the three boxes

I inhabit a very nice, but not huge, flat; I work at home. My life and my work are inextricable.

currents and cloth

A drifting gin bottle, tossed into the seas in 1886 by Germans hoping to track ocean currents, has turned up on a beach in Western Australia.

a travelling encyclopedia

I prepared a suitcase full of pattern and colour to take with me to Mexico. Coals to Newcastle you might think.

local royalty

There were no buses coming our way; as I stood chatting with a hopeful co-passenger an extraordinary procession approached from the other side. Up the hill came six plumed white horses pulling a white glass-sided carriage.

the borrowers

Have you heard the one about the composer who hit a creative block and couldn’t write a note for weeks?

making one’s mark

Coming back on the train the other day I sat near a mother and her little boy, two or three years old; she was keeping him well under control – he was in a bit of a squirm.

through the lookbackroscope

It’s quite a few days since the turn of the year, and even more since Christmas; I hope you had good times and I wish you a productive and peaceful 2016, full of new thoughts and projects.

what designers talk about

When friends asked me to join them for a second visit to The Fabrics of India I jumped at the chance: there were so many things I’d missed on that quick first recce.

signs and signals

According to the Design Council‘s report produced in this 70^th anniversary year, our design industry generates 72billion, yes billion, pounds a year within the UK economy – a remarkable achievement.

pattern’s in the air

A lot’s happened since I last wrote – where to begin? I’ll start at the finish.