Finishing things in time for Christmas

Here at the Workshop, Mary and I have been finishing some projects in time for Christmas.

Mary was working on a lovely tartan dress needed for a Christmas wedding.  She got that finished on Monday and has spent the last couple of days making herself a tweed jacket.

We had a few last minute orders for some hats and scarves.  One man had left his Christmas shopping quite late and phoned on Tuesday afternoon to ask if I could make a scarf for his girlfriend.  We discussed colours and he decided to pay for Royal Mail's special delivery.  He had the scarf by 9am on Wednesday morning!  I don't always manage to do things so quickly, but we do try to get our website orders turned around quickly.

The embroidery machines have been chuntering away for the last couple of days embroidering tweed patches for Millers Knitwear in St Andrews.  Carolyn Miller designs and makes beautiful knitted garments and sometimes she includes small tweed Celtic knotwork patches making a feature on the jumper, cardigan or whatever, so she will have a good number to work with come the new year.

We spent some time on Monday printing our trade calendar.  We send this to our main wholesale customers and you may spot it on the wall in some of these shops.  It is a year planner in banner format.  If anyone wants a copy they are welcome to order one, but as it is expensive to produce, I can't do it for free - email me for details - info@annamacneil.co.uk   In with the calendar are invitations to the trade fair at the SECC in Glasgow in January.  If you have a retail outlet and are interested in stocking our products, why not come along?  For details, visit www.scotlandstradefairs.co.uk but please note that this is trade only.

In between all this, I have been making a cope for my husband.  This is a ceremonial cloak type garment worn in church processions and certain services.  He wanted a gold one with Celtic knotwork in time for Christmas and I got it finished this afternoon.  In return, he promises to give me an updated website for my Ecclesiastical Embroidery website..........watch this space, but don't hold your breathe!  If you want to see the cope in use, come to our traditional festival of nine lessons and carols at the RC Church of St Peter and St Boniface in Fortrose, Ross-shire - 7pm on Friday 28th December.

A new Anna Macneil site is also on the cards.  We hope to make it simpler to use but with more pictures to see.  If you have any suggestions about things we can do to make the site easier, please do get in touch - info@annamacneil.co.uk

Also flying out of The Workshop over the last couple of weeks has been lots of our Shetland Angels.  It is too late now to post any for Christmas, but we have about a dozen left in the shop if you have time to pop in.

The Workshop will be closed for the Christmas holidays - closing at 3.30pm on Saturday 22nd and re-open on 4th January.

I hope you all have a happy Christmas and New Year.

Wedding Dresses and Weaving

The two things don't really go together - but they are what Mary and I have been occupied with over the last little while - as much as we could fit it in around our main work at Anna Macneil making embroidered Harris Tweed fashion accessories.

Mary's new venture - LochDress - is designing and making couture wedding dresses with a tartan and/or Celtic theme.  She will have a stall at the Strathpeffer Pavilion Wedding Fair on Sunday 25th March at which she will have a beautiful dress on display along with fabric samples, stitched embroidery samples and a few bits and pieces.   She will also have some examples of interesting glass wedding favours made by my friend Gail of Half-A-Moon.  Gail works with traditional stained glass and hot fused glass to make beautiful things ranging from small favours through to huge windows - have a look at her website, or better still, visit her studio at Ardersier.

Although much of Mary's time at the studio has been spent on our normal work, she has worked longer hours so finish off the dress and here I am giving you get a sneak preview, letting you see Mary at work.  The dress is ivory silk combined with silk tartan (Prince Charlie) and features Celtic knotwork appliqué also in the tartan.  A particularly interesting feature of this dress is that after the wedding, the hand stitching along the top edge of the white bodice can be easily unpicked to reveal the tartan dress which can be worn on it's own - so, two dresses for the price of one!

She spent an evening with her friend Jenny - who modelled the dress, plus a hairdresser / beauty therapist (whose name I can't remember) who did make-up and styling along with a photographer (whose name I will no-doubt hear in due course!)  and they have got lots of lovely photographs which Mary will use to produce leaflets and other promotional material.   They were kindly given use of St Andrew's Cathedral in Inverness as a "studio".

All this has been happening while I am away from Inverness.  I am currently on the Isle of Lewis taking my Harris Tweed weaving project to the next stage.  The good news is that I now have a functioning loom.  On Friday and Saturday I spent time going through all the bits, cleaning off some of the grot and debris and spreading everything out over the garage floor so that we could see all the pieces easily.   I thought there seemed to be some duplicates and it was hard to know what was needed and what was "spares" - but I know enough about how it all works to realise that I had no shuttles.  However,  a quick phonecall to Dora, from whom I got the loom, established that there was indeed a bag of about 30 shuttles over at her place and Len and I went across yesterday morning to collect them - along with other "spare parts" and some more vital components that had got left behind last time.


I had been advised that Angus Morrison was the best person to get to  assemble the loom and he duly arrived about 4.30 after finishing his work as a postman. (one of the features of life in this part of the world is that nearly everyone turns their hand to more than one job.)  He looked at all the parts and scratched his head!   Several people had asked me "is it a mark 1 or mark 2 loom?" to which I had always replied - "sorry, I don't know".  The reason for that soon became clear - I have a mark 1.5!  Some bits are version 1 and other bits are version 2, and they have been used in an "unconventional" way!  However after looking at some photographs I had taken of the loom before Ian had dismantled it for transport, Angus was able to figure out what was needed and after about 5 hours we had a loom that functions.


It still needs a lot of fine tuning and adjustment, but this can't be done until I have a warp on the loom.  Today's task is to clear away all the spare parts from the loom so that Len and I have space to work to put a warping frame up on the wall and then next time I visit the island in April we should be able to get the loom fully functioning.

Later in the week I head back home to catch up on the embroidery side of things - loads of scarves and bags to make for Anna Macneil and also some ecclesiastical work to get sorted out - plenty to keep me occupied........ No rest for the wicked!

Celtic Harris Tweed Coat

Today I finished a coat for a customer.  Making clothing is not mainstream to our activities here at Anna Macneil, but both Mary and I enjoy a challenge, so when one of our customers asked if we could make her a coat with some of our embroidery on it we allowed ourselves to be coaxed!


Siobhan came out to choose fabric a couple of weeks ago and to let us work out a pattern with her old comfy coat as a guide.  There was not enough of her first choice of fabric, so between the three of us we played around with ideas and decided to use two tweeds that were close in colour, but one had a pattern in the weave and the other was plain.  We used the plain tweed for those sections that were going to be embroidered and for the facings.

Before Christmas I had made Siobhan a pouch for her Kindle with a zoomorphic bird design and she asked if I could use the same design for the pockets of the coat.  The rest of the embroidery carried on the zoomorphic theme with bird-like creatures entwined in Pictish style vinescroll designs.   I used two threads - both dark steely-blue grey, but one metallic and the other in rayon.

Other features of the coat - lined with a quilted lining, but the pockets and hood are lined with polar fleece so that they are warm to the touch.  Fastens with a zip which has a tweed flap behind it to keep out the wind. Has a loop inside so that it can be hung up on a coat hook.  The bottom edge is shaped so that it hangs a bit lower at the back.

Siobhan and I seemed to be equally delighted with the results, and when she came to collect the coat this afternoon she kindly allowed me to photograph her wearing the coat.

Siobhan and her partner Tom are both creative professionals - see their website Nimba creations - and so it was very easy to work with them as they had a clear idea of what they wanted and were equally responsive to suggestions from me.

Next week Mary will be working on a tweed jacket for another customer and after that she has to concentrate on making a wedding dress which she will have on display at a wedding show in Strathpeffer Pavillion in 4 weeks time.  This is part of her new venture - LochDress.   Mary will still be working here at the studio and both of us will be carrying on with our work making embroidered Harris Tweed fashion accessories.  At the moment we are still busy working through the trade orders but our shop is well stocked and we are just about coping with the pressure!

A bag of hats (Morag and Maggie styles) is just about to head off to one of our new trade customers - The Naked Sheep - in Dunkeld, Perthshire.  Here you will find a lovely selection of knitwear and other quality wool cothing and accessories.  His website is just a holding page at the moment, but here is the link for when it comes on stream, or visit his shop if you are in the area.  For details of other shops that stock our products, visit our website.  It is not a comprehensive list but it includes those who buy from us most frequently.  Sadly, our longest standing customer, the Harris Tweed Shop in Tarbert, Isle of Harris has decided to close its doors after failing to find a buyer.  It is a pity as they have stocked our products since my mother first started the business back in the 1980s.  I wish John and Patricia well in their retirement.