I’ve had a crazy month. We sold the tea lounge/paint shop to free us to follow our dreams and projects, but that’s meant fitting a huge volume of belongings into our home next door. I’ve bought boxes and gone through every drawer of notions, fabrics; shelves of books, wardrobes of clothes and bagged up for… Continue reading Cuddle a cushion
I have managed to get my cushions and painted furniture into a lovely shop in La Souterraine, Petite Bazaar run by a lovely lady called Caroline. It’s an excellent chance for me, as the residents do love to buy antiques and handmade crafts. I love sewing, but having a shop to sell through and commissions… Continue reading Cuddle a cushion
Summer is full of beach visits to sandy coves, picnics in woodlands and if your like me, searching brocantes for sewing materials and books. I make these colourful bags for all your favorite journeys. They can hold a flask, sandwiches, a magazine or book and your purse and mobile. Made with secondhand materials, often secondhand… Continue reading Bags of fun
I have two passions, well two of many that bring me joy. Citroen 2CVs and poultry. Funnily the 2CV was made for farmers and the requirement was for a cheap car, efficient, simple and affordable and to be able to bump along farmers fields or lanes without breaking a dozen eggs. Having owned my lovely… Continue reading Beep, beep,bok, bok
We opened today and friends came, tea was drunk, cakes munched and conversations chattered. The shop has turned out better than I hoped. Its one of my favourite things to do, transforming spaces, making them work physically but also being emotionally stimulating. And upstairs we have crafting. Paper, paints, wool, beads, and glue to get… Continue reading Cou-Cou is open
It’s been a wonderful last 10 months with the Tea Lounge. It was successful. People loved the cakes, the food, the long opening hours from midday to eleven in the evening and that we were open every day. But we still had pressing long term projects. Tony music and myself, art and writing. My children’s… Continue reading New beginnings
It’s been a really hectic couple of months. We closed the tea lounge to work on insulating the ceiling and I had a lot of homework for my Poultry Science HNC, but the effort has got me seven weeks ahead! I managed to do just over 2000 words on my pirate book and read eight… Continue reading The Revolution
I am not even sure I wrote a post on The Tea Lounge. But for today, as its a hectic one, I am attending a poetry/writing slam to read parts of my novel, pictures speak louder than words in this case. The empty shell of a room is going to come alive with two themes… Continue reading The Tea Lounge
Back in 2023 I was very ill. I had been given migraine meds that should never be given to those of us who have a history of low serotonin. I was literally frozen in a body and mind of fear, anxiety and unable to function. My writing and art stopped. I would be on the… Continue reading Reminding my love of 2CVs
It’s mid afternoon and we are waiting for Carrefour to open so we can buy snacks, wine and cheese for tomorrow’s big opening. I am baking cakes and brownies, quiches, and other pastry items. Friends are coming to help. My sewing friend will see her products arranged in the shop and after a year of… Continue reading The Tea Lounge opens tomorrow!
It’s been a hectic month. We have finished the Tea Lounge, painted the atelier and tea lounge entrance and the gallery house too. With our prominent position near the N145 at Gouzon, we get a huge flow of traffic throughout the day and we wanted our establishment to be noticed. Today people slowed down, tooted… Continue reading Costin and Castille
Very busy with the new tea lounge, painting brocante finds, finishing the shop cabinets and bookshelf. Using acrylics, chalkpaint, mineral paint, decoupage papers and braid to finish edges. I use a dry brush technique to build up layers to give a worn, soft look. It saves on paint too. I then use coloured wax or… Continue reading Paint, paper and braid
A lovely article by my tax business partners daughter, Alix Marshall. She is working through a degree in journalism back in UK and she visited last month to dip into my world and my journey to France.
After a very successful year, the Maison has proved to be a huge asset for us. Found in a very neglected state, with leaking pipes, a rotten kitchen and no floor under the bath, we have finally given its soul back. We provide many workshops here each month, on art, poetry and writing. We hold… Continue reading The Gallery
I finally got to England after four years away and washed up in lovely olde Hastings, to hunt for pirates and sing a few sea shantys. Writing a book on pirates around the 1730’s needed research and Hastings sure provided that. The Mini will be crammed with 35 books scoured from many a deep filled… Continue reading Ship Ahoy!
I am absolutely hooked on collagraphs. But what are they? Well they are a combination of techniques….collage, layering of paper and textures; drypoint, marking in the paper indentations, scratches, hatching, dots; Intaglio, pushing ink into ghe indentations and textured areas; and relief/ mono printing, laying down ink on raised areas and wiping off to create… Continue reading Caught by Collagraphs
This week I had my very first lesson in creating a plate with raised reliefs out of clay. I was hooked! It took about 2 hours to roll out the clay and put it on the form and trim. Then another 4 hours to roll, cut and attach the design, and add details, along with… Continue reading Save the Orangutans
Excuse the tiny pun, but it’s Christmas exposition time in France. They are almost every weekend from mid November and our creative hubs are on full steam making, crafting, painting and printing. I have my notebooks and prints, but wanted to try and create some craft pieces, word blocks and felt tree decorations. I love… Continue reading “Home” made blocks
Back in 2021, I drew Pipi my guinea and posted her online on a guinea forum. I hadn’t illustrated since a child, but after 35 years of accountancy and tax, I wanted to follow a dream of being an artist. The guinea fowl forum in America gave me such support with their enthusiasm, I continued… Continue reading Going all guinea
I do have a great love of American folkart, featuring homesteads, poultry,old tractors and red barns. I am not sure exactly why but I think it’s alot to do with poultry, strong flat images, often made with chalk paint, using wood to paint on, country style interiors, traditional trades and homesteading…make do and mend, recycle… Continue reading Folkart for fun
I have a studio full of toy, children’s books, crayons and coloured pencils. They bring me joy and ease my anxieties in life. My studio is a reflection of what goes on in my head…stories of pirates, of naughty geese and silly ducks. Over my career in accountancy I have trained many employees on software,… Continue reading Teaching joy
The studio is almost complete. Boxes have been unpacked and 1950’s to 1970’s inspired fabrics, objects have found their home. Its a place of colourful happiness for me and hopefully it will find its way into my creative work. Full of toys and more to be brought over soon from my Farmhouse studio, its a… Continue reading Retro studio
The French love expositions, artistic ones, wool fairs, potatoes fairs, poultry fairs, if it’s a rural, local pastime, there will over the long summer and into autumn, be an event occurring in a quaint little village. Our area is no exception and this year has been a good year with Crocq, Auzances, Orsenne, and just… Continue reading Autumn Expositions
After an initial wobble through etching and finding it rather messily liberating, I embarked on a little Garden Bird project, reinforced by a small local exhibition coming up in March at a local La Poste. Very kindly the post lady has a spare area and monthly allows artists to display work. My friend kindly invited… Continue reading Little birds
I have never etched anything. I haven’t ever really thought about it until reading a book on printing this year. It was a sort of mystery…copper plates, acid, looked complicated. But then I read more and found it could be simplified, if only to practice, try techniques and get a feel for it. I bought… Continue reading Etching after sketching
Back in October I started a thirty day Birdtober challenge to illustrate 30 birds. After a wobbly start with a cockerel, my next bird did not go well. I was trying to move temporarily away from whimsical to try my hand at a more fine art style, if for no other reason that to show… Continue reading Seabird portfolio
I have lived in France for quite a few years now and although I managed to visit the memorable tapestry manufacturing museum at Aubusson – St Jean – I had not entered the Unesco Cite Internationale de la Tapisserie. But today on a bright November Sunday afternoon I made the half hour drive and yes… Continue reading Tapestry at Aubusson
Sometimes you get a commission that’s a little extra special and such a joy to work on. In this case a lovely bedcover for a two year old to be an heirloom piece. The little girl has three hens, one white feathered and two with black and copper. Her mum says she’s mad about them… Continue reading Three French Hens
Autumn has arrived here in France, the air is still humid and heavy rains fall. Its cow country snd pasture appears never to cease growing here, but after September it slows, the leaves start to turn their autumnal colours and we have a couple if beautiful months of bedding down for winter. I have a… Continue reading Bird October
I have always loved fabrics, often walking round fabric stores with my thumb and forefinger primed to rub and feel the weight, grain, texture and weaves. You can tell alot by simply doing this, mainly if the fabric is a natural fibre or man-made and its density of weave. I woukd swiftly skim through bolts… Continue reading Fragments
The last few years have been very tied up with renovations, Covid, starting my illustration business and struggling with migraines…some things on the agenda had to postponed, but this year I refused to postpone the summer Expo at Crocq, a pretty medieval town near Aubusson, famous for The Black Prince invading and partially destroying during… Continue reading French Expo
In this world there are musician that’s stand the test of time and there are two that seem to have been around since the dawn of modern music…Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger. The decades pass and come hell or high water, these two perform still, enthusiastically, and professionally, with an energy I can rarely muster… Continue reading Paul McCartney
Every year, just south of us in Crocq, an exhibition for art is run, featuring both professional or amateur painters, ceramics, sculptures. The exhibition is themed and your given space of upto 2 x 2.5×1.75 metres to display work and sell prints etc. It’s quite a big deal in such a rural area and thus… Continue reading 1001 Reflections
As you know I started illustrating last year and its been a fun year creating characters like Pipi Pintade and Naughty Goose. I always loved children’s books,classics like Winnie The Pooh, Peter Pan, The Wizard Of Oz, Dragon In Danger, The Mouse and his Child to name a few,and pop-up books. The French have bookshops… Continue reading Commission Children’s Book
Drum roll please!!!!!Apart from painting the walls, and making curtains, my studio is finished. A lot of chalk painting and waxing brocante finds, and suffering from cracked skin on my fingers, a sore back and bruises from I don’t know where….I love it! Somehow it seems to have manifested a French red, white and blue… Continue reading Thistle Cottage Studio
From way, way back as a child I loved fabrics. My mother’s wooden chest in the hallway provided hours of fun for me exploring the Colefax and Fowler, Laura Ashley, Cole &Son and Liberty prints, feeling their textures, weight and mesmerised by the pattern repeats and complex layers of colours. My mother rarely sewed but… Continue reading Fateful Fabrics
As you know I am mad about my feathered gang, they supply endless joy, inspiration and muddy boots! After a tentative year setting up my new business, illustrating and designing fabrics and mug designs, I was asked if I made greetings cards? Well why not I thought. Certainly affordable if you love many designs and… Continue reading Pastoral Poultry Prints
A few posts back I mentioned my dream of drawing and designing fabrics, characters and products. As an accountant, very embedded in my toils of tax and statutory accounts, I still scribbled in sketch books and jotted stories on ever growing bundles of lined and plain paper. Over the years I had completed half a… Continue reading From sketch to tea mug
Moving crates and boxes of fabrics into the Factory sewing rooms, found these wonderful old linen sacks and strips. Not only are the textures wonderful, but so too the painstaking work to repatch and darn the holes or tears. The patches to me create a new design. I don’t see them as repairs of damage,… Continue reading Make do and mend
This post is a little long but it contains a few thoughts about the insects world that I would really appreciate if you could read. It’s an important revelation to me and has changed my life…literally. Bees. I think most of us have a huge respect and soft spot for these busy guys, who work… Continue reading Bee and bug time once more
I am very lucky to live near Aubusson, https://www.cite-tapisserie.fr/ the famous tapestry town in France. Felletin is just another twenty minutes further south and our brocantes are full of notions, wools and tapestries to snap up as bargains. I collect pre-loved tapestries too, always birds as they are my passion. Thistle Cottage studio will eventually… Continue reading Tapestry time
This week, after a quite stressful start from loosing a little guinea fowl, to finding French postage is way more than UK postage, I felt I needed to go into print. I have successfully printed all my mugs, toiling with the foibles of sublimation heat and time settings, ink ICC colour management codes and a… Continue reading Crafting and shipping
Sometimes I forget why I started my blog way way back in London. I took a trip down memory lane and it was good to feel that I still had my love of all things natural and wild flowers and more than that, the tentative start with a camera, as before 2012, I didn’t own… Continue reading Finding the flowers
I love my Cou-nous naked neck chickens. Sadly of my original six, only Doobie, Sweetie and Ruby remain but are a source of daily happiness. We have had a few moments of crisis with them too…Ruby suffered from respiratory issues and upto a year ago was constantly blue looking. Doobie had a nasty prolapse due… Continue reading Egg song
Very excited to have at last designed my first fabric for children, and honestly for a great group of poultry loving homesteaders and keepers I connect with on social media. Getting great feedback. I have for a very long time had a passion for fabrics, especially retro, folk and pre-1920’s designs, plus the ubiquitous English… Continue reading Naughty Goose
I studied One Point, Two Point and Three but never Multi or Curvilinear. Finally a book that really gets into how to do these. I remember I took technical drawing at 11 years old. I was top in my class and my teacher was really excited, as most people found draughting boring. But I was… Continue reading Taking perspective
My husband is fascinated by lighting design. It’s a project he has long wanted to work on but the French rules on health and safety will make this tricky for a while and ideas will need to be simply created from existing wired models. I too adore lighting. An interior with the lighting that brings… Continue reading Shine brightly
When I was just 5 years old I used to dream about owning these knotted and crocheted dresses and glam silver shoes. The dresses looked sexy even to my young head but I wa very creative even back then. I collected cigarette adverts, fascinated by Silk Cut and cosmetic brands. The dresses came from the… Continue reading Golden Hands
Back in 2006 I visited the volcanic area of the Avergne. Little did I know then that in just ten years I would be permanently settling just about hour North in Creuse. I always adored France and vacationers there every other year, with Scotland and the North of England as my walking holidays in between.… Continue reading Sketch Avergne
In a previous post I wrote about my journey to finding a home. Buying property in France was the best decision I had ever made. Having now an open slate to work on I wanted the French dream. I wanted to bring together everything I had learnt and wanted for so long – the comfy… Continue reading From cattle stall to Scottish snug
A French Creative Life 