We had a brilliant day yesterday. After 2 days of rain it
was great to see the sun again even if that meant some ground frost in the
morning. But who is complaining? It’s the end of October and up to now the
weather has been great – very mild and the last two days of rain were an
exception rather that the rule this year for our yearly visit to Scotland.
A friend had given me the address of a mill fabric shop just
outside Carlisle (http://www.steadmcalpin.co.uk/news/1/16/Welcome-to-our-new-website.html)
and we had decided a few days previous to go and have a look. Okay, it was a
1.5 hour drive one way but we decided to make a day outing of it and Sheila
offered to make some mayonnaise egg rolls for lunch and we took coffee and tea
with us (and there was much more than just mayonnaise egg rolls).
The shop was fantastic – I felt I was in heaven. I did not
know where to start – so many beautiful different fabrics! Normally I try to
get remnants. In the first place that way I do not have to decide how much I
want of a particular fabric and secondly, I do not want meters of the same
fabric because I do not want to make a production line of my bags – I want one
offs!
We spent quite some time at the shop and I found some
fantastic fabrics – some remnants and one of the roll.
The only negative point about the shop was the staff. I did
not find them particularly friendly or helpful! As I am always looking for
scraps of fabrics, I found some and took the bits I was interested in to the
counter and put them with the other fabrics I had chosen already. One of the sales staff came around, looked at
the bits of fabric and when I explained where I had found them and wanted to
know the price, she looked at me down her nose and told me they were not for
sale – they do not sell less than 50 cm pieces, these were used as samples and
if I wanted some of those particular fabrics I could buy them from the roll!
Which really put me off because there was no sign that these bits were not for
sale! The same thing happened with the cushions Sheila was interested in. They
had horses printed on them and assuming that they were made of fabric sold in
the shop I told her that I could make those if she bought the fabric. Not being
able to find the fabric she decided to ask one of the sales staff where she could
find it, only to be told that ‘we do not sell that’. It was not the point that
they did not sell the fabric but the way it was said!
Despite all that I was very pleased with the fabrics I
bought and will certainly go there again.
On the way back home we visited a hardware store in
Longtown, which Sheila knew from way back and was very enthused about, having
told us that you can buy all sorts of things there that the Do it Yourself
shops do no longer sell. She had some problems opening the door and somebody
shouted from inside ‘it’s open’. After pushing a bit harder we managed to get
in, to be greeted by a young man sitting in front of a gas fire. The shop was a
mess! Stuff all over the place, including the floor! Alan bought a plunger,
which we desperately needed and after having a quick look around, trying to
avoid stepping on things, left the shop very quickly again.
We stopped at a parking place to have our lunch and Tuppy,
dressed as Santa Baby, was very interested in what was all in the lunch basket:
This time of the year the hills in the Scottish borders are
particularly beautiful. Having lived in Switzerland of my life, where the hills
are all forested, I had to get used to ‘naked’ hills when I first got to know
County Kerry in Ireland. In the meantime I am used to it but yesterday was the
first time when I saw the real beauty of them. In the brilliant sunshine the
hills looked like they were clad in gold, copper and brass, made by dead bracken
and grasses, and occasional splashes of green, dotted with the black and white
spots of black cattle and white sheep. It was absolutely beautiful and I could
hardly get enough of it! So much so, that I even forgot to take pictures.
