but essential work being done, so the rest had to wait till Monday morning.

Sunday dawned fair and bright, but with an icy bite in the stiffening breeze.  In the afternoon, mother wanted to have a little outing, but by this time the wind had seriously picked up and the sun had disappeared behind the clouds.  We drove up to Garry Sands at the end of the Tolsta road.  It was a couple of years since I had been there.  As I had to struggle to open the car door against the wind, mother decided to stay in the car while I went for a quick walk down to the beach.

I am not sure when it was built, but there is now a bridge across the river and picnic benches on the far side, but even with my Morag hat, it was very cold, so I didn't linger.  I could really have done with having a scarf round my neck and a wrap around my shoulders, but I will need to weave some more tweed as our stocks of these are all very low!





On Monday morning I did the last little bit of tying in, wound the warp on so that the knots were all through to the front of the loom and started pedalling - and then discovered my mistakes!

I persevered and wove enough tweed for making one wrap, but then decided that there were sufficient problems to justify cutting through the warp and going back to the start.   I also got a phonecall from the mill saying that the weaver had brought back the pieces that I had left last time and htey were ready for washing and stamping.  So, I decided that getting tweed woven was more important than me doing the weaving.  I spent the next couple of days making two more warps in between doing things for my mother.  Then, I pulled out all the warp end back through both the heddles and the reed.  A bit of arithmetic was needed.  696 ends to fit through 370 slots - so not quite 2 per slot.  It was actually quicker re-threading than unthreading - at least through the reed.  I had to leave the island on Thursday, so it is left with the reed threaded but I now have to work out my threading sequence.  I have this feeling that it is pointless me trying to weave tweeds that I could walk into the mill and buy, so I want to experiment with weave patterns that will make my tweeds distinctive. - So, watch this space...............! 

New Website Launched

A new website - it has taken a year of asking, allbeit just intermittently, but we now have a new Anna Macneil website.   The crunch came a couple of weeks before Christmas when my husband asked me to make him a new gold cope - in time for Christmas!  Len is a part time priest and also a web designer/manager.  It is a case of the shoemaker's children going barefoot!  However, I got his cope made in time for Christmas, so he sat down and got on with my website.  I expect I will have a while longer to wait for my Ecclesiastical Embroidery website, but I am making progress.

The new website has an online shop which is a bit easier to use, more information about what we do, and more links.  We welcome any feedback you might give us.

Also on the website are some new products - a hat and two styles of handbag.   The Harris Tweed handbags are things that we have often been asked for, but as I don't use a handbag much myself, it is something I was putting off!  We have made one large and one small bag.

The small one is a dainty little thing - the base is about 8 x 16cm and it stands about 16cm high.  There are two handles and the bag closes by means of a flap with a magnetic catch.  It is padded, stiffened and fully lined and has a small velcro-closing interior pocket to keep little things safe.

The large bag is for those who want to take everything bar the kitchen sink!  It comes with two clip-on straps, one long and one short, so that you can change your mind from day to day about whether you want to use it as a handbag or a shoulderbag.  Inside there are two large open pockets, one large zipped pocket and one small velcro-closing pocket. The bag closes with a magnetic catch on the top edge.

Both these bags can be made with either celtic knotwork embroidery or with floral designs - and can be made in any colour of Harris Tweed.

The hat - Hamish - will be ideal for those who need to go out in all weathers.  It is based on the traditional oilskin sou'wester but made of Harris Tweed and fully lined with polar fleece.  There are earflaps and a toggled cord to keep the hat on in a gale.   Available in whatever colour you want.

Next on my agenda is making more of our increasingly popular Hebridean Hoods.  I have just come back from exhibiting at a trade show and several of our trade customers have ordered these.  Have a look at the links page to see if there is a shop near you.  If not, just order from the website and we will make one specially for you.

We have tried to ensure that the website works smoothly, but it is possible that there is the odd mistake - perhaps a broken link, a typo or a Paypal button that doesn't work as it should.  If you come across anything like that, please do email me and let me know, so that we can put it right. 

I hope you enjoy the new website - there are links so that you can follow this blog, follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook.  There is also a link to our gallery and links to other textile artists.