March, 2009

I could spend all day displaying stock in our shop (but don’t get the time and am never happy with the way things look) but when it comes to window displays its hard to get it right. We have beautiful big windows and I have tried different methods of using them to their full potential. I did have display boxes stacked to fill the windows, but after a recent trip to London where I saw beautiful simple window displays I’ve gone for a bit of a change this spring…….don’t know yet if its working. We’ll see.

I love ‘House Doctor’ a Danish company that I stock in our shop, they have all kinds of everything. This oil cloth (laminated table cloth) brings me back to my grannies house, it is so retro and while it looks great in the shop with the blue pottery it looks even better outside on a garden table…….what a fun accessory to your garden this summer.

I just received a batch of seeds from The Organic Centre this morning and I can’t wait to get started. The thoughts of fresh salad everyday and looking out my kitchen window seeing rainbow chard, beet leaves, sweet pea and french beans climbing up bamboo puts me in good mood. I don’t have a glasshouse so every windowsill in the house gets taken over. The great thing about the organic center seeds is they grow so well in our climate, I guess they only use seeds that can survive the wet dull Irish summers……… now all I need is the time to get things going!

You can see why porcelain has been around for so long, it is such a beautiful material to look at and to use.  I love to work with it from time to time, but it does mean I have to change my whole attitude to making, it is such a different medium than stoneware which I usualy use. These beakers caught the sun in our shop and looked heavenly……..

I know all the potters out there will wish they possessed such skill when it comes to building kilns, come to think of it I guess skills of this sort would come in handy in lots of everyday jobs…………

We are lucky enough to live in a very rural setting in the hills of Kilkenny, with some of the most beautiful views around, but underfoot wet clay soil. I’m trying to work with the soil and grow lots of plants that thrive in these conditions and one of my favorite flowers around this time of year are the foxgloves. There’s something kind of prehistoric about them and I think they look stunning in a simple vase in our shop………..definitely one of my top cottage garden flower, and it loves our soil…its a win, win.

‘You can’t have too many bowls!’ I say this on a daily basis, when people come in to buy a gift and just don’t know what to get, I tell them you can’t go wrong with bowls…  If you weren’t sure before now, what would bring joy to the mother in your life, well now you do.

Summer has arrived in Castlecomer……we kind of bypassed spring a little and here we are with temperatures up to 18 degrees. Evidence of spring are still around though…daffodils, frolicking lambs, we have some new geese and four new pot belled pigs all to be seen here in the Discovery Park, theres a touch of ‘the good life’ about the place, but the best has yet to come…….the bluebells! they carpet the woods in an amazing glow of blue and wold do any weary soul the world of good. Here’s a taster of what to come…..

What a great weekend. It was an inspiration as a maker to see such beautiful work, it really was a selection of the best talent in Britain and Ireland at the moment. Hope to see more Irish makers represented next year, so get on it and apply to show.