Freezing temperatures

I am sat here with my SAD light on, I am not feeling particularly sad, but it's great to sew and type in. It is so good to see the nights starting to get shorter and plants starting to come back to life after the crazy weather we've had over December and January.

We've had a busy few weeks with one thing or another. We headed up to Inverness and Ullapool last weekend to celebrate our friend's birthdays. Driving alongside Loch Ness keeping my eye out for any suspect ripples in the water, there was also the dramatic scenery from the snow capped mountains to look at. We are exceedingly lucky to live in such a diverse, fantastic county and the Highlands certainly have their fair share of drama.

However, it was absolutely freezing and I think I gave the Michelin man a run for his money with my many layers of clothes. We stayed in the plush surroundings of the local Youth Hostel, and from our room we had the most amazing views to wake up to, which I have to admit did make up for having to sleep in the world's most creeky bunk beds. It was great to get away from the hussle and bussle of the city, with a big dollop of much needed R&R and laughter.

We also popped through to Glasgow to see Imogen Heap in concert, which was brilliant. She is one of the chattiest people I have seen in concert and really made us feel part of the show. She has her very own You Tube channel that you can check out.

Tim has a birthday coming up later this week and I have kindly bought him a meter of fabric. I know, I know I am incredibly kind and generous. But don't worry I am hopefully going to create what they call in the trade a "man bag" for him. Tim, as you may or may not know carries his trusty bag with him where ever he goes. He says he knows more about bags than any heterosexual man should, and I would like to point out at this stage it was Tim who dragged me back to Bloomingdales in New York to get that bag he just had to have…
We are going to sit down and sketch a design with everything a man could possibly want in a bag.

I have also had a few orders on the side for nappy bags. There are some brilliant oil cloth fabrics on the market now and with a serious lack of nappy bags on the high street that are cool, collected and most importantly practical and water proof I think the nappy bags and man bags might be something that I will introduce in to the range over the coming months.

Remember Mother's Day is just around the corner on Sunday 14th March. My mum got an iPod for her birthday, which does make her more technologically advanced than me, so she might well be getting an stripykat iPod case for Mother's Day...hope she's not reading this!

Stripykat has some handmade iPod, iPhone cases and handmade scarves on Eero and Riley , which is going really well. Check out the site. Suzanne has a brilliant eye for design and the shop in Easter Road is well worth a visit too.

The National Museum of Scotland exhibition came to an end in mid January and I would like to thank everyone for the positive feedback. I know that the handmade bags, scarves, hairbands and mp3 cases are all going to good homes.

So there's certainly a busy few months ahead and I have just received the calendar from the craft fair organisers so will need to pop a few dates in the stripykat diary.

Until next time be good and take care.
Katie
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