Latvia

We went buying in Latvia and it was pretty amazing! There will be some beautiful Latvian stuff in the shop soon. For now there's Takako's beautiful I heart Riga print in the webshop.

We arrived and went straight to our apartment which was an amazing, massive building - with amazing features like a tiled stove in each room. I liked this room best - which was painted in no less than 5 shades of pink.

Then we headed into Riga itself: browsing markets and shops . . . 

Checking out the views . . .

Everything in Riga is on a large scale: it feels spacious and quite imposing in places.

Finally we got on a very crowded bus and headed out to . . . the best craft fair in the world.

Full of amazing textiles, woodwork and pottery.

(I bought those slippers)

Latvian folk are very proud of their culture and traditional dress: and so they should be. It was so nice to see people of all ages dressing up, dancing, selling their wares and demonstrating traditional crafts.

The fair was in a forest so when we got tired we just scrambled up a nearby slope for a sit down (and maybe the odd bit of fried meat and potatoes).

We also had fun buying a lot of these amazing masks! They're made by a 77 year old lady from papier mache and they're so sweet. She's so clever at making nice expressive pieces: we ended up buying quite a few! Come see them in the shop soon.

It was a flying trip all in all but we did manage to make time for an enormous slice of cake in Riga's best tea shop: it has a glass upstairs level with beautiful views over a park and river.
Yep!
Well deserved.

Izzy in the shop

We've had Izzy with us yesterday and today (and Rob at times too). 

It's been lovely to see how she works. We played around making bonnets and headscarves and chewed the fat a little.

Izzy's new collection will be in her shop soon - so keep an eye.

Have a glorious weekend

Have a lovely weekend you nice sausages - her's our Jack demonstrating how he'll be kicking back this next coupla days.

Here are some things we liked this week

Orangutang and babies - I'm really sorry, I know you probably have things to do but you could take 5 minutes right?

Marimekko - knocking it out the park as usual with their latest floral.

This exhibition! - get down there! (if you're in London)

This swimming pool might not be so secret any more, see you there!

Izzy Knowles making nice things (with my fabric)

This is too much! How can that be real? Jeeps. Technology.

#ftfloral

 Well Clerkenwell Design Week is rolling along nicely - we're designing a couple of florals which we're not ready to show you yet: maybe tomorrow. And we've been talking to lots of lovely customers about printing and making things.
We're also running our #ftfloral hashtag on Instagram which is throwing up some really inspiring things! It's also nice to talk to people online: cement our little community. You can join in if you're on Instagram: just add the hashtag to your favourite pictures of flowers or florals.

A bunch of flour.

Did you know that after flour companies in the 1930s noticed people were making clothes from their flour sacks they started printing them with floral patterns.

That's nice huh? - you can find out more here.