Ingredients for a pleasant surprise…

1. Go out for a drive in the snow (bring camera and sensible footwear)
2. Take lots of photographs of snowy winter wonderland
3. Get too cold and go home for hot soup
4. Quickly transfer photos to computer (while soup is heating up)
5. Promptly forget all about photos
6. A couple of months later - find “100 CANON” folder on desktop and think what’s in here?

These photos are from over the Christmas holidays and I don’t think it’s ever been so cold for so long before. Although we didn’t actually get that much snow up here because it was so cold it didn’t thaw out for over 3 weeks. Not so good for getting about but it was so pretty!

I went out to take some winter landscape photos but in the end it was the beautiful ice crystals all over the vegetation that caught my eye. I’ve never seen anything like it, every plant was absolutely covered in delicate little shards of ice twinkling in the winter sunlight.

As lovely as it looked I’m glad it’s finally starting to warm up here now though, I’m definitely ready for spring!

No silly, I’m not talking actual ladies dancing but instead lovely fuchsia flowers with their long leggy stamens and flouncy petticoat petals. Some designs just seem to spring out of my head fully formed and getting them onto paper/computer is super easy, but sometimes (like this) they need gently coaxed out and manipulated to get the right shape, composition etc.

I’m excited to finally get this exposed onto a screen since it’s taken a lot of tweaking to get to this stage. Now comes the fun part of choosing what colour to print!

For added realism I photographed the plain back of one of my cushions so that I can use it to mock up designs on Photoshop to see them on the cushion and decide on colours. I’m liking the teal but also fuchsia pink (very appropriate), violet, red, spring green, burnt orange… I could go on. So it’s time to go and make some decisions and print up some samples, make the cushions, photograph etc and then eventually get them into the shop.

Like many others I know I am all too guilty of being seduced by cookery books that are full of gorgeous beautifully styled images of the food. So I’m generally not a fan of books with no pictures but the “Can’t Go Wrong Cookbook” by Orlando Murrin may look like an unassuming little paperback from the outside but it’s full of hidden gems (sadly it’s out of print!).

Last weekend I discovered one of those gems in the form of a very tasty recipe for ginger cake. Basically just take a regular sponge recipe but use light brown sugar instead of white sugar and add a teaspoon of ground ginger to the mixture. Then ice with butter icing with a teaspoon of ground ginger in it too. It’s got just the right balance of sweet goodness and the warming winter spice.

In other baking news - I tried out a recipe for brownies from Inside a Black Apple and I can confirm that it is indeed the perfect brownie recipe (perfect but evil due to serious sugar over-indulgance).

Over the 10 week course we learnt to how to cut and shape sheet silver and wire, soldering and how to create different finishes like hammered or brushed silver. I don’t wear a lot of jewellery but I do like necklaces so I made 3 pendants.

They’re all far from perfect and not exactly the most exciting or different designs but I like them and it is rather nice to get compliments when wearing them - even if I’m thinking “please don’t look too closely at the dodgy soldering etc”.

I have so many ideas of things I would like to make now that I have a bit more idea what is possible but sadly no time to do another class just now but it’s definitely going on my “someday” list.

After spending a week in the big smoke, as well as meeting lots of customers, the following facts were discovered:

• Marram Studio handbag mirrors and fridge magnets do make ace stocking fillers (coming soon to the shop)
• Commuting is hell for someone used to a 5 minute walk to work
• It is not possible to have too much yummy Lebanese food
• It is physically impossible to visit London without having to visit Paperchase (or is that just me?)

Also in the summer I showed at the County Show. Now I’m just to going to admit from the start that I was pretty sceptical about this one. Normally handmade crafts aren’t the first thing I would associate with an agricultural show but I am clearly out of date in my thinking. First thing on a morning in August I packed up the car and headed off to Kirkwall to setup my stand in the Craft Tent.

It was a scorchingly beautiful day and after a quiet start the craft tent was packed. I had printed up some special “100% percent Orkney beef” t-shirts for the show and they went down a storm! It was a fun day and I’ll definitely be taking part again this year.

Just goes to show you should never be afraid to try something new! Massive thanks have to go to my great friend Eilidh for coming along to play shop, putting up with me worrying about getting everything set up in time and going on little excursions for steak rolls, icecream and sweeties!

After the taking the plunge in March and changing the business name to Marram Studio, I packed up the car at the end of May and headed on done to London to exhibit at Pulse.

It was a real adventure as it’s the first time I’ve driven down to London on my own (I know this may not seem like a big deal but when most of your driving is around a tiny little island - London is pretty scary!) and the first time I’ve done a show 100% on my own with no help. So after several hours putting up shelves etc here is the finished stand (apologies for the poor lighting - super strong spotlights and crappy overhead lighting does not make for happy photos).

The show was great, I met lots of lovely customers and other exhibitors and I’ll be back again this year from 6-8th June!

This is one of the many stunning views in Orkney - Skaill beach. I love the colours of the landscape and the very first leaflet I designed for the business showed my cushions sitting in the marram grass with the sea and blue sky in the background. Since then it’s become one of my favourite spots for product photography - although one does get the odd strange look from people walking their dogs on the beach, as I arrange cushions on the beach and photo them!

I’ve photographed some of my current cushion collection there this summer so I’ll have to get some images uploaded soon to share with you.

In amongst the marram grass there are also some rather impressive umbellifers which inspired my “umbels” design.

I love the sound of the word marram and so many of my designs are inspired by plants, flower and the landscape so it seems like a good fit. Hopefully this goes some way to help explain the new name and so far it seems to have got the thumbs up from most people I know and do business with.

Long time no speak folks! Well despite how things look here on the blog it’s been a very eventful few months for me. In the spring I took the big step (which I had been considering for a long time) of launching a new trading name for the textiles part of my business. Although I’m still officially Digitata Ltd, I now market and sell my textiles under the name Marram Studio.

In 2004, when I first started my business, I was mainly working on selling designs and less on making actual products but as the business has evolved handmade textiles have become an increasingly important part of what I do. Rather than continuing to try and squeeze everything into the one brand I decided to give the handmade range it’s own name and as many of my designs are inspired by nature I have renamed the brand after the Marram Grass which grows on sandy shores around Orkney.

It’s been a really positive change for the business and I’m going to be posting this week to fill you all in on what’s been happening here at Marram Studio in the busy few months since the change. Then I have lots of plans for Silkscreen & Scribble over the next few months so stay tuned!

I’m normally all too guilty of hoarding supplies (fabric, yarn, paper etc), which I plan use to make some fabulous item, that I never quite find the time to actually make. However, the ridiculously cold weather here in Orkney has spurred me into action and I spent a couple of evenings knitting this scarf (thanks to the lamp post outside my studio for being such a willing model!). As a left handed person who only knows how to knit right handed, I’m not much of a knitter because it takes me forever to finish anything but this was super quick due to the absurdly chunky yarn and it is so cosy!

Who knows maybe this will spur me on to hunt out my old knitting machine out of the loft and make some more things?