Blueberry Shed holiday cottage is open and new creations

I don't think I've particularly shown our holiday cottage on the blog, probably because it has taken so long to get going but we are open and taking bookings for 2017. It's a bit slow at present but I'm sure things will pick up and we are trying to get WiFi into the cottage this year, that has been an ongoing struggle from the start.

http://blueberryshed.co.uk/

Here are some externals of the Blueberry Shed. A single storey, modern contemporary larch clad building located very near to Portree the capital of the Isle of Skye, with views out to sea and across to the island of Raasay.

Some interior shots of the kitchen area. I went for a German kitchen with mix and match bright coloured cabinets. We pretty much have the same in our kitchen.

The living and dining area, I've made quite a few cushions and other bits n bobs to go in the cottage and give it a unique yet cosy feel.

The bedroom featuring some of my art and craft work to buy

Shower room

I have taken advantage of a bit of quiet time in there myself for crocheting when no guests are in, it's nice to get away from all my stuff and clutter in my own house!

It's really rather a nice place to come on holiday, lots of galleries and arty crafty things as well as the obvious outdoor spectacles Skye is famous for. It's that time of year when spring is about to spring into action and things start opening up again here so hopefully a good year ahead.

 On the subject of making things, I have a few new creations to share which I know some of you have seen on my Instagram page, Twitter etc. I'm hoping to approach a gallery on Skye and see if I can get them in their shop this season, wish me luck.

Above was a needle case which I made my sister for Christmas, family photos of us are in it.

Some of my things are now available in my Etsy and Folksy shops.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/fabricmountainuk?ref=hdr_shop_menu

https://folksy.com/shops/FabricMountain

Thank you for dropping by :)

Quick trip to Skye

I'm just back from a 4 day trip to Skye, it only feels like 2 days with the 10 hr drive up and back filling the best part of 2 days. It was mainly business with a bit of pleasure. 

A few months back I was working on some new branding for hand made clothes shop Skye Batiks, as well as batik clothing they have a fabulous range of handloom smocks which had previously been known as Skye Smocks. They wanted to change the name into something more unique for the smocks, after much bouncing back and forth with ideas the name chosen was Guga (guga is a young gannet).

I designed a fair few logos experimenting with gannets, handloom textures, landscapes, fishing nets, weaving etc and the chosen design is the simple one at the end, blue and white with the Scottish flag. As with lots of designs, it comes down to how easy it will be to produce at a small scale on a woven garment tag and the chosen design works great for that.

I've designed leaflets, mugs and quite detailed folding tags for the garments. They let me have a few mugs and tags to take back as samples but they haven't had the leaflets at the shop yet.

The thing about visiting such an interesting shop is I always find something new to buy and surprisingly on this trip I came away with a 'toy' and not a skirt. They use all the leftover bits of fabric from clothing to make little soft toys, there are seals, mice, puffins and new to me was the sea eagle. They're fab, they are really quite substantial chunky and heavy, beautifully made.

I was thinking of a name for him on the journey back, Eddie the eagle was too obvious and I went through various ideas but I looked at him and decided he was an Idris. Welsh name I know but there is a sense of fierceness to him like a dragon so Idris it is.

Here is Idris showing you some views on the trip, is it a bird, is it a plane, no it's Idris sea eagle!
Below, Idris swoops over Uig bay, you can catch a ferry from Uig over to the Isle of Lewis.

Idris near Duntulm castle ruins. The weather was beautiful whilst we were there.

Idris passes through Glencoe on the trip back.

I stayed in Portree the capital of Skye, I did a walk around part of the bay which I hadn't done before, usually because the weather has been poor but it was the hottest day of the year so far. This is the view from the bay across to the Cuillin mountains.

And when you've walked around and climbed upwards you come to this part which is where they have their Highland games and festivals.

I took my little friend Bob with me and here we are having a very tasty goats cheese salad and fresh raspberry milkshake at Cafe Sia in Broadford.

Somewhere new we went to investigate, and some of you may recognise this if you ever saw an episode of Grand Designs building a turf house on Skye.

This is the turf house at Kendram.

The two ladies who have this have turned their art studio, which was a separate building, into an espresso bar and below is the Single Track cafe. It's a fabulous little piece of architecture with a stunning view from the landscape window.

We got talking to owner Indi who made us some fabulous coffees and we feasted on a huge mozzarella and tomato sandwich. It was a lovely place to while away some time and take in that view.

The trip was all over in the blink of an eye and I'm back here to some weird sleety weather this afternoon!

More views of Skye

As you probably would guess my little friend Bob snook into my suitcase, he's never been to Scotland before so he was very excited and wore his kilt especially for the trip!
Below he is at Torrin.

On this day the weather was good so we took the scenic drive around Tarskavaig and down to the beach.

The purple heather was quite stunning. 
I got to fly my kite on the beach at Tarskavaig Bay.

A little further round this bay are some ancient woodlands, with the Rowan or mountain ash in full berries.

I tried to capture more purple heather in the shot below as we whizzed by in the car, it was a mountain I've seen many times before but never at this time of the year with heather.

Another day, and I took Bob to Portree, here he is looking across the harbour.

I then took him to meet friends in my favourite shop, Skye Batiks.

Unfortunately the picture below is the only one I got in the shop and is blurry but I wanted to give you a feel of how groovy the stuff is in there.

I delivered one of my textile designs to see if they liked it and it went down well and may feature in their 2013 clothing range, now there's a good excuse to go back next year and see if there's anything to buy with my design on! It is a re-working of an honesty pod design I did on my college textile course.

We finished our day in Portree at the Isle of Skye Baking Company for a delicious Earl Grey and bun in their eco cafe.