Welcome Autumn

Leave a Comment / 2023, Festive fair /

Brrrrrr it’s getting a bit chilly in the evenings now. We’ve also noticed the nights drawing in. We’ve had a lovely couple of weeks in the shop with lots of visitors. Which has cheered us up no end. August wasn’t as good as previous years, we had half expected it, but its still a bit worrying so it’s lovely to see lots of visitors in the shop again.
We’ve got to a good stage with our preparations for the NEC. I have in my mind what it’s going to look like now. I just need to put that into action. I’m a bit disappointed we can’t get away from the traditional table at the front and us behind, but the small size of our stall means that it’s the most efficient way to display as much as possible, and keep ourselves out of the way and not into the aisles. We haven’t got the budget to be spectacular, but I have some ideas that hopefully will make us look better than just a table with white cloth on. Anyway I’m not going to give to much away, so we will see later if I pull it off.

My large Father Christmas picture has sold . I was hoping to take it to Birmingham as a eye catching piece. I will hopefully get time to make another, well at least a similar one. But I did make a smaller snowman which hopefully I will be able to take. I’m quite chuffed with my happy smiling chap.


We are hoping to have some tickets soon to do a giveaway soon, so watch this space.

We are stocking up on Christmas goodies nicely, but with how good it’s been in the shop the last couple of weeks, it means that some of that has disappeared. I’m not worried as I still have 7 weeks of making to get in and I know the shop will drop right off very soon. The plan is to get all of the work, that needs to be drilled made asap, so Mr WD has time to drill it all and then all the coasters, gin stirers and slumped work will wait to the end as once it’s out of the kiln it doesn’t t need anything doing to it.

My pottery has been coming on. I LOVE LOVE LOVE throwing. My wheel comes out as often as time allows. I’m still struggling with glazing so quite a bit is still going in the wonky pot box, for sale. It’s doesn’t seem to last long, which is fabulous, people seem to love the idea of a wonky pot.

I’ve also just been exploring how to add or reshape pots once they are thrown, these need to be fired and then I can see properly if they are working. I can then try some more glazing techniques. I’m hoping soon I will find a style I like, that I can concentrate more on, but I’m still in the experimental phase at the moment.

It’s also weird when we visited our local museum in liskeard recently, to discover we are actually living very close to where a local well know pottery used to be. Tremor Pottery was quite famous and I must have visited as a child, as I have some of their pieces that I bought on holiday years ago. I need to get them out of my loft and check what I have. Strange how life seems to have come full circle .

Stay warm and keep safe, especially as we are expecting storm Agnes to hit at anytime. See you maybe in the shop or at the NEC, soon

Janice x

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Hello’s and sad goodbyes

Leave a Comment / 2023 /

Here we are in April, goodness the year is just flying by. We are back in the shop full time and things are picking up. We still worry that people are nervous of spending and there is some evidence of that, but we are generally happy with how things are starting to grow.

We have had a new maker join us this month. We now have some lovely cut metal images, the larger ones are cut outs of Polperro and the ‘Nearly there Trees’. Those of you who travel down the A30 will be familiar with the trees that welcome you as you approach Cornwall. For those living in Cornwall they are referred to as the ‘Nearly HOME trees. Always a lovely sight.

Welcoming new makers into our shop is always exciting. We are quite fussy though, so we usually only welcome one new person a year. We have a couple of self imposed rules that we like to stick to. Firstly everything has to be made in Cornwall. This was not always the case but we made a decision about 4 years ago to change to all Cornish items. We had visited Scotland and we went into a lovely little shop with crafty items , we picked up a few things to buy and were disappointed to discover that the wool was from Mexico, the tea towel was from China and a card we picked up of a highland cow, was actually produced about 5 miles away from where we lived in Cornwall. We didn’t want the people who visited us to be as disappointed as we were that our Scottish reminders were in fact not made in Scotland.

It’s also important to us that if we support a maker that we don’t invite other makers doing the same craft, to come in and compete with our existing crafters. This does limit what we can take but it also means that we are fully committed to the artisans who put their trust in us and don’t over crowd with to many of the same style of work.

Lastly, we hate when we go round tourist areas and all the shops have the same items for sale. So we ask that people don’t sell their work in other shops within 7 miles of us. So people visiting Looe and Polperro don’t keep seeing the same items in the area and everything in our shop looks unique. It’s seems to work but do you think these are good rules to have, or are we just to fussy?

Would you believe in April we’ve already run out of Christmas trees, specifically the Polperro and Cornwall ones. A load went in on Tuesday and Steve drilled them on Wednesday. I’ve just put ribbons on so we have a stock for the rest of Easter. I’ve just ordered more glass as I’m running low and the next on the list are the coasters. They take a lot of glass so I won’t be making them until my order arrives, as I don’t want to be left with no glass at all. It’s very easy, when we are busy to take our eye off the ball, and not realise we are running short of something.

Also this month I had a visit to ‘Craft for crafters’, a craft show at Westpoint Arena near Exeter. It’s an annual trip I make with my sister who lives nearby, so always good excuse to stock up with crafty bits and also have a catch up and a gossip. We did a lovely little workshop to make a wet felted bowl. I enjoyed it so much I will be making more I ….. maybe a few will sneak into the shop

It’s also been an incredible sad month for us. We had to say goodbye to our beautiful boy Fin. Our 11 year old collie. He’s was definitely one of a kind, completely mad and totally instinct driven. He was epileptic and also had the terrible Canine degenerative myelopathy. With all his problems he never was miserable or felt sorry for himself he just adapted and lived his life to the full. We miss him so very much already.

On that sad note I will wish you a happy Easter and hopefully see you in the shop soon.
Janice x

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