This weekend I was back at my parents house in the north west. It was a 12 hour round trip as I went by coach, which was long but not so bad.

The view of the fields when I woke up on Saturday..

I had a lazy morning reading my book and drinking a fair few cups of these..

and looking at the garden….

But home wouldn’t be home without a mini shopping trip at some point with my mum and my sister. So that happened on Sunday. I actually went shopping for new running shoes but came home with these instead…which just about sums up my attitude to exercise of late…..

Extra long cable-knitted slippers that go over my knees at full stretch!!! They are very wintry and I know we’re not quite there yet. But when it gets colder they will be great for curling up in.

On Sunday night we had a lovely sunset.

I think this kind of light, at this time of day, is my favourite.

So now I am back home in London and looking forward to the week ahead. On Thursday I’m collecting a new addition to the production line which I am really excited about. If all goes well it should really help me widen the range of things I currently make which would be pretty cool……if all goes well……

Whilst I love using pattern and print on my bags, sometimes, on occasion, it’s also good to keep things simple….

These are 2 protos I finished earlier today and I am very pleased with them.

I wanted to design something that was just about the colour and texture of the leather and the shape of the bag and nothing else.

They are 100% leather (of the softest and squashiest variety) and the darker leather is actually re-claimed in parts which I also really like as it gives the bag a lovely worn, creased look in places and new and shiny in others.

These will be going to two baggy people I know to be road-tested around the bars and clubs of the city. I would love to be able to add some of these to the shop sometime soon. Which reminds me, the new website is looking really really good now and I think is around 95% done……

Thursday and Friday have been very busy days here. Both days I woke up early and worked pretty much solidly all day. I want to do a market stall towards the start of autumn so I’m trying to build up some stock of smaller things like purses and clutches, so I’m doing that as well as working on pattern developments and so on.

Anyway, it got to about 3pm today and I knew I had to go into town to drop something off with a friend later on. I decided I would set off a bit early and take my new camera along for the ride. It hasn’t had many trips out since it’s arrival, so I thought it was overdue.

It was hot, so rather than take the tube I decided to walk the whole way..

First I arrived at Waterloo and crossed the Thames over the foot bridge.

The City Cruises boat came right under where I was standing. I love that everyone is doing something different on these pictures. I didn’t spot the driver making a sharp left though until I uploaded the pictures!

Next I took a short cut through the park near Embankment..

(Spot the fly-away balloon?)

Then I crossed the Strand and headed into Covent Garden.

Plenty of entertainers doing their thing.

And a nice looking food market.

On the way home I got lured into Happie loves it - they had a sale!

I tried on three dresses..

I loved them all. But bought just one.

Tomorrow I’m planning a trip out of London for the day. Then Sunday will be more sewing…

I haven’t been to a the beach in a while, but when I was last in France I took these pictures, I just came across them again now whilst cleaning up my computer. Looking at them was a nice distraction from work for a few minutes…

Above is the newest Angel clutch to be added to the collection. I am pleased I finally discovered a fabric which goes perfectly with the sparkly pink leather I bought  a while ago. I’ve been trying to find the right use to put it to and now I finally have. I was also tempted by the sparkly silver leather they had in stock, I’m thinking glittery metallic leather purses could be fun ….maybe towards Christmas time.

Today I did something I haven’t done in a long long time, I hunted out my paints and spent a relaxing and fun couple of hours being arty. It really is a long time since I did any painting, although I did Fine Art for my degree it was a few years ago and I have had other creative thoughts on my mind since then.

I had completely forgotten the pleasures of looking at and dipping into messy paint. I never ever clean my palettes, so as you can see below the colours are never completely what they should be, they’re always a bit of a mixture of themselves and something else. Which is fine by me.

You can see a sneaky peak of what I was painting above but I am always quite shy about showing my artwork (I was the same at Uni).

Anyway, whilst this was all good relaxing fun I do have an eventual plan in mind which involves art, painting, fabrics and of course bags. I want to develop what I started late last year (in this post), the idea of printing up my own unique fabrics for use on my bags. Whether that’s screen printing or digital printing like last time I haven’t decided, and it’s still a long way down the line yet. In the meantime I will have fun practising with my disgustingly lovely messy paints!

This weekend we went to the Big Chill festival in Herefordshire.

Here are some of my favourite sights…..

There was a LOT of bubble fun going on as you can see…

And the glitter balls in the trees looked fab. In the evening when it started to go dark people were doing ballroom dances underneath them on the grass..

Some people doing fire and glow poi..

As we were leaving the heavens opened, so that was the view from under my umbrella.

But it meant we got a big rainbow on the way home…

Here’s a preview of the new style clutch bag I’ve been working on over the weekend…

I made the first mock-up in this really nice sage green linen that I bought a while ago to use as lining for something else.

The plan was to eventually make this bag up in 2 different tones of leather, but I actually really like the feel and texture of the linen, it’s lovely and light yet still substantial enough for a clutch. So I may end up scrapping the leather idea for this one and making up a few more in linen.

Plus this fabric does feel especially nice and summery given that it’s another scorcher here today!

It’s been very hot here today. I went out for a walk earlier, got slightly lost at one point but there were some pretty sights along the way..

Was happy to be in a dress!

Some random photos of my week so far…

Tuesday I met my sister for a drink in my favourite little bar on the edge of soho. I like it because it’s fairly quiet during the week and they have nice red candles.

My tube stop, unusually quiet…

Last night we went to 93 Feet East on Brick Lane to see The Anomalies play a set.

I was suprised how bright it was when I got out of the tube.

oh and I got this rather pointless text message from Orange whilst I was walking along. I thought iwas quite funny.

The Anomalies were good.

Although they move very fast so it’s hard for a photo novice like me to get a good capture!

Fun evening.

Anyway as for the rest of the week I have some design time planned to finish up some of the things I’ve been daydreaming about making over the past week or so. I dedicated this morning to making up some new patterns which went well so hopefully by the weekend I should have some new stuff made up and available to post…..