{ belated } Happy New Year!

Firstly wishing you all a (very) belated happy and healthy New Year! With a busy 2013, the rush of Christmas, followed by designing, making and photographing a brand new collection for Spring 2014, my blog writing seems to have been thrown to the wayside. I'd like to say that in the coming months I'll be a better blog-post-writer, however I wouldn't like to make any promises!

First up I'd like to introduce the first of our new collections for Spring 2014, Blue Parsley. Following on from the success of our Countryside fabric and co-ordinating product range, and taking on board customer requests for a 'more blue/duck egg' floral design similar to Countryside, Blue Parsley was born! And has so far gone down an absolute treat with our customers - Thank You to everyone whose homes are now sporting Blue Parsley cushions, placemats, etc. You can see the full Blue Parsley range on our new 'COLLECTIONS' page on our website (another new addition for 2014, which we hope will make navigating the website that little bit easier.)

PRESS :: our linen Countryside cushion was featured not once, but twice(!) in the pages of the February issue of Country Living magazine. A wonderful start to 2014 x

Hello September!

Hello September! With a slight chill in the air and leaves on the ground, autumn is most definitely underway. And it's been a busy week for us here catching up after a wee summer break - from adjusting the product labelling for our linen and cotton tea towels, to packing sets of new coasters and placemats (above: new Yachts design). 

The placemats and coasters can be MIX & MATCH-ed too, for a quirky and varied dining set!

And in the workshop the boys have been busy crafting more bunny and duck bookends, including our NEW Jemima duck bookends - hand painted in Pink Ground by Farrow & Ball, such a pale & pretty pink!

The Sunday Post

The Cotswolds are starting to look a little more green this week, the lambs are leaping and the barn finally saw some sunshine... just before the rain that is! The studio has been go, go, go, just the way we like it...

We spent the week working on trade orders for new stockists, here in the UK and one across the pond. Our new ranges have been going down wonderfully, and we're expecting a delivery of jugs (big & small) this week so they'll be available in our SHOP again later in the week.

And last but by no means least, here are a couple of snaps of our two new cushion designs, Countryside and Brown Chickens, both available in long / square linen cushions, and in natural / ivory colourways.

Take a look at the range here... c u s h i o n s

Have a great week, cx  

The Sunday Post

Hope you are all having a super Sunday, I'm sitting here with a hot cup of tea in the sunshine, mulling over our week: new linen napkins, florals, my first hot cross bun of the year & hearts, hearts, hearts. We sold out of our first Valentine's card design, 'be my valentine' at the beginning of the week, just in time for the big day, which was wonderful.

During the week I re-jigged our frilly teacups design... see the new design above, I'm happy with the little teacups' new look and they have been really well received. 

A new customer favourite in the last few weeks has been the natural linen chickens tea towel. We recently introduced this great natural linen into the range, and although quite heavy it washes wonderfully and becomes so soft and absorbent, I think we may have made the perfect tea towel!

They are available to buy here: http://charlottemacey.co.uk/linen-tea-towels.html

cx

The Sunday Post

It has been a much less snowy week for us here in the Cotswolds; with equal measures of rain and sunshine we have managed several Post Office trips without any ice excitement (phew!). It has even felt like Spring might finally be in the air, with a bit of sunshine and spotting our first snowdrops. 

The Easter chocolate munching has also begun (we tried to resist, honestly!) and this week we have been working on a lovely order for lots of yachts items, heading to a new and exciting stockist this week... more will be revealed later! It was a great sense of achievement having a 12-cushion stack perched on the table ready to be packed.

Our linen yacht cushions and range of notebooks are all available here, so do take a peek: http://charlottemacey.co.uk/.

We also have a SALE page, that is regularly updated with one-off textile items, ceramic seconds and end of line treats, usually only 1 of each item available, http://charlottemacey.co.uk/SALE.html. Happy Sunday Everyone x

The (extremely belated!) Sunday Post

Gosh, my last post was in October - I honestly can't believe it's been that long! But it just goes to show what a busy time we've had here since then. There is so much to sum up, that the best way to describe it all is in a series of photo montages! 

First up (above) - Christmas 2012... our best Christmas ever, it was frenzied but wonderful from start to finish, we had a fantastic feature (5 pages!!) in Country Homes & Interiors magazine, and rounded off the year with a wonderful snowy trip to the mountains in France with all of our family, eating and relaxing - it was pure heaven.

2013. No sooner had we landed back on UK soil and it was time to get ready for our first trade show of the year, Top Drawer. And so two weeks into January I headed off to London with our product range and props in tow, and had a lovely few days meeting buyers, interesting contacts and having early morning catch-ups with all of my 'fair friends', old and new. I eventually made it back home with a broken car and a chest infection... and then the snow arrived!

It's been a beautiful snowy week here in the Cotswolds... I have been recuperating, (my car is now fixed, yippee), making troops of egg cosies, and venturing out on treacherous trips to the Post Office! We had a lot of rain overnight, and awoke this morning to green grass and blue skies... I could almost be fooled into thinking Spring might be on the way! cx

The Sunday Post

It's all systems go in the studio at the moment in the build-up to the two Country Living Fairs we will be doing in November. We've been working on new linen coasters and placemats (above: spotty, below: puddings), as well as re-jigging tea and coffee cosies and a few other bits and bobs too. 

We always find in the preparation for fairs - whether retail or trade shows - that having our whole range laid out, is a great time to assess how everything works together, especially having introduced new items over the last few months. It almost feels like a spring clean, although I suppose it would be an 'autumn clean' in this case! It's great to look at our packaging, designs, the coherency of the new items with the older items, etc... 

...and all I can say now is that I cannot wait until the Country Living Christmas Fairs, to see everything displayed all together, like a little CMT pop-up shop. 5 days in London. 4 days in Harrogate. So very excited. xo

The Sunday Post :: our week in pictures

HELLO! I hope you are all having a lovely leisurely Sunday, we started the day here with tea and croissants - a perfect Sunday morning. This week we have started to think about our upcoming winter and Christmas fairs. And with that in mind we have a little announcement...

We are going to be exhibiting at the Country Living Harrogate Christmas Fair (as well as the London fair two weeks earlier) - so if you live further north and can't make it down to London, I will hopefully see you Harrogate from the 29th November - 2nd December!

Earlier this week I also made a custom apron, to wear to our winter fairs. It's a chubby chickens design with my name embroidered at the top, almost like a name badge, and with a big floral pocket for change and my essential fair items... a pen and notebook!

And a last-minute note to let you know that we have just launched embroidered linen chicken placemats, to co-ordinate with our embroidered coasters. Available in sets of 4 and made from beautiful rustic linen, we are so pleased with their subtle style. 

Catch you next Sunday! x 

our weekly round-up...

The intention of my blog when I started it over two years ago, was to post at least once a week, usually on a Sunday, as there would definitely be spare time on Sunday 'the day of rest' to sit down and have a think about what I wanted to write and share about the studio goings-on during the week. However in recent months my posts have become more and more sporadic, as Sunday's no longer seem to be quiet and finding a spare moment has become surprisingly tricky!

However I think it's important to share our news from the studio, so I'm going to make a concerted effort - and Stitch Tales will be coming to you every Sunday (all going to plan!)

There were two exciting bits of news from last week...

Firstly the creation of our NEW linen coasters. At the moment we are making embroidered chicken & printed yacht coasters, and they are available in sets of 4 from our website.

And secondly, our notebooks have been featured in the September issue of Country Living. They are quite tiny in the picture and we haven't been credited for their use, but they are in there nonetheless, which is great! (below: a close up from the magazine, the notebooks are sitting on top of the table)

Home & Gift 2012

For the majority of last week we were exhibiting at the Home & Gift trade show in Harrogate. We headed north last Saturday to set up, and it doesn't matter how many trade fairs I do, being faced with the bare stand always seems a little daunting at first... but we got there!

We had a great few days, meeting new and potential stockists, as well as lovely fellow exhibitors and new friends. We even squeezed in a couple of trips to Betty's for some 'tea room blend' before the show opened in the mornings!

We are now home safe and sound and have been invoicing and sorting through post-fair admin...

...and celebrating my birthday! I was even treated to a surprise birthday chocolate cake on the last day of Home & Gift (clearly the girls I met already know me too well!), which was delicious... but back to work tomorrow, we have orders to get cracking on!

Top Drawer S/S 2012

I arrived home from Top Drawer on Tuesday evening, exhausted but extremely happy. I don't set any targets order-wise, as you can never tell what a trade fair will bring, and especially having never done Top Drawer before, so I had absolutely no idea what to expect...

But I was far from disappointed... each day seemed to pick up pace, as stockists new (and old) came to chat to me and loved my work, and placed orders too, which was fantastic!

One of the highlights for me was meeting so many lovely people over the 3 days... twitter people you know who you are and it was fabulous to see you all again, or to meet you for the first time! Although I was ready to go home after 3 intense days (4 including setting up - a tough job when you are doing it on your own!), I was also a little bit sad, as it had been such a thoroughly enjoyable show!