The Twice Diary

2011-09-29T17:08:00.000Z

We've had a very busy day in the workshop finalising designs that we've been working on for a while. Among them are these little Needle Cases in Ivory, Duck Egg and Old Blue Posy. The case is lined in pink merino wool and it closes with a little horn button. We think they're very sweet. They'll be in our new catalogue and available on the website shortly.

2011-09-17T14:30:00.000Z

We're getting Christmas stock underway in the workshop now - Hayley and Marie have been working on this year's Noel Lavender Heart -which are in a lovely deep red this year. It will be available on the website when our new catalogue goes out shortly. If you don't think you're on our mailing list just drop us an email at info@twice.co and we'll make sure you get a copy.

2011-07-28T13:12:00.002Z

This weekend we are very pleased to have been asked to be part of the very first Hopetoun International Horse Trials at the beautiful Hopetoun House near Edinburgh. The forecast is for good weather, so we are looking forward to a great weekend. It's an ideal event for us as we can work while the family enjoys themselves at the horse trials - and the children are all keen riders so it couldn't be better. It's a great chance for us all to see some of the best riders in the world in action and show Twice to a new audience at the same time. We look forward to seeing you there if you're planning on going - we'll be on the West Lawn.

2011-07-26T16:27:00.002Z

Little did I know when I designed our Mr & Mrs cushions quite how popular they would become - definitely this year's favourite wedding present. They seem to be selling as fast as we can make them! We've used our gorgeous Natural linen and they are embroidered with our lettering which has a Scandinavian influence and with piping in our Old White linen. The neutral tones work in a multitude of interiors.

2011-05-25T16:59:00.005Z

Congratulations to Georgie Futong and Clare Alexander of Kilgraston School, Perth who have produced the first issue of an outstandingly good magazine, The Habit, as a school project. It is a really professional publication.

Georgie and Clare approached me a while ago for an interview which is reproduced below. If you double click on the image you should be able to read it.

The girls have so far been nominated for 5 awards for their magazine including, rather amazingly, Scottish Magazine of the Year. Looks like there are some journalists and editors out there who should be watching their backs!

2011-05-10T13:45:00.003Z

OK, how on EARTH did we not notice this?! Prepare to say 'Ahhhhh'.

This is where the children keep their riding hats. Some of them are too small now and so they don't necessarily get moved that often. Some of them obviously not very often at all because yesterday we discovered something in the hat right in the middle -

Right under our noses in a place where people are coming and going all the time a blackbird has produced this:

It is the snuggest nest you have ever seen, taking up the whole of the inside of the riding hat. It's got bits of baler twine and lots of hay and leaves and even some bits of plastic in it. And tucked in tight are four blackbird chicks.

I looked up blackbird nesting on the interweb and found this:

"The nest is an untidy cup built by the female from vegetation, such as grass and twigs, and bound together with mud and finer grasses. The nest is usually in a hedge or bush, though they will use shelves in huts and other outbuildings."

Apparently the incubation period is 10-19 days, so it's possible that she's done this in under two weeks. It is extraordinary that we haven't noticed as we've had two horses in the stables for most of that time. As you can imagine, we're all amazed, amused and doing a lot of 'Ahhh'ing!

2011-03-17T18:06:00.000Z

Every so often there are real milestone moments for our business and yesterday provided one of them. I went down to the mill in Fife that we work with to make our linens to see our first woven linen ticking and ginghams on the loom. It was just amazing to see the fabrics that we have worked on for the months and months, choosing yarns, dying yarns, finalising patterns, actually coming into being. The quality of this fabric really has to be felt and seen to be believed. It genuinely doesn't get any better than this. It feels really good to be part of this process.

This image shows Angus at the mill showing me how they pick up a broken warp thread. Just look at all those metal droppers - each one has to be threaded by hand to set up the loom - and then if one breaks, it has to be found and reknotted before the loom can set off again.

This is a roll with the warp threads for our new navy gingham waiting to go - they will be attached to the ecru gingham that is currently being woven so that the blue follows straight on from the ecru.

Here you can see the back end of the loom with all the warp threads of the ecru gingham.

And this is the finished fabric coming off the loom - just wonderful!

Once they've been woven, the linens then go to be 'finished'. This softens and slightly shrinks the linens, and gives them the 'antique' feel that we are always striving for at Twice.

These new linens will be available in our new catalogue which should go out at the end of April. I cannot wait to see what they look like when they're used. Very exciting days.

2011-02-26T15:55:00.004Z

Great news - at last our beautiful wooden Porridge Bowls are back in stock! I know lots of you have been waiting for them. There's a long story attached - looking back at my emails we started talking to our new makers last August - and it's a good illustration of some of the problems of trying to get things craftsman made these days. We did originally have our bowls turned in the UK but it became impossible to have them made at a price that we could work with, added to which there were problems with wood supply. I had resigned myself to the fact that we would no longer be able to offer them when someone brought wood turners in Slovenia to my attention. Wood turning is the oldest and largest home craft in Slovenia and particularly in the Ribnica region which has been known for it's wood work since the 1400's. These makers are right up our street! I have been working with the incredibly patient and helpful Stane to get the bowls just right - and we are thrilled with the result - the first bowls arrived here this week. And as a bonus, we have actually been able to reduce the price to our customers!

2011-01-26T16:52:00.002Z

It's always rewarding to get feedback from customers and I was really pleased to receive this email today from Mrs L: "I just want to thank you for responding so promptly to my request for posting my daughter's birthday gift 'yesterday'. (I had left it rather late to order) I didn't think that was possible, but seemingly it was - because the parcel arrived the following day! And that was the day before....She loved her fragrant soaps and the dish ... has found a home in her lovely kitchen. Thank you again for your customer care - a rarity these days." Happy to be of service!

2010-12-21T14:54:00.002Z

Today is the last posting day for Christmas orders and so we would all like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers old and new for their wonderful support this season. It's been epic on many levels, from the weather to the sheer number of packages we've been getting out to you and it will definitely be a Christmas to remember for us - taking orders out by quad bike through the snow being one of the abiding memories! Things have slowed to a trickle on the ordering front and I imagine that you, like us, will be taking some time out to spend with family and friends - it just remains for us to wish you a warm, safe and happy Christmas and a very jolly Hogmanay.

2010-11-30T15:25:00.002Z

We have mountains of snow here and haven't seen the postman or a delivery driver since last week. Given that yesterday was the busiest day yet for web orders Twice HQ has been overflowing with packages going nowhere - we're about 1/4 mile from the nearest public (and therefore cleared) road. Relief came today - thanks to Alan our local farmer and his tractor. He very kindly cleared our drive which means that we might get a collection soon - but we can definitely start ferrying orders to the Perth PO and Parcelforce sorting offices. This is our trusty 4x4 loaded up and ready to go a moment ago. Fingers crossed that the packages leave Perth quickly once we've got them there.

2010-11-25T18:52:00.002Z

Twice has hit the BBC! Our beautiful spurtles are being given out as prizes on Paddy O'Connells Radio 4 programme 'Broadcasting House'. The programme has been talking about the Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championships which were held in October at Carrbridge in the Scottish Highlands. In honour of the Championships the programme has decided to give out our spurtles as prizes in their weekly 'Spoon Competition' instead of spoons! We have branded them especially for the programme and they will be going out to the lucky winners over the next few weeks.

2010-09-21T18:38:00.000Z

I've always been drawn to old fabrics and, as you may know, the nascence of Twice was in the old fabrics and blankets that I found when we moved into my husband's family house in Scotland seven years ago. I love used fabrics infinitely more than new ones, however beautiful the pattern, because of the wonderfully soft feel and dimming of colour that use has given them. I had always hoped for Twice to produce fabrics based on the huge archive of antique fabrics that I've built up over the years but, when we finally started doing just that this year, just printing fabric wasn't enough. I wanted to try and replicate the gorgeous 'lived-in' feel of old linens. It has taken a long time and a lot of perseverance by many people along the way but I think we really have cracked it. Our linens now go through several processes (which for obvious reasons I'm going to keep secret!) to achieve a wonderful softness and subtlety - but with all the strength of a new fabric.

At the moment, we have our beautiful Framboise linen alongside natural and bleached linen, all of which have been given our special treatment. Our next pattern is in the pipeline and I have plans for many more which will appear at Twice over the next year or so.

2010-09-16T09:26:00.003Z

Here's the thing. When I started Twice what we did was re-use old things and give them a new lease of life, hence the name. I remember looking at a pile of pretty cups and saucers and thinking - those would make good candles. I made about 20 and took them down to the Country Living Fair and sold out. At the time I hadn't seen any anywhere else - but now, of course, they're everywhere. I'm not saying anyone got the idea from me - I'm quite sure it had been done long before I did it, but my problem is that now I find myself not wanting to make them because so many other people are and, yet, they are so quintessentially Twice. What to do? Not sure.

2010-09-10T12:02:00.002Z

Just arrived! Our new notecard wallets have just reached us - it's always fantastic to see things that have been in development finally in the flesh. We're really pleased with these - showing two of our fabric designs, Framboise and Posy (fabric coming soon), the cards are of the best quality and come in a pretty wallet containing eight cards and envelopes. Wonderful.

2010-08-30T09:14:00.001Z

We're finishing off some of our delicious merino wool hotty covers today - here's a pile waiting to be labelled and packed. Just in time I think as there's a definite autumnal nip in the air today.

2010-08-27T12:36:00.002Z

It's full steam ahead here as we get stock ready for the autumn. We've got a photo shoot for the next catalogue in a couple of weeks and we're also stockpiling for all the autumn fairs, mail order sales and, of course, the new shop which opens in October. It's definitely time for list writing - endless, endless lists! This morning Sarah was preparing the leather bases that we put in our linen tote bags - the leather is wonderful deerskin tanned near Glasgow and then pressed to make it stiffer for the bases.

2010-06-30T16:16:00.003Z

We were very pleased recently to be asked to join Discovering Life, a fascinating new website that aims to offer it's members the very best of what's on offer in Britain with many special offers and discounts just for members. As membership is free for 2010 I'd definitely encourage you to sign up - no cost and lots of money off, can't be bad. Our page on the site went live today - and we are offering all Discovering Life members a huge 15% discount across our entire range.

2010-06-05T14:48:00.003Z

Hmmm ..... Running a business is fraught with problems - just when you think you've got something sorted something else turns up to frazzle you. Our Summer 2010 catalogue went to print last week and was then shipped off to the fulfilment people so they could pop them in little plastic wraps and wing them off to you all, and then .... I received this photo showing me how they had turned up in Rotherham for mailing! I think someone was a little clumsy. This resulted in a bit of a panic as we had only allowed an extra hundred copies for the mailing and it looked as if more than that were unusable. In the end it wasn't quite as bad as we feared and we have managed to send the full mailing - but if your catalogue turns up with slightly dog-earred corners, you'll know why!

2010-05-03T10:51:00.002Z

Harry Wallop sings from my hymn sheet in his forecast for shopping in the Noughties. I cut this out of the Daily Telegraph at the beginning of the year and a blown up copy hangs in the Twice office. Slowly but surely quality will outshine quantity in this mixed up world of ours.

2010-04-26T22:20:00.002Z

Here's a little extreme ironing being done at the photo shoot for our next catalogue! We've been very hard at work for the last few days - and the results are fantastic.

With luck and a fair wind (which we had plenty of today as we were trying to put together the table scene above) the catalogue should be out towards the end of May. Amongst the many new things you will find is the first Twice printed linen - a pretty floral inspired by a beautiful antique French fabric that I found several years ago.

Big thanks must go to the lovely Shona, our model, who braved some very, very chilly weather on Friday to show off our summer tunics and wonderful new bags.

A huge thank you also to everyone who has worked so hard over the past few months to get all our new designs ready for launch and also to the photography team for being great fun to work with over the past few days and for producing such fantastic results.

2010-04-13T13:10:00.003Z

A big thank you to our friends at From Britain With Love - our Goldilocks porridge bowls are one of their three featured products this month. Click here to visit their website to see all the best of British.

2010-04-07T15:36:00.003Z

The latest issue of Period House has just arrived from the publishers - and includes a lovely feature on Twice. Aside from the fact that I hate seeing myself in anything, it is a great article which gives a really good flavour of what I am trying to achieve at Twice.

The only slightly sad thing is that so many of the lovely homewares and fabrics shown in the feature are from Twice but the two pages showing readers how to 'Get The Look' point them in every direction but us. It goes without saying that the easiest way to get my look is to visit our website!

2010-03-26T12:37:00.002Z

Brrrr - still chilly enough to make a cosy eiderdown a great addition to your bed. Lots of 'new' vintage eiderdowns have just been added to the website today.

2010-03-24T16:08:00.002Z

Thought you might like to see a sneak preview of one of our new Linen Lavender Hearts. This is a prototype but the finished hearts will be available in our next catalogue and should be on the website in a few weeks. I'm always looking for new ways to use the natural Scottish linen that I love so much - and I've been working hard to come up with lettering that works well. It took a ridiculous number of attempts to get the heart shape exactly right (actually I think this one was just before we finally managed that) but I think we've cracked it now.

2010-02-26T11:34:00.004Z

SO pleased to be able to introduce this to the website - the classic Gluggle Jug is one of the new things going into our summer catalogue (due out in May). This perfect old design was first made in Staffordshire in the 1870's - and got it's name from the wonderful gurgling sound that the water makes when you pour it. The design was bought by the Wade pottery when the jug's original makes, Dartmouth, closed down in the early 2000's. Wade made the jug for the American market but this year it is happily available again in the UK. We are thrilled to have the jugs on board at Twice - they tick all our boxes!

Currently available in this pretty blue, click here to buy and cheer up your kitchen!

2010-01-13T10:45:00.002Z

The blue skies and snow covered mountains of the Cairnwell Pass last Friday.

We are lucky enough to be under an hour from Glenshee, which has the largest ski area in Scotland and so, unlike much of the country, we are able to make really good use of all this snow! I took the children skiing and I have never known better conditions - the bluest skies imaginable with not a cloud in sight, no wind, sun all day and deep, deep snow in perfect condition and lashings of hot chocolate in the back of the car. We had a day of the best skiing - and felt really rather smug!

2009-11-29T15:50:00.003Z

Well, that's one use for our beautiful Lily bag!
Minty our tortoiseshell knows a good thing when she sees one and it doesn't take long for her to find my Lily bag when I leave it in the kitchen - she's on it in a flash and it's obviously very warm as she would happily stay there for hours. Anyway, the other day, as you can see I picked up the bag and she stayed on/in it and this was the result!

2009-11-29T15:35:00.002Z

This poor chilly girl is a rescued battery hen waiting to go to her new home - as newsletter subscribers will know, we have recently re-homed six ex-batts and it's been a great experience. We picked them up two weeks ago from Jim and Lorna Duff near Stirling - Jim and Lorna are the local reps for the Battery Hen Welfare Trust and do a wonderful job of liaising with the farmers and prospective new owners and then picking the hens up and giving then a health check. New owners then go to their farm to pick the hens up on the designated weekend.

This photo show our girls on their first day in their new home - they are very unused to everything a normal chicken would take for granted - like dark and silence and roosting and nesting. As you can see, they are also quite bald - but their feathers should grow back pretty quickly. And these are our first eggs! -

We are already getting one or two a day and slowly they should settle down and produce more than enough for all of us. I've fought the 'having our own chickens' thing for years - but the whole rescue chicken idea got to me immediately and I'm really pleased that we've gone for it.

As for names, the children have each named one so we have Lavender, Daisy and Un-named (so far!), then Ray who helps us here has named his Harriet, James has gone for Lady Marmalade and I asked my newsletter subscribers to help me out with a name for mine - there have been lots of great suggestions and I will be announcing the winner in our next newsletters (about 18th Dec).

2009-10-28T18:21:00.006Z

Day one of the new me! I always mean to use the car less and shop locally more and all the other things that are good not only for the planet, but also for me and so this week I have started to try and practice what I preach. Yesterday I cycled to an appointment in our local village - which isn't much, but usually I would have been running late and so I would have hopped in the car. And today I cycled to Errol which is the nearest place with a butcher, Post Office and chemist. It's about an 8 mile round trip and as I cycled along I realised that it really is a no-brainer in so many ways to do this - it's 25 minutes there and 25 back, so that's nearly an hour of aerobic exercise - completely free! No gym membership, expensive kit or clothing - plus I got my shopping done and supported local small businesses. And I seemed to have more time to chat to people.

On the way back a buzzard flew right by my side for about 50 feet with a mouse in his claws - nature in the raw! I noticed rabbits and squirrels, trees, autumn colours and the thing I noticed most was the smells - which you never notice zooming along in your car.

The next schedule visit to Errol is this Friday morning - and now I've gone public I will be even more determined to keep it up. Three trips a week should keep me fit, keep more money in my pocket and, maybe, I'm doing a little bit to help the environment.

2009-10-20T11:56:00.002Z

Very exciting - I've just been watching the new catalogue coming of the production line at the printers in Perth and I now have the first 300 copies in my grubby little mits! At last! Wow. It's like giving birth (well, not quite, obviously) every time I do this and it is always such a good feeling to actually hold a copy in my hands having worked so hard to get it to this stage.

The first copies will go out tonight to try and avoid the post strike and then the bulk will be sent out to everyone early next week. I so hope that you like what you see ....

2009-10-17T15:42:00.002Z

Quick post just to say that I have just managed to buy some more vintage crocks and so they are now back in stock. They are becoming increasingly difficult to find which is why they aren't always in stock - so if you've been waiting for one, grab it quickly!

2009-10-02T17:29:00.002Z

So, off to Glasgow to visit the Barrhead tannery, who make our beautiful leather bags. I love going out and about to visit our manufacturers around the country - and nowhere more so than Barrhead, where you are immediately transported back in time. Things are done here much as they have been for hundreds of years - the stone staircase tells you that with each step hollowed out by years of feet walking up and down. The smell of the leather is just wonderful and I love seeing the different leather and suede finishes that are possible - not to mention the colours. Deerskin makes really great leather and suede in varying weights and one of things I love most about it is it's durability - I've been using my suede Lily slouch bag for well over a year now and life with me is quite tough on any bag - from being thrown in the bottom of the car every day or having to double as a cat bed - and it still looks fantastic.

This photo shows some blue suede ready to go off to another client of the tannery. We spent some time working on a couple of new bag options - I'm taking the Eleanor bag off in a slightly different direction and working on a bowling style bag using deerskin and maybe some beautiful Scottish tweed. Watch this space!

2009-08-24T23:05:00.003Z

I spent last Thursday at a photography workshop run by Ray Cox, one of Scotland's best garden photographers. It was a good opportunity to spend some time improving my photography skills (which so far have been rather suck it and see!) and to get ideas and direction on garden and flower photograph from Ray. When there was a break in the rain we managed to get out in the nursery to take some photos - these are a couple of my favourites from the day.

The course was run at Glendoick Garden Centre, which we are lucky enough to have just down the road from us. The nurseries there specialise in rhododendrons and azaleas and the Cox family have spent two generations plant hunting for them. The garden is also open when the rhodos are at their best, in about May, and are really worth a visit if you can get there.

The T aftermath ....

2009-07-14T15:30:00.006Z

These photos really make you think. I was driving back up the M90 from Edinburgh when I suddenly saw the most unbelievable sight near Kinross. This is now two days since T in the Park and what you can (hopefully - click on the photo to see a blow up) see here is not a festival in the process of being set up but acres and acres and acres of abandoned tents after the event. I felt almost sick. It's one of those things that you really have to see to believe and I really couldn't get close enough to properly show you - but it's just extraordinary. It honestly looks as if no one has taken their tent with them - and the other rubbish left is monumental. It seems to me that it says everything about our society - 'proper' things like tents, which in the past would have been kept for years and years and reused endlessly, are now so cheap that they are basically disposable. We've just bought a 2 man tent for our son to camp out in this week - and it was £14.99. So many things spring to mind - how do Tesco's produce a really pucka tent for £14.99 - what on earth are they paying for it, and just how little are the people actually making it being paid? And, look what happens when you make things so cheap - people just stop caring about them. All these people couldn't see the point in spending the time to pack them up. It's just horrible.

And the really depressing thing is that I read in the paper that, unlike some other festivals, where the abandoned tents go to charities, at T they go into landfill. Ugh.

Caroline

Jane does it again ....

2009-06-16T15:36:00.009Z

We've just come to the end of another wonderful workshop given here by Jane Lindsey of Snapdragon. Today's was Cutting Flowers and everyone learned how to cut and condition flowers from the garden to give them much more vase life and how to put together a hand-tied bouquet. Jane gave some great tips - such as how to tie the bunch up easily without having to put it down which is one of those things where, once you know how to do it, you can't imagine how you could have been so stupid before. You'll have to come to the next workshop if you want to find out how! And we also now know how to put the bouquet in water for travelling - another very clever trick. Anyway, as you can see, we were all surrounded by these beautiful flowers from Jane's own garden all day and everyone made a hand-tied bouquet and these gorgeous table centres. A great day all round - enjoy the flowers ....

Way out west ....

2009-06-10T18:29:00.003Z

I have just spent a few days escaping on the West Coast with my mother and my aunt - wonderful to get away for a bit for some real R&R - and made possible by the wonders of technology. It never ceases to amaze me quite what's possible now - I happily sat at the top of a mountain replying to emails and checking the website for orders on my iPhone! It has to be one of the best things about our modern age that so many people are no longer tied to a desk five days a week. Anyway, this is the view that met us each morning - bliss.

If you've read the article in this month's Homes & Interiors Scotland you will have seen that we have taken a share in the rental of a little cottage near Oban with some friends. It is just wonderful to escape there and we are loving discovering the area. Last week was one of the best finds yet - about 10 minutes north of Oban we found the fantastic Kintaline Farm - I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it is. On the first and third Thursday of the month they have a little farmers market for local producers - we bought delicious salmon en croute and homemade shortbread. For the rest of the time, Tim and Jill Bowis who own and run Kintaline, must be run off their feet running a nursery with some of the best plants I've found for ages at some of the best prices and also breeding traditional utility pure breed chickens and ducks. It was fascinating to see all the different breeds - kept completely separately obviously to avoid cross-breeding. The traditional breeds really are very beautiful - although the lady above seemed to be suffering from a real case of 'comb over'! I can't tell you how happy I am to have discovered this farm - and I know I will be driving home after each visit to the west laden down with exciting plants. Do have a look at their website - it's definitely going on my list of favourites.

So, the nursery plants near Oban are great, but I have to say that the wild flowers run them a pretty close race. This is a sweet little patch of thrift that I found on rocks near the sea.

Back in the office now and I am very excited to tell you that we are now very close indeed to the launch of a new website for Twice. I loved the current one when it was done and it has served the business well, but everything has to move on and so it is for this - we should be going live around 20th June. At the moment it feels like the new BBC weather map did - slightly shocking and rather unnecessarily detailed - but I am already getting used to it and realising that it will be much more user friendly than the last one. I look forward to your feedback!

Something for the hound fans..

2009-05-18T13:17:00.002Z

I know that there are a few of you out there who like the odd update on my deerhounds, so I thought you might like this photo of them in the bluebells the other day ....

Tired but happy ....

2009-05-13T17:52:00.002Z

So, I've just come to the end of our two day Preview Sale, held here at home. The idea was two fold - firstly to give local customers a chance to see everything 'in the flesh' and secondly, to put new products in front of people and see how they went. I have to say that it has been a great success from my point of view - many thanks to everyone who came and many thanks to everyone that helped me (Jackie, Paul and James especially).

I was really pleased with the reactions to alot of the new things I've sourced and developed. Log baskets were a great hit and will be available on the website soon and then in the next catalogue. The new range of china that I developed with Susan Kemp looked absolutely wonderful and people loved it. I'm too tired now to run through many things individually, but it was a really worthwhile couple of days for me and Twice on all fronts. I think I'll definitely repeat it for Christmas, probably in late October, early November.

We also managed to raise nearly £80 in donations for the MS Society which is great.

Workshops start next week, so preparing for that now.

2009-05-07T08:43:00.001Z

Following on from my last blog about the Lord Robert's Workshops I just thought I'd mention that any email/postal support from anyone about this would be great - I have just emailed Alex Salmond at FirstMinister@scotland.gsi.gov.uk to ask for his support for the workshops. Obviously the more people he hears from, the better.

2009-04-30T08:59:00.002Z

We have a really useful boot stand which my mother gave me a while ago - but there are only pegs for four pairs of wellies and we are five, and often many more, so I thought I'd buy another one to go alongside. Happily there was a sticker on the base of the stand telling me it had been made by the Lord Robert's workshops, so I Googled them and ..... wow! What a find! It turns out that they are based just outside Edinburgh and not only do they make welly stands but a wondrous range of beautiful TRADITIONALLY MADE brooms and brushes of every sort imaginable. What could be better for Twice!

I shot off down to the factory to meet Chris Denny who runs it. What I found was both fantastic and depresssing. The workshops were founded in the 1890s to give employment and training to disabled ex-servicemen. At one time there were 11 such workshops but this is now the last one. They men make brushes in the traditional way - which, of course, means first class quality. Everything from clothes brushes to library brushes to yard brushes. Really beautiful stuff. As a business, it runs as a significant loss and so the charity that runs it - SSAFA Forces Help - have decided that it must close at the end of June this year. So, in the same moment, I had found a source for some of the best products that I've come across for Twice and lost them too.

All is not quite lost for the 11 disabled servicemen currently working there - the Scottish Government is aware of their plight and things are being done behind the scenes to try and save the workshop - but at this stage it doesn't look too good.

I went down again on Monday to order brooms and brushes and, walking around the workshops, it seemed really senseless that the workshops are closing. The cost to the state of having to pick up financially where the workshops leave off will be very close to the shortfall that they are currently have each year. Plus, because there has been the Sword of Damocles hanging over them, there has been very little marketing or selling going on which only increases the shortfall. The thought of losing not only employment and purpose for the men working there - all of whom have more than done their bit for us - but also losing the knowledge and skills that go into making these beautiful brushes - is really awful. Once it's gone, it's gone.

I'm not sure what I, or anyone else, can do to help, but if there is anything I will be doing it and I'll post on this blog so that you can keep up with it if you're interested. I am pretty sure that there is a good market out there for what they produce, with some decent marketing.

Aside from that, I have recently put together a series of workshops in May and June and sent out invitations for a two day sale here on 12th and 13th May and I am now panicking big time about how much has to be done....

The office reborn!

2009-03-08T16:18:00.003Z

Slightly later than anticipated (isn't it always?) I am now back in my office and couldn't be happier. It's like a completely different space. Before it felt ramshackle and inefficient and I could never find anything. Now, I've got this wonderful workspace with room to display some of the Twice products, a huge table for designing and working on fabrics, a wooden floor rather than carpet, which as you might imagine, was a nightmare when you're working with fabrics. All the packing has moved into another room next door where there's ample space to keep all the packing materials together, which has freed up loads of space in the main room. The loo, which used to double as storage for alot of the packing materials is now just a loo again. I can't tell you what it all feels like - mostly it feels like a totally new office - it's just as therapeutic as a total move.
As you can see, I've got a crackling log fire going right by my desk - what a joy! There's a fabulous view through the two big sash windows out into the garden - which is about to be a sea of daffodils - and every so often I see our two deerhounds, Flint and Romy, trotting past the window. There was a very good article on our daffodils in yesterday's Scotsman Weekend Magazine - and that's what I'm about to look out on while I work. Next year we're going to be opening the gardens for the National Gardens Scheme at daffodil time. I'll try and remember to put something on the blog about it as a reminder early next year for anyone local who might like to visit.

And then we've put in storage for lots of the vintage fabrics so that I can see them while I'm thinking up new products and designs - I could see them before, but somehow through the chaos of everything else that was in the room (I wish I'd done proper before photos so you can see just what an improvement it all is) I couldn't see the wood for the trees.

Time will tell as to whether my new environment has a positive effect on my work, but I can't help but feel that it will.

A Spring face lift .... for my workroom!

2009-02-28T17:57:00.005Z

Because of the way that Twice has grown, I have taken over spaces in our basement in a very piecemeal way. The room I now work in used to be the au pair's bedroom - which I then took over a couple of years ago. Since then I've spread to the next door bedroom (packing room), to the kitchen next door (warehouse) and into the bathroom (storage). I suppose because there wasn't a particular moment when Twice changed from a hobby into a business I carried on working in this room just as it had been as a bedroom. Infact, I seem to remember that for quite a while it still had the beds in it. It was pretty scruffy and certainly didn't look very businesslike - and I have found myself using any excuse in the book as to why people can't visit me at work.

Sometimes you just need a shove to get on with things and mine came in the form of a feature that has been commissioned by a big magazine on me and Twice. That focused my mind! I couldn't bear the thought that photos of me working in my room as it was might find their way into print. A couple of weeks ago I opened up the fireplace and started to use it - it's really gorgeous working with a log fire crackling away nearby. Then, last week, we took down the very old and shabby curtains and pelmets - and what a difference! Suddenly the room seemed so much lighter with it's big shuttered sash windows. Then at the beginning of this week we did something I've been longing to do for ages - ripped up the carpet. I can't tell you how boring it is having carpet on the floor if you work with fabrics to the extent that I do. I was slightly nervous about what we'd find underneath - but I needn't have been - it's a wonderful wooden floor in really good condition - and best of all, there are no gaps between the boards, so the room shouldn't be any colder. The floors have been sanded and then waxed and polished (thank you Paul!) and I'm thrilled with them. Couldn't be better.

The final thing is new paint - and that's what I've been doing today. Out with the primrose yellow (just too bedroomy) and in with an old white. The place already feels much more 'me'. It's funny just how much of an effect easy changes like this can have on a place and the people in them - it already feels much more work-like and I'm sure I will be more organised and productive in it.

I'll post some photos when it's finished and I've moved back in - hopefully sometime later this week.

The mother of all vinegars!

2009-02-18T16:29:00.007Z

There are several reasons that we stock vinaigriers at Twice. They are very traditional, having been made in France, by the same potteries, for centuries, particularly the lovely salt-glazed ones that we have. I first came across them at my mother in law's house. She has had one for years sitting in the larder and any leftover red wine is popped in the top and then from time to time we would all be given jars of vinegar to take home. A few years ago, she very kindly gave us the one pictured above one for Christmas. A few weeks later a jar arrived here filled with something horribly gloopy - this turned out to be the vinegar 'mother'. This is the starter that is one way of making your vinegar - you can look it all up on Google, but essentially it is a form of acetic acid bacteria that causes alcohol to turn into acid. So, we plopped it into our vinagrier and then started to add bits of red wine from time to time - if there was any left in the bottle! It takes several weeks to start to smell anything like proper vinager and we would often forget about ours entirely for weeks at a time. But then, after a while, whenever I needed any red wine vinager I would just take it directly from the tap.

About this time, I started trying to source the vinaigriers for Twice. It's quite a thing because French companies don't really seem to want to do business with anyone! I searched and searched and found companies but no contact details. Then I finally did find contact details and sent emails. Many just didn't reply and those that did weren't very helpful. Finally, I discovered the Renault pottery that makes our lovely rustic jars have an agent in the UK - at last, someone who actually wanted to sell something to me! Once I'd got them in stock I started to research the actual vinegar making in more detail because someone was bound to ask me how to do it.

We provide instructions for making vinegar with each vinaigrier that we sell and there are several ways of starting off - 1) get some vinegar mother from a friend, 2) make your own mother or 3) start with a mixture of bought vinegar and wine. The bottom line is that is boils down to trial and error and working out what works best in your vinegar's environment. Web research has thrown up a great blog in the States where a lady called Kim Adams gives the most down to earth advice on making vinegar that I've come across. Click here for the link. She will tell you how to make vinegar from whole bottles of wine or from bits and pieces.

The way we've made our vinegar has been very hit or miss but this week we finally got to the stage where we had a full vinaigrier and it was time for bottling. I turned on the tap and emptied the whole thing slowly into jugs, waiting all the time to find the globulous mother sitting somewhere in the jar. But .... none! I don't know where it's gone but we have perfectly good vinegar and no mother. I think that what might have happened is that because we kept tipping bits of wine into the top, this can cut off the air supply to the mother and kill it and it then sinks to the bottom - not sure what happens when it gets there, but ours disappeared. So now I am embarking on making my own mother from scratch and we'll see what happens then. In the meantime, as you can see we have several litres of really good red wine vinegar and no wasted wine!

To see the vinaigrier on our website click here.

Back to normal ....

2009-01-09T11:25:00.005Z

.. so, children back to school, decorations down and house nearly back to normal and time to assess the Christmas season for Twice and think about the year ahead. All in all, it was probably as good as I could have expected. Sales were slightly down on my expectations but the catalogue was a huge success so, on balance, things worked out pretty well. However, people are still very nervous about what's round the corner so for us, like most small businesses, the way ahead for 2009 has to be to cut costs, and not make any unneccessary expediture. That translates firstly into not attending the fairs that we usually do - mainly because the costs involved in travelling and moving stock are huge from Scotland. We're going to concentrate on building up the mail order side of Twice and expanding our range.

I'm not quite sure what to do about workshops - it's possible that people will feel they can't treat themselves so much this year. The workshop series are expensive and time consuming to set up so I am going to send out an email to test the water - and depending on the feedback we might just wait until the Autumn and see how people are feeling then.

Just to get myself feeling a bit less wintery and sniffly and thinking about spring, the photo shows the snowdrops here last year - should be like that again any minute - can't wait!

Home again after a month on the road ...

2008-11-26T23:31:00.002Z

One of the things that stops me blogging very often is that I arrive at a computer and realise that I don't have the wherewithall (?!) to upload photos of whatever it is that I want to blog about and so I just don't do it. But I am realising that photos aren't necessarily what it's all about and so I am determined that I will post more regularly with or without photos.

I am sitting in my workshop tonight having finished my last Christmas fair yesterday afternoon. That was the culmination of the best part of a month on the road - I have got lots of photos of the month, but haven't worked out how to download them from my wonderful, life-changing iPhone yet - will do that later, but for now the thing to say is this: retail life is definitely suffering in the current climate, but being out and about and getting to meet and re-meet my customers is great. Such good feedback and lovely comments about what I'm trying to do. While I was in London, the new and much improved version of the catalogue arrived and has since been sent out to a fairly limited list of customers - about 1800 in all. I have had so many messages from people saying really lovely things about it - thank you if you were one of them. The best thing is that this is now translating into orders and that is so gratifying - all those hours and days of work putting things together were worth it and people are liking what we're offering.

The past two weeks since the first catalogues went out have been slightly mad - I've been doing Country Living in London and Glasgow and the 'pick and pack' has been left to my unbelievably supportive husband here in Perthshire. There have been a few teething problems - mainly to do with stock levels - but we seem to be getting on top of those and a day back in the office has definitely helped. But I can't tell you how exciting it is to see piles of orders going to the Post Office at the end of the day - makes it all worthwhile.

Met up again with lots of great people on the 'tour' - it feels like a bit of a family now. Had my brother up from Somerset helping me in London - so great to see him and spend some time together and such a treat to have help on the stand - I suspect I took too much advantage of being able to wander off. (And, Tim, huge congratulations on the latest news!)

Had a great treat this evening when we went to hear Sarah Raven talk at Glenalmond - can't believe how much useful information she managed to fit into a one hour talk. Inspirational. And then a delicious dinner in Perth ... feeling very happy to be home.

Will I ever get off a learning curve?

2008-10-31T14:46:00.002Z

Running Twice I have had to grasp so many new skills - photographer, graphic designer, web operator, manufacturer, designer ... and on and on. Everything that can be done in house is done in house. Of course, in order to be able to do these things there is a steep learning curve - and I always come out better off somehow but sometimes things get thrown at me that really have me wondering what I am doing. Yesterday just such a thing happened when the much anticipated first run of 5000 Twice catalogues arrived ..... all absolutely unusable.

I have been very successfully using on-line printers for a while to produce leaflets and postcards and invitations and have worked hard to improve my abilities in desktop publishing. So, when I made the big decision to do a catalogue I looked for the most cost effective way of doing it which was for me to do the design and then get it printed by the same printer. However, I could see I might struggle with formatting of the artwork and I wasn't comfortable that I would be talking to someone in Germany to finalise the proofs, so I changed to a UK company, who cost more but assured me that that bought me first class customer service and hand-holding. I thought it was a price worth paying and went for them. I was sent about four samples of different paper finishes and plumped for one that looked wonderfully matt which I thought was very fitting for Twice. What I now know is that this particular finish (called offset) leaches colour out of photographs - the result for my catalogue is that all the wonderfully vibrant colours have just disappeared. When you are asking people to choose a product on colour, that's really not a runner. Anyway, there was a sad little puddle of me sitting in the office last night at midnight having just got back from a two day sale in Yorkshire, wondering what on earth I was going to do with 5000 unusable brochures. I wrote the printer a very sad email and got one back this morning basically saying that it is like that because I chose that finish. As the experts, do you think that they could maybe have advised me that that would happen? I do.

So, where are we today? Well I'm feeling a little more chirpy and have called my local printer for help (who I didn't use in the first place because I thought they'd be much more expensive) and they are going to match the price and we are going to go again.

In the meantime, there are an awful lot of boxes in the hall that the online printers don't seem to want either!

Feeling really autumnal and scrumpish ....

2008-10-19T16:16:00.002Z

We have just spent a really fascinating day up the road from here at Glendoick Garden Centre on a cider making course. It was run by Michael Pooley who has written a book called "Real Cider Making on a Small Scale" and was really worth the effort. It was part of an Orchard Weekend that was put together for the Carse of Gowrie, which is the area surrounding the River Tay just before it hits the sea - and is also where we live. We have masses of apples and a couple of years ago embarked on making apple juice - it worked to an extent but we weren't any good at getting it to store, so ended up freezing it. This works well as a preserving method but I can never remember to get it out of the freezer at the right times. So, last year we thought we'd have a crack at making cider. This was done by following instructions in books and, as we discovered today, really only got us so far. The cider (gallons of the stuff!) ended up sitting in the fermenting barrels for far too long and the results were really pretty disgusting. So the idea of a day spent finding out what we should have been doing was too good to pass up.

The first photos shows the apples being washed prior to being mushed up in the musher - electric one seems a much better idea than doing it by hand, and infact we had already discovered at home that a garden shredder is pretty effective.

Then the mush (proper name pomace) is put into nylon bags which are then put in the press. A quick twist and delicious fresh apple juice starts pouring out of the pipe at the bottom, straight into the demijohn ready to become cider.

After about an hour of processing we had filled 11 gallon demijohns with applejuice - it really wasn't too bad, although there were 10 of us, so I'm sure it will take us longer at home. It's a really good thing to get the children involved in - so that's half term sorted!

The other thing happening as part of the Orchard Weekend was that two fantastic old chaps were on hand to identify apples - the photo below shows Willy who instantly named three apples from our orchard. However, he was temporarily stumped by one delicious eater and we had to produce four apples from the same tree before he got it - and it was finally pronounced to be a Red Melba. Willy grows an unbelievable variety in his own orchard and he is shown standing beside just a few of them.

All in all a really great day - I feel inspired and love the idea that we can now turn all our wonderful apples into something delicious without getting it wrong. There was talk about putting together a co-operative apple day in the Carse - that would be good!

2008-10-14T20:02:00.002Z

I've just added the Follow This Blog option, so feel free to join up!

Caroline

2008-10-14T18:36:00.007Z

Lots to catch up on as it is a ridiculously long time since I posted - apologies for that - but I am sure you will understand. It has really been so busy I can't believe it. Not only am I getting ready for Christmas, which gets bigger every year for Twice in terms of fairs and stock levels, but I had also rather bravely organised the second series of workshops to kick off in September and run through October. It's great fun but, of course, does mean having the house presentable and the little matter of cooking lunch for up to 14 people twice a week! Anyway, it all went off really well and everyone who came gave me such lovely feedback that it makes it more than worthwhile. We had people from all over the place - and as far away as Cumbria - this time. The first workshop was the return of the Foragers which you can see above - it was amazing how many edible goodies everyone found on a fairly nasty, rainy day. And the cookery demo in the afternoon was really inspirational .
The photo above is the second workshop which was Nicolas Arcedeckne-Butler (pronounced Archdeacon), Master of Wines, giving us (I joined in!) a wonderfully informative and fun day on wines. We tasted 10 different wines over the course of the day and I came away knowing so much more than I had - I feel I really know something about the different grapes and which go with which foods and so on. It was a fantastic day and I can't recommend it highly enough if we do it again. Nicola is a great teacher - so knowledgeable.

Next up was Craig McAlpine doing a day on 'Easy & Impressive Dinner Parties' - he cooked rack of lamb, roasted butternut squash puree and boulangere potatoes for our main course for lunch and followed it up with Chocolate Fondants with Blackberry Syrup - that is the impressive chocolate put which should explode with runny chocolate when your spoon goes in - which it did! In the afternoon he ran up some delicious starter ideas - warm quail salad with caramelised beetroot -yummy!

These two photos show our final days - 'Preparing for a Hand Crafted Christmas' with Jane Lindsey. As always Jane gave everyone a really inspiring day - bulb planting, how to get your bulbs flowering when you want them, how to make a mossed wreath (see above) and, in the afternoon, these wonderful table centres and candle holders. She even had time to fit in some ideas on present wrapping.

I can't thank all my demonstrators and teachers enough - we had some great days and some really positive feedback - which is all I can ask. There are already enquiries about the next workshops, so I will have to get myself going for a Spring series.

2008-08-18T08:51:00.004Z

Wow - can't believe that it is six-odd weeks since I wrote a post for the diary. Lots has happened - we spent a really wonderful two and a half weeks in France. The first week was spent in the Ardeche - mountains and rivers - glorious. Then for the second week and a bit we did a house exchange with two French families. It's the first time we've done an exchange and so we were slightly trepidacious (?!) - but we needn't have worried. Because you are in each others' houses everyone treats everything with enormous respect because you hope the same is happening at the other end. So two families came here to Inchyra and we had two houses fairly close together in the Drome. We invited friends to come and stay and had a really great week with swimming pools and perfect huge lunches and dinners. I have to say, these parents in hotter countries really have got it made - give a child a swimming pool and you really don't ever have to find them anything else to do.

We also kayaked down both the Ardeche and the Drome. It is a great day for everyone - a little bit of danger (rapids), beautiful scenery, some exercise and at the end of it you really feel you've earned that very large dinner and lashings of wine! The photo shows James and Ellie on the Drome.

After one day spent frantically trying to catch up with Twice we headed up to Beauly near Inverness where we go to the Tartan Heart music festival held at the Belladrum estate every year. Well, we've done it for the last four. It is always a resounding success. We camp with the children, listen to music, meet friends, drink and eat too much and generally have a ball. I think it's really good for the children to have their first experience of something like that with us around and Silvie (now aged 9, but 5 when she first went) is such a seasoned festivaller now she gets quite cross when we want to keep an eye on her. The photo shows Silvie and her friends getting the best seats in the house for a bit of Country & Western!

Anyway, now it's back to thinking about Twice and, unbelievably, but inevitably, Christmas. I really need to have all the stock for Christmas sorted out by the end of this month and so I am in a right flap. Hopefully by the end of this week I might be able to see the wood for the trees. Husband James is coming on board in a slightly more formal way which is a great help to me as it means there is someone here to throw ideas and numbers around with - and with a bit of luck means I don't have to do the dreaded books any more. (Not sure if he knows that bit yet!) In addition to all the usual fairs (Country Living in London and Glasgow, Living North in Newcastle etc), this year we have got the workshops running from 16th September until 9th October, we will be doing a Christmas sale here at Inchyra sometime in October and we are launching our first catalogue, so I have no idea how busy it's going to be - but I think 'very' might be the case.

If you would like us to send you a catalogue just email us using the link on the homepage of the website.

2008-06-30T19:03:00.005Z

Oooooh! I booked the final person for our autumn workshops this morning and I am SO pleased with the line-up for September and October. We have got:

~ 'Autumn Foraging' with the Forage Rangers

~ 'Appreciating Antiques' with Jeremy Gow, a restorer well known across Scotland as one of our foremost authorities on antiques.

~ 'Understanding Wine - an introduction' with Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler (pronounced Archdeacon) - one of the most respected female Masters of Wine in the country.

~ 'Preparing for a Hand Crafted Christmas' which sees the return of the wonderful Jane Lindsey.

and finally, booked today, 'Dinner Parties Made Easy' with Craig McAlpine, winner of Channel 4's Come Dine With Me, who runs a company called Bespoke Caterers which teaches dinner party cooking across Scotland.

I don't know about you, but I feel that we have a really good range here and some fascinating speakers. The flyer goes to the printer in a couple of days and then we're off again! I have to say, I find the whole thing so much fun - it really doesn't feel like work. And, actually, that was the whole point - to bring Twice home a bit rather than running around all over the country doing those blessed fairs. I have managed to contain my Christmas selling to three big fairs - Living North in Newcastle and Country Living in London and Glasgow. That means only three moves, which is heaven.

Once the flyer is out, I can slightly put my feet up and enjoy the children and the summer holidays. Big sigh of relief.

2008-06-27T10:34:00.002Z

Here at Twice Towers the produce is really starting to stream in and yesterday I came home to find that happy husband had been busy bottling. The result looked so wonderful that I thought I'd share it with you. The line up on our kitchen table is Damson Gin, Damson Vodka and Elderflower Cordial (not sure in which order). There's also some Blackberry Whisky cooking away somewhere which should be interesting. Today he has added 12 2 litre bottles of Elderflower Champagne, a la Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, that promise to be quite delicious once the bubbles have come in and will be ready for drinking in about three weeks.

The gin and vodka have been brewing for quite a while. Just a sip of either of them makes me feel completely autumnal - and then, I expect quite quickly if I had much more, rather happy!

2008-06-25T08:01:00.002Z

At the end of yesterday's workshop I suddenly realised that I hadn't taken any photos - and had to quickly take these two on my little camera - so apologies for the quality (particularly to those who are actually in the photos!) but it gives an idea of the day. It was the last workshop of the series - and seemed to be a real hit much like the other days. Joa Studholme, who kindly came up from London to teach us all about using colour in the home, is an unbelievable font of knowledge on the subject. I can't even start to explain what she told us all - but suffice to say that I don't think anybody who attended the workshop will think of 'white' in the same way ever again!

The photo below shows the board that Joa worked with as it was by the end of the talk - she really opened up so many possibilities to people in terms of colour. It is extraordinary how light makes a difference to colours - and even whether you are seeing them horizontally or vertically.

The one thing that I have really learnt from listening to all our speakers over the past few weeks is that you can think that you know about something but when you listen to someone who REALLY knows, it is extraordinary what you can learn.

I would like to thank all our speakers - Xa Milne, Fiona Houston, Jane Lindsey and Joa Studholme - for coming to Inchyra and giving everyone who attended workshops a really memorable, useful and inspirational time. The feedback has been great - we seem to have got it mostly right - and I am now busy organising the next series of workshops in September and October. I hope that Joa will be back later next year - so there will be an opportunity for those who missed this one to see her talk again.

Thanks also to all those who came to the workshops - we were probably a bit of an unknown quantity as we had no track record on them so was a slight leap of faith for people signing up.

If you are reading this and are near enough to come to Perth for the next workshops - please do email me at info@twiceonline.co.uk and I'll put you on the list to get the info.

2008-06-20T07:29:00.002Z

Just a quick one. Yesterday's workshop with Jane Lindsey was smaller than the previous one and then even smaller because a couple of people couldn't make it in the end - so I thought I'd make up the numbers and join in. I am SO glad that I did. I can't tell you how much I learnt and how much I discovered that I was doing wrong. No wonder my flowers didn't last long indoors! There were some incredibly basic things that I was doing wrong from the moment I picked flowers. I would love to tell you what they were, but then there would be no point coming to the workshops!

It was also really nice to meet the lovely people who came yesterday - we had a very jolly lunch and it felt absolutely like having lunch with a group of friends. I have just posted a couple of photos from yesterday showing some very pretty little table centres that we made and also the wonderful hand-tied bouquets that everyone created. Mine actually looked good enough to give to someone - and that is a breakthrough!

So, once again huge thanks to Jane and thank you to everyone who came. We are already organising days for the autumn - at the moment it looks like we will cover planting spring bulbs, planting indoor bulbs for the winter and also some autumn/Christmas arranging and wreaths. Be very interesting to hear if there is anything else that people are interested in learning about (workshops will be on 7th and 9th October).

2008-06-18T15:47:00.006Z

We've had the most wonderful day here today with the first of two workshops on Cutting Flowers with Jane Lindsey. These photos give a bit of the flavour of the day - but we really were lucky as the sun shone all day - unlike the rest of the UK which was apparently in heavy rain.

I'm going to sit in on tomorrow's talks so I will have a better idea of the brilliant tricks of the trade that Jane imparted to everyone but all I can tell you is that every time I popped in to see how things were going there were lots of "that's fascinating!" type comments. As you can see, there was a trip down to our walled garden where Jane talked about which flowers to plant and also how to cut them so that you get the best flowers and look after the plant.

Then it was back to the demonstration room where everyone was shown how to condition the flowers before arranging. Jane had brought along lots of flowers from her own cutting garden and everyone picked the ones that they wanted to arrange. The flowers were all then conditioned - I will know more about this tomorrow but apparently it extends the life of the flowers once indoors from a couple of days to a week or 10 days, so it's well worth knowing. Once all the flowers were sorted out we all had lunch and a bit of shopping at Twice.

After lunch it was on to the arranging and Jane showed everyone how to make a pretty hand-tied bunch and then how to wrap it in cellophane so that the flowers can sit in water - I've always wondered how they do that. Then some pretty tissue paper and, Bob's your uncle, we had ten fantastic hand-tied bunches that would have done many a florist proud.

The day wrapped up with questions and answers and Jane demonstrated a clever way to make a really original flower or candle container with rosemary and a jar - so pretty.

I am so looking forward to joining in with tomorrow's course - everyone seemed to leave today's workshop full of renewed enthusiasm for their gardens. I love it when you learn bits of information that you will use again and again - and I think that's exactly what people did today.

2008-06-15T20:28:00.002Z

This weekend I think it finally, finally started to be summer - I don't really mean the weather as much as our mentality. The first thing that made me realise it was that I cut the first really good bunch of flowers for the kitchen table. You can see them here - rather thrown together but I'm hoping that once I've listened to Jane Lindsey doing the cutting flowers workshops on Wednesday and Thursday my 'thrown together' will be rather more professional! Roses are out, peonies are out - it's all gorgeous. And then we put our big tent up in the garden - it's a big canvas one from the Middle East that stays up now until about October - and that really means summer to me. We have a huge table in it that seats about 20 and it means we can go out for the day in the garden without worrying too much about rain ruining lunch or whatever. So today we had lunch there with friends who were staying and we barbecued a butterflied leg of lamb and had delicious beetroot and salads and a wonderful fruit salad.

Last night we had more friends over for supper in the kitchen and we ate artichokes from the garden. As relatively new veggie gardeners, this was a significant moment. I took this photo of them yesterday - they really are striking plants and we have them in the flowers beds because they are wonderful to look at as well as to eat. And the photo at the bottom is something I couldn't resist putting in because it is quite special and particular (I believe) to this part of the UK. It is a Himalayan Poppy or Meconopsis. It is native, as if you couldn't guess, to the Himalayas but grows really well in this part of Scotland so I had to give it a go and it seems to like us. The blue is quite different from any of the others in the garden .

The other reason that I'm posting these is that I'm quite proud of the photography! Because of all the photography we have to do for Twice, I have a quite snazzy camera but I could never make it perform very well. On Friday I had a meeting with Shaun Ward who is a photographer who is going to be working with us on our first catalogue and while we were talking I said that I was really struggling with my camera. Anyway, he gave me a couple of pointers (ie. explained what two major buttons that I didn't know how to use did!) and suddenly I seem to be taking half decent photos which I couldn't resist posting! At this rate I may even be able to stop using the 'Point & Shoot' that I always end up resorting to in frustration at not being able to use the good camera. I am also going to enroll on a photography course because I really ought to know what I'm doing a bit more. Watch this space to see if I improve at all!

2008-06-13T07:24:00.011Z

Our Discover Foraging workshop kicked off in beautiful sunshine (while the rest of the UK was in a deluge) on Wednesday morning at 10.30. The day went unbelievably smoothly, starting with a slide show from Xa and Fiona, authors of "Seaweed & Eat It", showing all the different plants and food that they have foraged from around Scotland over the past couple of years. They then moved off in two groups to forage around Inchyra. Battle was joined as they competed to see which group could find the most edible things. Just outside the house, Fiona's group managed to find pignuts - which was as amazing to me as it was to the foragers. It's the tuber on the bottom of a pretty white flower that looks like cow parsley (a bit) and it really is just like a nut - a bit brazil nutty. Here are Fiona and two of our foragers finding them. There was a huge haul of edibles including sorrel, ground elder, wood sorrel, wild garlic, sweet woodruff, chickweed, nettles and much more.

Just as the heavens opened it was time to head back to the house for a "Show & Tell". Everyone put all their foraged goodies on the table and Xa and Fiona identified everything and then explained what could be done with them - from fritters to fruit cordials. Then we all had a delicious (though I say it myself!) lunch of asparagus and goats cheese tart, curried chicken with mango, green salad (with sorrel and wood sorrel) and new potatoes, followed by a vanilla terrine with blackcurrant coulis and raspberries. After a couple of glasses of wine and a bit of shopping at Twice, the day continued with the cookery demonstration.

Fiona amazed everyone immediately by creating the most delicious elderflower fritters - a revelation! Then we went on to find out about nettle pesto, chickweed puree and soup and then nettle cordial. This is extraordinarily good and I now have some brewing away in the larder. The final part of the day was a tasting of various fabulous cordials that Xa and Fiona have concocted. We tried Sweet Woodruff, Nettle & Blackcurrant Leaf, Dead Nettle and more. The recipes for everything are in their wonderful book (which is available here on our website). The photo shows Fiona in mid fritter.

The day seemed to fly by to me and it was soon 3 o'clock and home time - everyone left looking very happy and clutching a goodie bag containing a signed copy of the book and a tub of nettle pesto. I have to say I was thrilled with the way it all went - and not a little bit relieved, after all these months of planning. I think that now the first course is done and dusted I will relax a bit - and I'm really looking forward to our two days of cutting flowers with Jane Lindsey next week.

Countdown to the first workshop

2008-06-10T14:54:00.002Z

Well, after all the planning and organising over the past few months, the first of our workshops is tomorrow. Xa Milne and Fiona Houston, our foragers, will be here to run what promises to be a really great day. We had a preliminary meeting here on Sunday and there is masses of free food all around the house so people will definitely be finding edible plants and finding out all sorts of delicious ways to cook them. I'm just off out to find nettles and sorrel for the lunch, having been given intructions on nettle preparation by Xa. The projector and screen arrived today and it's all just been assembled by James (sorry, IT Director!). This is the sort of expense that I hadn't really budgetted for properly - I reckoned it would cost about £40 to hire a projector for the day, but it's more like £100 plus delivery, so we took a deep breath and worked out that we would be better off buying it - especially since it means we can now have full cinema in the house! Even better, we've decided that instead of a trip to the horrid bowling alley, Silvie's 9th birthday party is going to be a Cinema Party here with popcorn, icecream and ushers!

I will report back on how the workshop goes - I really hope that everyone has a fantastic time. I think they will.

We only charge you what it costs us ....

2008-05-27T17:06:00.004Z

... one of the biggest problems I've encountered since starting Twice has been the issue of Post & Packing charges. When Twice started I did alot of research on other websites and plumped for a flat fee of £4.50, which seemed just about average. But then, because people are often just buying something small from us, it started to cause a problem on smaller orders and so it went down to £3.95 - but that caused a huge problem because things like our cork bath mats, which we sell alot of, cost us £4.30 in post alone, and if someone orders 2 (which often happens) the post is £8.00. Anyway, I've been hoping to find a solution to this that will keep everyone happy and finally we've cracked it. The whole of our Post & Packing has been updated so that all our P&P charges are at cost - it's been a time consuming project but it means is that every order we receive now only pays what it costs us for post and packing. We charge the actual postage or courier cost based on weight and then add £1 or £1.50 for our time and the packing materials, which I think is pretty fair. At the same time, we've made sure that we can send orders anywhere in the world on the same basis - which is a breakthrough.

One of the things that spurred me on to get this organised was receiving an email from a lady in the US called Laurie Crouch who runs the US Lucas Terrier Club - those of you who follow my blog will know that we have a Lucas called Pebble - and Laurie somehow found Twice through the wonders of the interweb. She kindly mailed and said that she would love to tell people about the company and did I mail to the US? Nothing like that to put a rocket under the proverbial and so now I can tell her that the answer is 'Yes'! This also gives me a chance to put another photo of Pebble on the blog!

I think we've hit a vein ...

2008-05-12T19:21:00.005Z

The flyers for the new courses went out last week and I am delighted to say that the response has been fantastic. We have got bookings across the three courses and limited numbers left now on the Foraging and Cutting Flowers days. We're not so restricted with numbers on the "Using Colour in the Home" day with Joa Studholme, so there are quite a few places left there, which is good. Joa works with Farrow & Ball developing colours and advising their top clients, so we are very lucky that she is coming to Inchyra to talk for us.

I am so encouraged by the response that I have now booked some of the autumn workshops/courses. Of our current speakers, Jane Lindsey is coming back to do Christmas flowers and wreaths and the Forage Rangers should be taking us mushrooming (yummy!). We're adding a great new course, which will be called something like Winetasting for Beginners, with Nicola Arcedeckne-Butler, who is one of the few female Master of Wines in the country. I'm sure this will be a great day - Nicola will point people in the right direction with 8 or 10 different types of wine. And I'm also talking to Jeremy Gow of Gow Antiques who gives talks around the country on recognising and restoring antiques - the Fraud Squad go to Jeremy's talks! This will be great for anyone like me who walks into an auction house and is just not quite sure whether what they're looking at is what it says it is! I don't think we can teach people everything in a day, but we can certainly add to their understanding.

Just need to get cookery covered and then we've got another fantastic line-up!

If you think you're not on our mailing list for the courses, do email me with your name and address at info@thetwiceshop.co.uk and I'll make sure you get details - and if you want to book a place on any of the courses click here.

New Twice Summer Courses

2008-05-02T17:38:00.005Z

I have been thinking for some time that it would be great to organise some courses around subjects that would interest me - on the basis that if I'm interested others might be too. I'm always thinking of new things that Twice can do. Many of them stay as thoughts but this idea had wings and I've just sent out flyers to our mailing list with information on the first series of one day courses that we will be running here in June.

The courses are all on subjects that I'd like to know more about - we've got Xa Milne and Fiona Houston who write a column for Telegraph Weekend and have just had a wonderful book called "Seaweed and Eat It" published. They are coming to take people foraging, show them what's good to pick and then do a cookery demonstration with what they've found. Nettle gnocchi appeals to me!

Then we've got what promises to be a really inspiring day when Jane Lindsey, from Snapdragon, is going to teach everyone which are the best cutting flowers to grow in Scotland, how to get flowers to last longers once inside (I, for one, will be very interested in that bit!) and how to arrange and wrap them to produce a really professional bouquet. I always prefer to give flowers from my garden if I can - but I can never get them looking really good, so this will be invaluable. I may have to reserve a place on this course for myself!

And I'm really thrilled about the last day we've organised in this first series. Joa Studholme is the colour consultant that Farrow & Ball call on when their clients need advice on which colours to use in their homes. She has years of experience putting colours into every conceivable type of building (the photo shows her in the Long Room at Lords cricket ground) and lectures on the subject around the world. I am so pleased that she has agreed to come and talk for us - it will be brilliant for anyone who is a little bit nervous about how to get colours right. Colour is one of those things that is often really hard to get right - but when you do get it right the results can be spectacular.

I have lots of plans for more courses - so, I'm on tenterhooks to see if people are receptive to these first three so that I can go ahead with a series in the autumn.

Eleanor rides again!

2008-04-19T17:32:00.004Z

Very bad photos - just took quick snaps - but I had to write about the arrival of the new Eleanor Tote. I'll just go back a bit on this story - one of the things I have been most pleased about with Twice is working with the traditional materials that go alongside our vintage finds. As you may know, one of these materials is deerskin from a tannery in Glasgow that makes our Eleanor and Silvie tote bags. These have been a great success, but I have to admit that the success would have been even greater if the bags had had zips. I rather stubbornly wanted them to be very simple shopper style tote bags - but I think that, living in the middle of the countryside, my security issues are not those experienced by so many of my customers - and zips were obviously needed. However, I was really keen not to compromise on the original aim that the bags could be open shoppers as well, so the adding zips into the design was quite tricky. That was, until a lady at the Country Living Christmas Fair turned up at my stall with a bag with exactly the right zip closing - we had a amusing five minutes as I frantically photographed her bag on my phone - and then, in the New Year, we started amending the original design.

These things always take longer than you think and the first prototype arrived with me about 6 weeks ago - just in time for me to try it out on a long haul flight as cabin baggage. It was GREAT! Fits perfectly under a plane seat, takes masses of stuff and looks wonderful. We went into production shortly after that - and the reason I am writing now is simply that I am full of excitement because the first delivery has just arrived at Twice. I have also, as you will see from the photos, gone off piste a bit on the linings and have added a floral linen to the vintage tickings that we usually use.

And the other thing I am thrilled about is that we have managed to make the improvements, with all the extra work that they entail, but have kept the price the same. What a result!

Hope you like them too!

Best wishes

Caroline

This has absolutely nothing to do with Twice!

2008-03-18T12:02:00.005Z

Nothing to do with Twice, but everything to do with living in Scotland which has made us do all sorts of things we wouldn't have done before - like skiing, riding and owning ridiculously large dogs. This photo is of our Scottish Deerhound, Flint, and is for Tracy at Two Crofters who I have just discovered also has a passion for the magificent hounds. This was taken when our Lucas terrier puppy was one bite big about 4 months ago. It was quite something to watch as they romped and romped and then, finally, Flinty would have had enough and just put Pebble's head in his mouth! Gently, of course.

I had always longed to have a hound and when we moved to Scotland four years ago I was determined to make it happen. Initially I wanted a wolfhound but when I was researching it I came upon a bit of information that said that a wolfhound in full flight 'cannot be expected to differentiate between a rabbit and a small white terrier'. As we are also mad keen Lucas owners this was a non-starter and so we went the deerhound route - much more fitting anyway since they are the Scottish dog - and have never regretted it. They are an absolutely joy to live with - so gentle, so elegant.

Tracy - I will watch with interest to see how McDog's training goes - I'm not sure training is possible with these boys! Flinty has just discovered how to fly over fences (I was advised early on in my deerhound career never to let him know he can jump which worked for a while) and he will now just look at us over his shoulder and then pop over fences and off for miles. Sadly for him this now means he's on a lead alot of the time - but when he's let off and picks up speed it is quite something to see.

To print or not to print, that is the question.

2008-03-16T17:26:00.004Z

Twice is a business that definitely grows organically. New products come on stream often because I've had an idea in my mind and then I meet someone who can help me bring it to life. Our breadboards and spurtles are a good example of this - I had a picture of my mother's old breadboard in my mind but it wasn't until I met Hugh Leishman and started working with him that I could actually make them a reality. It means that our range is a bit eclectic, but I like it like that.

The other thing which is happening in this organic (some might say, ramshackle!) way is marketing the business. The website happened because it felt like the most sensible way to be able to work from home and around the children's lives. Fairs have happened because I have met someone holding one, or another small business person has recommended one. And everything has usually been done because it felt like it was the right time. It is now feeling like the right time to put together a catalogue - but I am TERRIFIED! It is a major expense for the business both in terms of time and money, but I think it is the next step. I would be really interested to get feedback from anyone reading this blog and I've put a little poll in the top right hand corner - please let me know what you think. Obviously I realise that people who don't buy online are unlikely to be reading a blog - but any information is better than no information!

I've had a miserable day today returning a tiny pony that we got for our 8 year old daughter who has become a very nervous rider. He turned out to be just as nervous as she was, so we had to call it a day - but it's not that great separating a little girl from her new pony. Ow!

Ladies who lunch

2008-03-14T10:40:00.005Z

Lunch with Jane Lindsey of Snapdragon was really good - great to have a chance to chat with someone who knows the ups and downs of small business life so well. We seem to have many of the same problems, but it seems that for both of us the advantages of working for ourselves doing something we love make it worthwhile.

One of the problems that we definitely both find is that because we haven't made a 'name' for ourselves yet outside our local area, it is really hard to get people in the wider world to understand the integrity of our products and the value that we are giving in terms of individuality, the production etc. I certainly find that it is impossible to charge what I need to for the products that we make here in Scotland. One of the things that we thought we could work on together is to try and raise awareness of small businesses like ours that are involved in manufacturing and crafts in Scotland and often run by working mothers. There are a million reasons why it's great to be based up here, but one of the big disadvantages is that we are miles from the marketing hubs.

It also became apparent that life running these businesses is all ups and downs - one minute someone has spotted something you do and supported it and you feel fantastic, or a good order comes in and everything seems worthwhile and then the next, the orders have dried up and you wonder why you are bothering and the guilt about how much time you're giving the children kicks in! Can't win - but we'll have fun trying!

The benefits of being self-employed .....

2008-03-10T20:30:00.002Z

although it can be really tough running your own business, there are also, of course, some distinct advantages. One of them is that you can work at your own pace and around the other things in your life. Today I am taking time out to meet Jane Lindsey from Snapdragon for lunch in Perth. Jane produces some of the prettiest and most original flowers I have come across and we can sit and chat about the trials and tribulations of small businesses. We met doing the Christmas fair at Hopetoun House near Edinburgh in November and found we had lots to talk (and whinge!) about. We are also both partners on Not On The High Street (http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/) and regularly show at Country Living Fairs, so I am sure there will be lots to talk about.

In the meantime, we are waiting for the gales from the South to arrive in Scotland this evening, so my hatches are being battened!

Caroline

Where did December and January go?!

2008-01-29T18:13:00.000Z

Ooh er! I have just seen that my last post was on 3rd December - and I honestly can't tell you where the time in between has gone. Frightening! What with winding up after all the sales and then a huge Christmas here for the family and then trying to get back on track, it has just whizzed by.

January has been really good for Twice - there have been bits about us in Period Living (cushions), Good Housekeeping (pretty covered hangers) and the Scotsman Magazine (last Saturday - all about the January Sale) all of which have been great for spreading the word. Amazingly, there have been more visits to the website in January than there were in December - and sales are nearly as good. I was looking back at the figures for last January and it is amazing how things have built up.

I'm holding a sale here at home, near Perth, next Thursday 7th Feb to clear out a bit more stock so that I have room to get lots of new in. If anyone is interested and near enough the invitation is below - you're welcome to come along - just give me a call on 01738 860066 and I'll give you directions and details.

The new stock is going to be great. We've got lots of wonderful things coming - my lovely sewers are busy making Lavender Hearts in the most delicious pink and red stripey French tickings and we're also making lots more keyrings. I made the first batch myself a few months ago and the whole lot went within days at the Christmas sales so they haven't ever made it onto the website - but the next lot will. We're also going to be putting things like our Range Towels on to the website - this is something Twice has always done with great success but again, didn't ever make it onto the site. And on Thursday I'm off to the tannery in Glasgow to organise the next editions of the Eleanor and Silvie bags and also, something which I'm very excited about, to work on the design of a new bag.

On the personal side, January has been incredibly frustrating. My New Year's resolution was to complete a dressage test on my horse. That might not sound like much but to put this in context I need to tell you a bit about the two of us. I have ridden all my life but I'm not good and have never learnt anything properly. My horse is Henry, a 14 year old ex-racer (he raced under the name Hailstorm which could also have described his character when he came to us). He has had tendon problems in both his front legs and when I got him three years ago he had been on bed-rest for 6 months. He was everything you might expect in a thoroughbred and there were moments when I thought I must be mad for even thinking about riding him as a hack. However, three years down the line, he is a different beast - gentle, incredibly willing to learn and, so far (touch wood), he has never done anything too unpredictable with me. So, this year these two aging rank amateurs at this new discipline are going to learn dressage - neither of us has the foggiest idea what we are doing but both of us are thrilled when we start to get something right. I will report back if (sorry, when) we fulfill my ambition - but this weather has meant that there has hardly been any riding - it's either too cold and hard or too wet and soft. My fingers are firmly crossed for something more normal.

I am feeling much more positive in January than I was in the 'Ups & Downs' post - which is surely wrong!? Shouldn't I be feeling blue and depressed at this time of year? But I just have a feeling that there are going to be all sorts of interesting developments at Twice this year

Anyway, a very belated Happy New Year to everyone -

Caroline x

What a difference a day makes

2007-12-03T21:59:00.001Z

So, quite a week last week - certainly emotionally. And then we got to Friday and went to stay with friends in the Highlands - and on Saturday morning, I woke up and this view was outside my bedroom window. The size of this photo doesn't do it justice - if you click on it and enlarge it you get a bit more of the feeling I got. The ability of Scotland to sooth the soul never ceases to amaze me - whether it's my school run which takes me down the banks of the Tay or the kind of view you are looking at now, the country is a marvel. You can just see the start of the snow on the left hand hill and the clouds lapping round the edges of the loch were just beautiful. What you can't see is that the hills were also teaming with the most magnificent stags which just moved away slowly when they saw us out walking. Breathtaking. Anyway, what with the surroundings and the great company, the weekend was exactly what the doctor ordered. Feeling much more chipper now.

I have had so many really lovely responses to "Ups & Downs" - thank you to everyone who took the time to be encouraging. It has really helped actually. It probably doesn't hurt either that the web orders have been flying in - helped by having one of the Hotty Covers in the Times on Sunday (thanks to Not On The High Street - interesting for those of us who have been chatting about it on other blogs). The Twice website has been busier than ever too, so the rush for the post each day is getting to be quite something, but that is the kind of problem I do like.

James is packing the van (big thank you to him, because it is freezing tonight) for me to set off in the morning for the very last trip of the Christmas season. I'm going down to a little sale near Lancaster with just three of us selling, which as any similar operation to Twice will tell you, can be the absolute best of sales. Not only do people only come if they really want to buy but they can really concentrate on your stuff and they also tend to be really friendly affairs. I will report back, but I am quite sure it will all be much jollier than other recent events!

Caroline

Good bits I forgot to put in yesterday's rant ...

2007-11-28T23:05:00.000Z

I noticed when I was re-reading yesterday's epic that I completely forgot to mention the lovely Dorothy Stiven who I met at the CL Fair - she and I are on the same wavelength completely with regard to our taste and it was amazing to see her stand, which is all unadulterated vintage pieces (unlike mine!). It could have been the antique shop that I used to have up until I started producing the Twice products eighteen months ago. Naturally we got on famously and it turns out that she is often in Scotland, although based in London. Do look at her website and make sure to look her out at the next CL Fair in the Spring.

I also want to bring to your attention the completely delicious Christmas wreaths that Jane at Snapdragon is doing - I have put in an immediate order! I really think they are the happiest I've seen. Jane - I tried to nick a photo to put here, but Blogger is being beastly and I can't make it work.

The links to Dorothy and Jane are both on the right -

Caroline

Ups and Downs

2007-11-27T20:10:00.000Z

Golly. I am sitting in the Twice office having just completed a marathon tour of the UK, taking Twice to all the Christmas fairs that I last wrote about four or five weeks ago. It has been shatteringly exhausting. I manage to have the most unwieldy stand set imaginable and consequently it seems to take me longer than most to set up and absolutely longer than most to breakdown (the stand, not me, although sometimes both). I have lost count of the number of times I have been the last exhibitor left at a fair, with some poor man who's job it is to close up wondering if (or rather, hoping that, so he can see the back of me) I need help to load the van.

Along the way I have met some of the nicest people - Karon (Dream Acres) at Duntreath Castle, Anna (Luna Lighting) at Spirit of Christmas and Simone (launching her new business, Simply Twisted, at Spirit and without who's fanastic tool box I would have been in deep trouble). The VitaMix boys - who fed us all week with smoothies and ice cream (incidentally everyone, the machine I bought has yet to turn up!). It was great to see Harriet with her Hunter Gatherer again at Country Living. My immediate neighbours there were lovely - thanks to all of them for allowing me the breathing space to have the odd coffee break - Jo and Jane at Home Scents and Debs and the gang at Lilybrook.

I then had a morning which reminded me exactly why I am so glad we left London - I packed up my stand at CL on Sunday evening and left everything ready to pick up on Monday morning before heading home to Scotland. I duly left Stockwell, where I was staying, at 8.30am, thinking it would take me about an hour to get to Islington. How wrong can you be? Very wrong. At 9.30 I was stuck in a stationary traffic jam at the Elephant & Castle, having programmed the SatNav to avoid the Congestion Charge. Realising the implications the traffic was having on my home time, I decided to spend the £8 on the charge and avoid the traffic. Oh yes? No. I turned up towards the City expecting to go straight through the wonderfully free moving congestion charged streets, only to find ..... exactly the same level of traffic as there was outside the zone. I'm not sure that I was ever out of a traffic jam and finally arrived at the Business Design Centre at 10.45. It had taken me the best part of three hours to go 4 or 5 miles and my estimated time of arrival at home in Perth had moved from six in the evening to nearer nine. It was the longest time by far that I've been away from my family and I was really feeling it. The result was that when someone was rather sharp with me at the BDC I burst into tears and had to be comforted by Walter, an incredibly kind parking manager. I have to say the man is a saint - at the time he was also trying to deal with the fact that an articulated lorry had pulled into the already cramped loading bays, causing the mother of all bottlenecks, with attendant effing and blinding from all around.

I finally got the van loaded and headed up the M1, M6, M74 and M80 (I think) back to Perth. I am only happy that the afternoons get dark so soon or I would have been seen with tears flooding down my face when they played Westlife's "Back Home" on the radio. When I finally made it I can honestly say that I have never been happier to be home.

That was last Monday. Since then I have been up to Banchory in Aberdeenshire for a one day sale, then to Hopetoun House near Edinburgh for a three day sale and then today I completed a two day sale in the Agricultural Mart in Perth (called agricultural, smells agricultural).

[YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, MISERABLE BIT COMING UP .. Ed]

And so, after all this, where is Twice and where am I? Well, on the face of it, it should all have been worthwhile. The bank balance is healthier, lots more people have seen what I'm doing, lots more people have shown enthusiasm for it and I've had lots of compliments. But I have to admit that I feel very flat. And the reason is this. It is unbelievably hard to run a company that produces the kind of goods we produce at Twice in the UK and compete. I'm not sure that the fact that our fabrics are vintage and that the linen and leather we use are made in the UK means enough to enough people. The people who were really successful at the fairs I exhibited at were, by and large, sourcing or manufacturing their products abroad. I had some great companies approaching me to enquire about stocking Twice goods, which they liked precisely because they were original and made in the UK, but because of the relatively high production costs we have, there isn't sufficient margin to sell to trade customers. It costs me more just to have things made here than people are selling the equivalent product made abroad for at retail.

So, I am sitting here this evening wondering whether what I am doing at Twice is ever going to work. Even with all the lovely things said about it, from other exhibitors, from customers, from magazines, the bottom line is that most people seem to want something for nothing, or as near to it as they can get and I just can't produce what we do at Twice for nothing, or anywhere near it. There are, of course, some ethical and interested customers out there who are prepared to pay for what companies like mine do and I love them and really, really thank them - but all the small companies like mine rely on these customers and I am really wondering if there are enough of them to go round. And while everyone talks about wanting to support local businesses, the fact is that I may talk about the wonderful linen mills in Kirkcaldy that we work with and the deerskin tannery in Glasgow and the machinists in Dundee, but it doesn't translate into the majority of peoples' willingness to spend.

If this all sounds a bit depressed, it is. I'm sure it will all seem brighter in the morning, or the New Year, or sometime. But I know that there are lots of us out there feeling just like this - putting hours and days and months of effort into something that should be right for our times with all the re-cycling and ethical trading and supporting our small businesses that is constantly being talked about in the media. What to do, what to do?

First day without a set up, breakdown or sale for weeks tomorrow - can't wait.

Caroline

PS. Can't quite believe I'm about to publish this post - my blog was supposed to be a marketing tool, not an outlet for my exhausted emotions! Forgive!

Phew! Off and running ....

2007-11-04T17:00:00.000Z

Well, just a quick post today before I set off for London first thing in the morning. As I speak, the large van is parked outside with all the stuff from yesterday's sale falling out of it and not even remotely ready to leave tomorrow morning. Somehow things always work out though, so I'm not in the panic that I really should be.

I've had two great sales so far - I had a wonderful time at Camphill near Bedale in Yorkshire. Best ever day for sales - which is great and really gives me a good feeling going into the big fairs later. I think the new products that I've got in for this Christmas are just what people want and that is great. The Aromatic Pot Rests are just brilliant for presents and they went incredibly well on Thursday. And then yesterday I was at Duntreath Castle near Glasgow for another good day. I was next to a really lovely lady called Karon who creates the most wonderful Christmas decorations you have ever seen. I bought a little hand-sewn Christmas pudding which I am thrilled with. It will be this year's addition to the tree. I am putting a link to Karon's company, Dream Acres, on the side bar. Have a look - I'm sure you'll love it.

So, back to the packing and planning to leave at about 6 tomorrow morning. Really looking forward seeing everyone who's had a ticket for Spirit or Country Living through Twice. Don't forget - we're on Stand G115 at Spirit and Stand T12 on the Gallery level at Country Living. See you there!

Caroline

PS I've put this photo of the Nativity Christmas tree decorations that we've got in stock because I just love them!

Beginning to feel a bit Christmasy .....

2007-10-27T13:18:00.000Z

It really is that time of year again - it's funny how it seemed slightly premature when I put together an email to all our Twice customers about Advent Calendars about 10 days ago - and now, just days later, it feels like Christmas is just around the corner. It must be all the leaves on the ground, or the frosts, or something - but whatever it is, it has also brought the six weeks that I've got ahead of me into sharp focus. I will be doing twenty days of Christmas fairs and sales between 30th October and 5th December. This is a big step up from last year and I'm really not at all sure how I'm going to manage it, but I am feeling happier with the amount of stock that there is to sell and very happy with all our new stock. One good sign is that I have actually slept quite well for the last three nights which definitely hadn't been the case for weeks beforehand.

So, next Wednesday the campaign starts with a trip to the Camphill Christmas Fair at Bedale in North Yorkshire. I'm really looking forward to this one - it looks a beautiful house and there are some really great companies exhibiting. It will also be the first chance for me to see how our new Christmas decorations and Advent Calendars go down with the customers - I am so pleased with them but the proof of the pudding is in the buying. Then I'm off to Glasgow to the Duntreath Christmas Fair near Blanefield. Again, lots of really good companies showing. The really big push starts the week after when I leave early doors on Monday morning to drive down to London to set up for the House & Garden Spirit of Christmas Fair at Olympia which runs from 7th-11th November and then straight into the Country Living Christmas Fair from 14th-18th November at the Business Design Centre in Islington. Phew! 10 days of showing and 6 days of setting up and taking down. If I'm still standing at the end of that, I'm off up to Aberdeenshire on 21st November and then it's all move to Hopetoun near Edinburgh for a three day sale there. That segues nicely into a two day fair in Perth and then there's a bit of a break until I go back to Yorkshire for a sale in a private house there.

It will be exhausting but it is always really lovely to hear feedback from customers and to see old customers who so often come and seek me out. And, hopefully, by the end of that we will have sorted out loads of Christmas present problems for people and put lots of little presents into stockings!

The picture on this post is a close up of one of the fabulous advent calendars that I have managed to find in Germany. They are really traditional and right up my street - lots of glitter, lots of angels, reindeer, Father Christmas and general proper Christmasiness!

I'm going to sign off now and finish labelling stock for all those fairs.

Caroline

PS. I was very excited to see our little covered notebooks featuring in Country Living this month - lovely to be in the magazine again and thanks to all the readers who've visited Twice since.

Did you know about Not On The High Street?

2007-09-09T12:27:00.000Z

About three months ago I was approached by a web company called Not On The High Street saying that they had seen some of the Twice designs and they wondered if I would like to become a 'partner'. I have to admit that I had never heard of them so, of course, straight onto Google - and what a find! NOTHS is a one-stop-shop where small creative businesses (like Twice) can all operate under one roof, making it possible for customers to shop from many separate shops in one shopping baskets. It's a really clever idea and gives small companies access to a much bigger audience than could realistically be managed on their own. Anyway, I decided that it would be great for Twice and my shop on their site went live on a couple of weeks ago.

It's been really exciting so far - and I've been contacted by the Daily Mail and the Guardian to feature our products. Wow! Anyway, it's a fantastic website for anyone looking for something a bit different and well worth knowing about - so here's the link: www.notonthehighstreet.co m

Unbelievably beautiful in Perthshire at the moment - the trees are all turning - it really doesn't get better than this. The apples are au point and I feel a bit of crumble coming on for Sunday lunch tomorrow.

Caroline

A warm welcome to Nigella's spurtle swappers!

2007-09-05T11:18:00.000Z

I have been in communication lately with a lovely lady called Brenda about our spurtles. It seems that there is a very active chat forum on Nigella Lawson's website (www.nigella.com) and one of the topics of conversation is ownership of spurtles. Happily, Brenda found the lovely spurtles at Twice and put in an order. Frantic emailing ensued because although spurtles are small and light, our mailing cost was nearly as expensive as the spurtle. This is a constant problem for mail order companies, because you really need to have one-size-fits-all mailing charges and this means that you lose hugely on heavier orders but small orders are expensive for the customer. Anyway, Brenda and I chatted and I came up with the idea of 'Spurtle Post' - a lower charge for people buying spurtles! All went well, until customers ordering things other than spurtles started opting for Spurtle Post too! I might well have done if I was them - much cheaper! - but a nightmare for Twice. So, sadly, Spurtle Post bit the dust but we've made up for it by dropping the postage cost on all small orders to £2.00. So, hopefully, that keeps everyone happy.

I'm thrilled though that the Nigella forum has found us - it's really fun to be involved in your swapping. And I would hope that the spurtle measures up too. I spent ages finding the right one to go with and was really pleased to find Hugh Leishman, master wood turner, to produce them for us. Some of the Nigella forum have also seen these spurtles at David Mellor, who Hugh also produces for - and that should tell you something about the quality.

It's getting very very busy here now - children all back to school at last (not that I don't love having them home, but you know ..... ) and I am putting my mind to the gargantuan task of making sure the stock is all ready for Christmas. Fairs start for us on 31st October and run right through to 5th December - my feet won't touch the ground but it will be great to be out there taking all our gorgeous things around the country.

It is beautiful today, and was yesterday - where was this weather when I had three stir-crazy children under my feet? It's not fair ;-) !!

Caroline

Oh, where to start?!

2007-08-26T12:46:00.000Z

Well, as you can see, the poor old Twice Diary has suffered somewhat in the past few months - things have been so busy, one way or another, and I just haven't had time to post. So, a bit of an update on where it's all at - getting busier and busier is the answer! I have spent alot of time and effort putting together the start of a range of traditional homewares for the shop - these are all items which are at home in any traditional style house and our aim is the find the very best of them to put on the website. For instance, we have started working with Hugh Leishman, a master wood turner who also supplies David Mellor's wonderful kitchen shop in London. We have come up with a really beautiful breadboard, based on an old board that was my mother's - and the result is a really wonderful thing - solid, simple lines and with a quality that means it will last for ever - and (a really important feature of so many things at Twice) it will just get better with time. Hugh is also making fabulous garden dibbers for us and, something which I have wanted to stock since I started, porridge spurtles. Ours really have to been seen to be appreciated - really thick, solid handles and simple lines with no fussy patterns so that they clean easily.

Next, I've stocked cork bath mats - these have been a runaway best seller - it's extraordinary how many go! Of course, if you've ever used one, you'll know why. And I'm expanding the wickerwork that we sell - so now there are sweet little egg baskets to go alongside the shoppers we have had for a while.

On the Vintage Originals front, I am expecting the Aromatic Trivet to be the new bestseller for Christmas (and, yes, we really are thinking about that already!). It is such a simple idea, but works so well. We take our natural Scottish linen, quilt it and put in a patch of vintage fabric for decoration and then - fill the padding with spices! This means that when you put your hot pot on it out of the oven, the spices heat up and the smells fill the kitchen! And unbelievably you can put it through the wash and it still works. I tried these out at the Ripley Castle Fair and people were buying two or three at a time ready for Christmas, which bodes well.

At home, we are coming to end of the school holidays - everyone is growing up rather fast and our eldest has just become a teenager and is off to her new senior school next week. Everything they say about them being babies only yesterday is true - can't believe we've got here already.

We had a great sadness a couple of months ago when Edie, our beloved Lucas terrier (who you may have noticed in some of the website photos), was run over. We had had her since 1996, and the children had really never known life without her, so it was shattering. However, with immaculate timing, her daughter Molly had a litter in July and so last week we took delivery of the sweetest thing you can imagine - known now as Pebble. I am posting a photo so you can all go aaaahh!

Anyway, glad to be back on the blog - I'll try not to let it go so long this time!

Best wishes

Caroline

Double whammy!

2007-04-05T13:17:00.000Z

Ooooh! What a great day! Not only is it 20 degrees outside, with a whole long weekend of bank holiday and sun coming up, but Twice is featured in two magazines that hit the shelves today - our gorgeous little Lavender Hearts are on the "Things We Love" pages in Country Homes & Interiors and the website is featured in "Webwise" in BBC Homes & Antiques. I can't tell you how fantastic it is to see things which I have taken from the very first stages of sourcing the fabrics or china right through to the final product, sitting on the pages of a glossy!

The Sugar Bowl Candle pictured in Webwise was the very first one we ever made - it's a beautiful piece of Minton dating from about 1895. It has spawned many more and they were one of our best sellers at the recent Country Living Spring Fair. The editorial says that you should expect 22 hours burn time - but as we had one burning from the first to the fourth day of the Fair (until someone spilt it over some rather beautiful patchwork quilts and three covered baskets - whoops!), I would say you can expect at least 22 hours!

I am just about to put our wonderful childrens' Patchwork Quilts on the website. These really are heirloom pieces and were launched very successfully at the CL Fair. We take a piece of original patchwork and back it with vintage blanket and then edge the quilt in the wonderful natural Scottish linen that we often use. The quilts are then packaged with full details of the date and country of origin of the patchwork. Each quilt is, by definition, one of a very limited edition and, like everything that we do, can't be repeated. What I love about these quilts is how different they all are - and how anyone looking at them is completely drawn to one rather than another. Great Twice!

So, it just remains for me to wish you all a very Happy Easter - enjoy this weather!

Caroline

Phew! That was quite something....

2007-03-20T20:06:00.000Z

So, I am no longer a Country Living Fair virgin - eight days ago we set off for London in a rather large van, and two days of set up, five days of selling and two days of breakdown later, it's over! We arrived back in Perthshire last night, having been on the go since 7.00am when we loaded the van and then struck out for the North through the new winter. As it had been 20 degrees on the day we arrived in London, hail and snow was really quite a shock a week later!

The fair itself was great - I met so many people, both fellow exhibitors and visitors, who were really enthusiastic about what we are doing at Twice. We have made many new friends and certainly put our products to a far wider audience than ever before. To be honest, I'm so tired now that I can't really sum it all up - I think that will come later - but I am thrilled that Twice really stepped up to the mark. The stand looked fantastic and, from the reactions we heard, definitely had a "wow" factor. Thank you very much indeed to Antonia, Emma, Sally, Jane, Joa and, especially, James, for all your help both on and off the stand during the fair - couldn't have done it without you.

During the course of the fair we ran a prize draw to win one of our wonderful deerskin tote bags. The bags are named after my daughters, Silvie and Eleanor, so it was only fitting that they should pick the winner - here is Silvie pulling out the winning entry. Congratulations to Michelle Mulberry of Epsom, Surrey - a delicious Silvie Tote in bitter chocolate deerskin with a vintage French ticking lining will be winging its way to you shortly!

The Country Living bandwagon rolls on to Glasgow next week, so best of luck to my friend Lisa from Primrose Hill Interiors who will be exhibiting - I'm sure it will be great.

Caroline x

London here we come!

2007-02-26T15:15:00.000Z

Well, the nerves have really set in now - two weeks and counting until the Country Living Fair. This time in two weeks we will be driving down the M6 in a trusty Transit into uncharted territory. Minor angst trying to work out stock storage for the Fair - a) there is very little storage when you get there, b) we have discovered that I can't drive the transit due to an unfortunate little issue of an 'IN10' (Driving without Insurance) on my driving licence (don't ask - husband forgot to reinsure car, man drove into back of me, I had to produce insurance docs at police station - whoops! not insured! - 6 points and £250 later, marriage just about got through it) - anyway, the upshot is that I can't hire a van for five years, so husband is having to drive there and back. He will then have to leave the van at Heathrow while he comes back home to look after the children while I'm away and then pick it up when he comes back down the following Sunday to help me pack up, and then drive me and (hopefully very little) stock back to Scotland. Anyway, all this means that I won't have the van near me to act as a warehouse for stock and just a 1m x 2m space on a floor at the Business Design Centre - so, if any of you come to the Fair and find Twice on Stand G1 looking slightly empty, you'll know why!

We're just put the finishing touches to the stand infrastructure - this picture shows the first dress rehersal. Very pleased with how it all looks. In the forefront are our wonderful new Cot Quilts, which we are launching at the Fair. I am so pleased with how these have turned out. I have been thinking about them for ages - I wanted to find a way to use vintage patchworks in a different way - and this really works. We take the patchwork and back it with vintage blanket and then edge it using the fabulous Scottish natural linen that we use whenever possible. I think they will be a real heirloom piece - each one is very much a limited edition, with no more than two in each patchwork - I know I would have been thrilled to have been given one for any of my babies!

It's a glorious day in Scotland - I really feel we are through the winter now. It is light when the children go to school and light when they come home - it's always such a good feeling when we come blinking out of the dark into proper daylight - a palpable feeling of having got through it again! And the first daffodils are just about to come out.

Caroline

Twice in Country Living - well, once, but Twice, if you know what I mean!

2007-02-12T21:10:00.000Z

Great news - our hugely popular Sewing Rolls (a pile of which are shown in this photo) are in the March issue of Country Living. Subscription issues hit doormats this morning - and, already, the response has been fantastic. The sewing roll featured in the magazine is in a particularly pretty raspberry red floral French cotton dating from about 1910 - and we lined it with an apple green vintage blanket. One of the prettiest so far.

As you may know, we are exhibiting at the Country Living Spring Fair in London in March, so it is especially heartening to have made it into the magazine just before we exhibit. Really looking forward to it (although, as it is the first time we have exhibited outside Scotland, also more than a little nervous!) - and if the reaction to the magazine is anything to go by, it will be a very exciting time for Twice.

Not as miserable about the Scottish weather as I was in my last post - have realised that there is good snow in the Highlands and, if the temperature doesn't rise too much before Wednesday, I am off to Glenshee to ski with Ellie (eldest daughter) who is on half term. It's possible to be on the slopes in under an hour from here - and when it's good, it's very, very good (and, yes, when it's bad, it's HORRID!).

Caroline

Beautiful shoe bags need beautiful shoes ....

2007-02-10T13:53:00.000Z

As you may know, Twice makes the prettiest and most luxurious shoe bags available! Using soft, vintage blanket with an applique pattern in one of our gorgeous vintage prints, and closing with ivory satin ribbons, our shoe bags will keep your shoes in the utmost luxury. But do your shoes deserve it? They will when you get to know one of our great Scottish secrets and a great friend to Twice - Helen Bateman. Helen is a highly talented shoe designer with a very loyal following through her shops in Edinburgh and Inverness. Luckily for the rest of the country, her shoes are also available through her website at http://www.helenbateman.com.

One of the really helpful things that Helen produces is her Basics Collection - a range of classic shoes and boots which don't change, so that you can always replace that favourite staple in your wardrobe. I'm just about to replace my kitten heel black suede ankle boots as the current ones have been worn to death - and I love the fact that the new ones will be just the same.

So, check out Helen's website and then you know where to get the shoe bag that your new shoes deserve!

It is really miserable here today - horribly cold with non-stop sleety rain - and none of the snow that we were promised. Only one thing for it - a roaring fire and a good film!

Best wishes

Caroline

More is more!

2007-01-09T13:22:00.000Z

This is such a good example of why I LOVE doing this! I have just taken a delivery from a dealer who specialises in French fabrics. Amongst the haul was this particularly pretty blousy floral curtain. While I was scanning it into the archive, I discovered one of those wonderful little idiosyncracies of these fabrics - in order to get a little extra length into the curtain, whoever made it all those years ago (this fabric is quite hard to date, but I would put it at somewhere around 1950) has added a lining to just the top 1" of the curtain - and this, as you can see from the photo, is in a really pretty cotton paisley. This illustrates so well our new motto for 2007 - "More is more"! - in other words, given a fairly neutral background (for example, the wonderful neutral Scottish linen that we often use) the more patterns and colours you put together, the better they can often look.

For those of you who are interested in following our fabrics through to their final incarnation, the archive number for this on is 152-07 - this will eventually be put on the label of any design made in this fabric. Do get in touch if you would like more information about this or any other aspect of Twice and our fabrics - email me at info@thetwiceshop.co.uk.

Best wishes
Caroline

Happy New Year!

2006-12-28T10:53:00.000Z

Firstly, a very Happy New Year to all our customers, friends and to the small army of fantastic people who help produce our wonderful designs (you know who you are!). This picture is quite obviously NOT Scotland, but we are shrouded in fog and frost and so I thought I'd put this one in because it's what I would like it to be like now and it makes me feel great just looking at it!

As you might imagine, November and December have been extraordinarily busy months for us - so much so, that I'm afraid the Diary suffered from neglect. We exhibited at sales across Scotland and had a great time meeting customers new and old. We completely sold out of our Cup & Saucer candles - I always thought they would be a great seller, but the demand has amazed me - and it is wonderful to know that there are so many people out there who love our quirky candles as much as we do.

So, into the New Year and it promises to be a very busy and exciting time for us. Firstly, there is an enormous amount of legwork to be done to re-stock our china lines. And, secondly, we are getting ready for our first major foray into the South! We are exhibiting at the Country Living Spring Fair in March (14-18) in London - this means lots of work but I'm sure it is going to be great to take Twice to a wider audience.

Hope to see you there - and again a very Happy New Year!

Best wishes
Caroline

History in the making .....

2006-11-13T23:44:00.000Z

I have just finished putting some wonderful new cushions made from homespun linen onto the website and it occured to me that, like many of our finds, you might be interested in finding out a bit more about it.

All of these linens would have been made at least 50-100 years ago all over Central Europe. They would have been woven at home by the women of the household, who would spend their evenings weaving these amazing rolls of linen. It took the average weaver 1 night to weave 60 centimeters ( 24 inches) of linen. The full story of how they were produced defies belief in this day and age, when we just go out a buy any fabrics that we need - the linen would have been grown, cut and dried. It would then be put in water (maybe a pond) and left for three months in order to soften it for spinning. It would then be taken out, thrashed, combed and finally spun into linen yarn. This would then have been woven into these rolls of linen fabric, to be used as sacks or maybe cart covers. Many of these rolls were woven to be part of a marriage dowry and would therefore have been stored away carefully. This is one of the reasons that we can find them still unused after all these years.

Most of the linen has coloured stripes down the centre - a decoration that would have been added by the women weavers - who would have had to dye the yarn themselves to achieve the lovely colours that we now see. Reds, blues and greens are found and even purples and ochres. It can be difficult to know their exact country of origin, so unless we are sure of their provenance, we will stick to "European". The cloths can also vary from a fairly smooth linen to the wonderfully rough hemp linen of these cushions.

Whatever their history, they make extremely versatile and useful cushions. We have red stripes in stock at the moment and are about to add a navy blue striped cloth. Available, of course, from www.thetwiceshop.com!

Best wishes
Caroline

Fascinating Fabrics

2006-11-01T20:36:00.000Z

I thought you might be interested to hear how we find and process the wonderful fabrics that we use at Twice. The first port of call for us when we are trawling for fabrics is antique fairs and auctions. Then we also work with dealers in the UK, on the Continent and in the States who specialise in antique and vintage fabrics. The variety of fabrics available at Twice is so wide that at any one time there will be gorgeous English chintzes that you might recognise from Granny's curtains to vintage Provencal prints to turn of the century American patchwork. One of the attractions of the Twice range is that it is so eclectic, but there are many fabrics that don't quite work for us, so we have to get the right feeling from a fabric before we will accept it.

Once the fabric arrives back at Twice, it is washed and ironed in our laundry - in addition to making sure that all our fabrics are clean and fresh when they get to you, this also means that we know that these old fabrics can withstand washing. If it struggles at this stage, then it won't make it any further. It is worth pointing out, however, that these are old fabrics which have already been used for another purpose before they are made up by Twice - it is likely that some signs of their previous life will remain after washing, but they will only be small and are part of the fabric's character.

We then review the fabrics to see which of our designs would look best in a particular pattern and we consider what uses it will be suitable for - for example, if it is a more fragile fabric, we will use it for products that will not need regular washing or take hard wear and tear. Every effort is made to ensure that fabrics are up to the job.

The fabric is then made up locally into the chosen design and finally makes its way to you from our headquarters here in Perth.

We've just added a few new designs to the range - drop into www.thetwiceshop.com and look at the Covered Baskets and Sugar Bowl Candles - both vintage Twice!

Best wishes

Caroline

"Houston - we have lift off!"

2006-09-30T13:46:00.000Z

I can hardly believe that I am actually able to write this but, finally, after an enormous amount of work and effort on behalf of Twice and our wonderful website team (Kevin, Katie, Simon and Rob especially) the Twice webshop is open for business! I would like to send my very great thanks to everyone for doing a truly brilliant job.

It's a very good feeling to have got to this stage - we have all been working on the website since the beginning of the year. It's been a pretty long pregnancy and even if delivery is slightly overdue (I had hoped for the beginning of September) I hope you'll agree that it's a bonny baby!

There's a taste of what you will find in the shop in this photo. We will be updating the webshop regularly with new versions of our existing designs and introducing a steady flow of new designs to tempt you. You can use the link on the right to visit the shop - we look forward to welcoming you very soon.

Best wishes (and a huge sigh of relief!)
Caroline

Southerly gales ..... of laughter!

2006-09-17T19:25:00.000Z

One of the reasons we moved to Scotland was for a better way of life, an escape from the hurly-burly of urban living - and, I suspect rather typically of new country dwellers, we have entered into the whole "Good Life" thing with gusto - to the extent that some of our friends in the south have started referring to us as Tom and Barbara! So I thought this photograph would give them a good laugh! These are puffballs collected this afternoon from under a bed of nettles - I'm sure a professional mushroom hunter would be quite used to finding them this size but we were amazed!

I was lucky enough to have inherited an Aga with the house and one of the very best things about it is that we can put mushrooms and other fungi on the warming plate at night and have delicious dried mushrooms by the morning. Last year we managed to dry enough to last until this autumn and this year I think we will beat that and be able to give some as presents at Christmas. The smaller puffballs are really good if you fry them in oil and butter and add a bit of garlic and whatever other herbs you have around - it's a bit like tofu which means that it laps up other flavours that you put with it. I don't think we'll be attempting to eat the ones in the photo though - at little long in the tooth probably.

From a Twice point of view, doesn't the Mug Candle look great!? They will soon be available at www.thetwiceshop.com in our For The Home section.

Best wishes
Caroline

A warm glow .....

2006-09-01T17:03:00.000Z

We've just finished a batch of our wonderful Cup & Saucer Candles and I really wanted to put something about them in my diary.

The first thing I wanted to explain is why we use soy wax and not the usual parafin wax. The reason is basically that soy wax is 100% natural and doesn't give off that slighty chemical smell that you get with most candles. As with all our products, wherever possible we will take the environmentally friendly option and for candles, this is it. Soy also has a longer burn time than parafin wax - you can expect anything up to 14 hours from our cups. In addition, it is much, much easier to remove from anything - including our beautiful vintage china. So, once a candle is finished you can pop the cup in a low oven (80-100 degrees) to melt any remaining wax and then wash it as normal. The downside of soy wax is that it is much harder to get a perfect finish - but we think a few imperfections in the wax are a small price to pay for all the advantages.

The second thing, which isn't obvious when they first start burning, is how they become more beautiful as they burn down - at night the flame starts to glow through the china and it becomes quite magical on a dinner table - the only sadness is that it is at its best just as it nears the end! Oh well, you'll just have to get another one!

We will have a whole section for candles on the new website, which should be going live sometime during September. When it does, have a look at the 'Candles' section of www.thetwiceshop.com to see our fabulous creations!

Best wishes
Caroline

Mussels on Mull

2006-08-18T18:04:00.000Z

I thought it might be nice to give you an occasional flavour of life in Scotland and this picture does just that. We have just spent four glorious day staying with friends on Mull, one of the largest islands off the west coast. The west coast is unbelievably beautiful, with its mountains, rivers, beaches and wildlife, and somehow it doesn't matter if the weather is lousy (which is was while we were there) - we all just got on and did the things we would have done anyway, just with the addition of waterproofs!

We ate fish that we had caught in a local loch, we sat on white beaches and searched for shells, we bicycled for miles and, almost the best thing for me, we picked mussels from a local beach and ate them that evening for supper. Unbelievably delicious - even with the crunch of the tiny little pearls in each of them. This picture shows our mussels being washed ready for cooking - which was as Moules Mariniere - just onions, white wine, cream and fresh parsley. There is nothing better than good food and good company - and we had both!

Back in the office now and we have just had a great day doing a big photo-shoot for the launch of the website, so we are all waiting to see the results with huge anticipation. Hopefully the photos will be ready very shortly.

Best wishes

Caroline

Vive la France!

2006-08-01T12:46:00.000Z

I had a wonderful 10 days in France - which was partly a holiday and partly a scavenge for Twice. We were based in the Ardeche which is a truly beautiful and comparatively empty part of the South of France. Days were spent exploring mountain rivers, where we discovered the deepest, clearest rock pools, some bigger than a normal swimming pool. Absolute bliss!

On the scavenging side, I had some success too. I managed to find lots of old mattress tickings, which is what we use to line our leather tote bags. They are now back at the workshop, where we have been unpicking seams sewn in string that must have been hand-sewn 70 or 80 years ago. These tickings are great for us - they are basically one long piece of fabric that was then folded over end to end to cover traditional horsehair mattresses. The covers are now sold by dealers without their filling and we grab them and then unpick them - ending up with nearly 4 metres of fabric each time. They are washed and ironed in our laundry and then go off to Glasgow to line our bags. One of the things I love about these tickings is their integrity - they are strong, simple and have had a genuine working past.

Back in Scotland, we are enjoying this gorgeous weather and also the fruits of the garden - courgettes, beans, beetroot, spinach, peaches and cherries - delicious! As I write, the children are out picking raspberries for the freezer - and probably quite alot for their tummies! As one said last week - "Ten for me, one for the basket!".

Best wishes
Caroline

New Sewing Rolls

2006-07-07T10:57:00.001Z

When I started Twice last year, I already had a long list in my head of products that I wanted to develop for the company. The way I work has always been to create things that I would like to have in my own home or to replicate and improve things that I already know and love. Our sewing rolls are just that - a Twice version of a sewing roll that belonged to my husband's grandmother. She always had it near to hand, filled with sewing basics and ideal for taking with her when she travelled. The Twice version is slightly larger than the original, mainly because we wanted to fit in a really good sewing kit. We use vintage fabric for the outside and our twist is that we line it with vintage blanket, which makes a perfect built-in needle case. These are heirloom pieces that should be with you as long as ours has been with us - currently on it's third generation! The reason I am writing about them now is that a particularly gorgeous batch have just been finished, using vintage German household linens. These fabrics are so pretty and have a pretty story to go with them. In the late 1800's, new fabric printing processes meant that it was suddenly possible to have patterned bed linen. In Germany families started not only buying the new patterned linens, but also taking their existing white bed linen to the printers. A mass of incredibly pretty patterns in pinks, blues, lilacs and reds sprang up. As time went on the patterns became more and more intricate and multi-coloured. They are also wonderful to work with and lend themselves perfectly to our sewing rolls.

Not only do our rolls make a wonderful present (teenage girls particularly like them!) but I think it is a thoughtful touch to leave one in a spare room for guests to use. No more fumbling around for safety pins at the last minute!

I am off to France for the next couple of weeks hunting out fabrics and china - I hope to report back on lots of exciting discoveries! Until then -

Best wishes
Caroline

Patchwork Saturday

2006-06-24T12:54:00.000Z

We have just taken delivery of some wonderful vintage American patchwork quilts from one of our dealers in the States. Some of the quilts date from the early 1900's and there are some blocks of quilt that have been made up ready to join together into a quilt - but, at some point many years ago, the sewer did what we are all often guilty of and ran out of steam! I would date these to around 1930. The upshot for us is that we now have a mass of little pieces of patchwork just waiting to be made into something new - I think they will probably become cushions, with the blocks appliqued onto denim or linen. The large quilts will be cut up to become cushions and also small quilts for our dolls' bed sets. We are really pleased with this delivery as the colours are particularly bright and fun.

On the home front, we are about to put up the canvas gazebo that we keep in the garden throughout the summer and are all looking forward to spending the weekend in the garden barbecuing for friends. I am particularly going to enjoy cutting bunches of peonies for the house - deep pinks, pale pinks and creamy white - just magical!

Best wishes
Caroline

Bag sample arrives!

2006-06-23T10:13:00.000Z

Huge excitement this morning as the latest deerskin bag sample arrived - it has worked out really well and ticks all the boxes we had hoped - great quality, delicious leather and a simple design that won't age. It is in fabulously supple Scottish deerskin and lined in a vintage French striped ticking - as with all Twice products we will be making as many as we can in each of the different tickings that we source. We have a number of really gorgeous tickings in various different colourways that have been waiting to be made up into these bags - there are olive and cream stripes, navy and cream, red, taupe and cream and a few in the much rarer multi-coloured stripes. They will all look great with the chocolate brown leather. There are going to be two sizes of bag - one medium sized bag which will be perfect for every day use and then a whopping great bag which has been designed to be used for carrying lots of stuff - it will be perfect for people who don't want to resort to a briefcase or it would be great as a baby's changing bag - a fabulous present for a new mother. The two bags together will be incredibly stylish for traveling - just put one inside the other as your hand luggage. My two daughters have been longing to feature somehow in Twice, so I am going to name the bags after them - the smaller one will be the 'Silvie' and the larger one the 'Eleanor'.

We are hoping that Silvie and Eleanor will be with us by the end of August ready for the autumn!

Best wishes
Caroline

Bang slap in the middle of the year!

2006-06-22T18:11:00.000Z

So, yesterday was the summer solstice, which in Scotland means that it stays light until about 11.30pm and dawn is at about 3.00am - giving us hours and hours of extra day time for children, ponies, gardening and Twice!

On the fabric front, we have just received some beautiful pink floral fabric from a textile dealer in the States - it's an amazing piece which is completely unused and dates from about 1940 or earlier. There are 9 1/2 metres of it, which is exceptional and I think that it will be perfect for little girls' elasticated waist skirts - so we will be working on that today. In addition, some fabulous English chintzes have arrived, which are always brilliant for the shopper bags and peg bags, so those will be going off to be made up - should be with us in about two weeks.

We have also found some incredibly pretty French printed cotton which is very old and quite delicate but will make wonderful lampshade covers, with matching ribbon. I think we should be able to make about 10 from the fabric we have.

Best wishes
Caroline