It is a proper little production line now with fabric trees, hearts and pillows all in various stages of completion. The Christmas collection seems to have got as far as homespun red and stopped so if customers don't like that look they won't be buying from me. I, of course, love it and therefore can't seem to move beyond it. The combination of the hessian and the red homespun fabric is working so well I think I will stay in that area and just order some more fabric. My wooden fruit boxes are slowly being filled up with stock as Christmas comes early to Hazelbank. Next is the nutmeg and dried fruit hangings and wreaths before another batch of candles. I hate getting stuck with Christmas stock and all I have left from last year is a few pincushion mice so I got it pretty right last year. This year, however, we have added an additional event so we are in unknown territory again. We shall have to wait and see how we go.
In the middle of all this drops an email from a small publishing company who would like to 'explore' the possibility of publishing some of the body of work that is Scottish island mum 2013. Asking me all sorts of questions - not least what are my favourite blog posts from the year. I have absolutely no idea and I certainly don't have time to start reading back to the start now. Isn't it funny how we could probably all pinpoint the sad posts quite easily...
I have promised to give their questions some serious thought but have just not said when. I wonder if any of you could help with this task though and I would certainly be fascinated to see the results. Let's not worry about identifying specific blog posts but if any of you could tell me your favourite bits from the year so far I would be ETERNALLY grateful! I know my visit to Eigg is right up there for me but that might not have crossed over into interesting blog posts. Any thoughts you have would be so helpful.
I do want to do something with this body of work but I also want to finish the project first and we still have a way to go yet. November and December are always the two busiest months of my year so I am sure there will be some dramas to capture yet.
Scottish island mum has a whole bunch of new American readers so I do want to say a special 'hello' to them. You have come via One soul many hearts and I am not sure I anticipated that so many would cross over but you are all most welcome. This is the site of my personal blog which is part of a year long challenge to blog every day. We get up to all sorts here and some of my readers have been with me since day 1. When I have some decent time I will read from the beginning again as it will be fascinating to see if my life is what I think it is. We all have a sense of who we are and the life we inhabit but this project will see just how close my views are to reality.
Scottish island mum has a Pinterest board that shares some of my favourite photographs from the project so far and it is a bit of a memory board for me and probably some of my readers. It does illustrate, quite well, just how much we do in a year and how many experiences we have. The board also serves to remind me just how beautiful the island is. Of course I could do with Lisa or David visiting to take proper photographs. They are the photographers on the One soul many hearts team and people are just loving their work.
After much deliberation and discussion I have decided to end this project on December 31st before bringing Scottish island mum back in a new lifestyle format on a new site as soon as I can in 2014. I need some time to do this work properly and there is just no time left in 2013. In the meantime I hope readers will pop across to One soul many hearts to keep up with all the new offerings on that site. I will use the facebook page of Scottish island mum to keep you all up to date with the restructuring job and likely dates of it being ready.
So this week has been a constant juggle between making our Christmas collection and writing assignments sprinkled with editorial work. I have discovered that my kitten adores the sewing machine and now sleeps curled up right next to it - she likes the noise and the vibration. She also likes to curl up in my button basket and I have to lift her up to find the buttons I need. She looked at me really strangely yesterday when I came home from the hairdressers and she sulked most of the evening because I was gone from the house for too long. If you ever thought that Scottish island mum rules her household you would be very much mistaken. Mimi rules all of us all of the time.
Until tomorrow. xx
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