Unsuitable for dogs

With a custom order for a couple of pencil rolls to make up, I finally found myself prompted into action on redesigning them before I made a new batch last week. My mother, who is the font of both wonderful frippery and downright practicality, had long ago told me that, despite the opportunities for pleasing ribbon-fabric coordination, she didn't think that a pencil roll that required fastening with a bow was at all suitable for small hands or their busy mothers. I think that she is wrong in some ways because one happy customer told me that her child's pencil roll doubled as a coat for their small dog and that her children had spent many happy hours being delighted by seeing the dog trot around in a spotted pencil roll jacket, the bow tied at her tummy. It is my firmly held belief that any other fastening would not have so welcomingly accommodated even the smallest of canine girths.

However, not everyone has a dog and it will only be a fraction of pencil roll purchasers who have hopes that their roll might be dual-purposed in this way....which is why I have heeded my mother's wise advice and redesigned my rolls to have velcro tabs. I had felt a little sad that this didn't allow me to have the happiness of choosing ribbons, but actually, I made my own fun in trying to find little pictures or nice fabric swatches to go on each tab.

And how could one not go foraging for little details like this when one has been set up so nicely to think that way by the thoughtful manufacturer who chose to produce inspiring selvages like the one below - it's so lovely I can barely believe that it actually exists and resides in my house.

And one of those sweet little houses and trees found their way onto the front of one of the pencil roll holders - I would have loved this when I was small. It reminds me of some yellow and red hair bobbles that I had that were made from a plasticised fabric and featured a hot air balloon...how I would love to still have those (to look at, not to wear...no weirdy pigtail regression here!)....there's something so lovely about very miniature things.

Some of these will find their way into my shop within the next week...which I feel I can now say with much relief, having lost my shop (and email - horrors!) for 24 hours due to strange server problems. But it's over now, and I can breathe again. How oddly attached one becomes to one's website - it feels like an extension of myself and for it not to be there felt tantamount to suddenly being told that my ear lobe had gone missing. Mr Teacake tells me that despite the fact that I pay nothing for his web services, I am somehow more demanding than any of his real clients. Mmm. This is probably true...but I have deemed this to be the prerogative of the person who maintains a constant supply of pistachio nuts solely for his nut-eating happiness.

Happy tulips...

Anyway, there is so much more to tell, but not quite enough time to tell it in, so I shall leave you with this photograph of the wonderful matryoshka tape measure that my sister surprised me with last week.

I am off to do some measuring with it...and tomorrow, we are off to the hospital for Mr Teacakes' operation on his hand. Thank you so much for your well wishes for him. x