WOOL

A beautiful Autumnal day here in the Bay Area – sunny and crispy and perfect for sitting outside with a book, a cup of tea and a blanket…

And I do love a wool blanket.

Like…a lot…

Even in Sunny California – wool is fabulous on so many levels, the texture, the warmth, the colors and most of all, the promise of comfort … the dry equivalent of a large hot bath…

So it was no coincidence that my very first business, back in England, was a little company called Plum ( yes, I really like the word Plum…) which sold things made from recycled vintage blankets.

It all began when me and my super-talented design partner, Ellee Kellett, stumbled upon a large source of used woollen blankets.  Right bang in the middle of England and not far from all the old woollen mills that were thriving just a century earlier.

It was a warehouse the size of a couple of football pitches filled with huge floor to ceiling cages of blankets  –  beautiful, scrumptious woollen blankets of every color, thickness, size and texture.  And for an incredibly small fee, we would fill up the boots of our cars with the very finest merino and lambswool offerings (with those lovely satin edges) until we couldn’t see a thing out of the back…

While gathering a few traffic offenses, we giggled all the way home not able to believe our luck to glean so many beautiful blankets for such a bargain.  And then there were all those possible things we could make with them…

Throws…

Hot water bottle covers…

And most popular of all, Christmas stockings – all made from recycled vintage wool…

Of course, our business was cashing in on that point in time when everyone seemed to collectively choose not to be trapped under their own body weight in bedding and be delivered each morning from their woolly cocoon with a pair of forceps…but rather to opt for lying beneath a gentle sprinkling of duck feathers.

An option that caught on like wildfire and soon had everyone donating their old blankets to Oxfam at whose headquarters we were taking our pick…

But even now with all those feathers floating around on top of me, I still love having the comfort of a warm blanket at the end of the bed for those extra chilly nights…

So together, Ellee and I  made lots of things from all of this lovely wool, not least from the beautiful labels…

In fact,  I could never bear to throw away the labels as they were all perfect miniature designs in themselves.  I eventually re-mounted some of them onto the softest blue blanket I could find to make a big pillow…

To show them off a bit.

They were all so original…

And then, when I moved to the U. S of A,  I went into a new business with my superlative kick-ass entrepreneurial partner, Binni Hackett, making… wool blanket knitting bags to be filled with…well… wool…

So, you can see there is a long woollen thread running through my life and if you take a glance about my house, it’s all over the place…

And round every corner…

I just love it and even though things are a little warmer in Northern California than the Derbyshire Dales, I am not planning on getting rid of it anytime soon.

That’s it from me today.

Coming soon, a new beautiful line up in my Front of House series.

See you soon,

Ros

ps Welcome to all those from Sarah’s lovely Beach Cottage