Thursday 1 December 2011

Pop-up Success

Well for the last 2 weeks we've been bitten by pop-up shop fever ! We decided to take our popular 'open studio' to the town last saturday. We managed to get an empty shop for the day, fill it with lots of lovely stuff and entice the shoppers of Ashbourne with our lovely wares.

 We'd like to thank the landlady and John Taylor who helped turn our dream into a reality. Lots of sales were made and we managed to raise £180 for charity, here are some pics to prove we did it !!!



Saturday 5 November 2011

British Ceramic Biennial

It's been all go at stoke this month, there's one more week left so if you haven't been and you love pots you must get yourselves down to the Spode Works before the BCB festival ends. The whole event has been a great experience and importantly is a massive showcase to tell the world that british ceramics in all it's many forms is alive and kicking. If you can't get there check out the website.   http://britishceramicsbiennial.com/

Little Walton Bank is showing on the open shelf section of the show and if I do say so myself it looks great !

Hopefully these shots will make you want to visit while you can, as you can see the setting of a recently closed factory is quite something, sad but at least it's being used in a positive way........

Tuesday 13 September 2011

WIRKSWORTH FESTIVAL

All of us at Little walton Bank have had quite a weekend at Wirksworth Festival ...Graeme Reed ( patient husband ) showed his work and had a great time with lots of fab feedback. Little Pottery Co our hand thrown pottery showed for the first time and had a great reception and finally a little display of Little Walton Bank got lots of lovely interest.
We showed in our good friend Tom's house which was great for us, and the children proved to be superstars selling trail guides, home made lemonade and elderflower champagne...Tom giving them commission on every drink sold turned them into demon ( but charming ) sales people. The weather stayed good, we had one down pour and had to relocate the children to the car boot...all great fun.
Thankyou to everyone that visited our venue and passed on lots of fab feedback, here are some photo's to prove we had a ball !! And finally a big thankyou to Tom and his family who made us feel very welcome......




Sunday 14 August 2011

escaped chickens

Phew just back from running around the garden trying to catch a couple of escaped chickens, chickens seem to feature heavily in our life at the moment. We are looking after the neighbours and our persistent daughter is trying to make us get our own ! We've just dug up some 'early' potatoes and we are now wondering what to do with them all, it's proving to be a great summer here at Little Walton Bank, the house is nice and warm and the garden is full of veggies and fruit.

Ahh well back to real life and we've been busy for the last few months, fulfilling orders and getting new customers Being in charge of the paperwork has been another learning curve for me as I'm not the most organised person in the world !  I must say I'm looking forward to Hayley returning from maternity leave...I really miss her calm voice of reason and her brilliant approach to all of our new challenges. One of her first jobs will be to update the stockist list on the website as we've got lots of lovely new shops to add.



 Here's a photo from WHITE STUFF in Nottingham can you spot my mugs ????? They didn't have many left which made it even more exciting!

 And finally I've started working on the next pattern design, we will launch it in Spring so keep your eyes out. At the moment all I can say is it will feature seeds in some shape or form....I'm not being secretive it's just very early days !












Saturday 18 June 2011

A New Arrival and New Shops.

Okay lets get the car issue out of the way first, disaster struck my car was still in the garage and I had a trade show to do. At great expense we hired a car, due to my 60's cabinet I had to find a car to fit a specific measurements....it's too long for a little van and I'd already booked the parking in London so anything with height was also ruled out. Graeme spent hours on the phone sorting this one !

On the way to Earls Court we had to drop of a delivery to COSI HOMEWARE in Muswell Hill, they are doing really well with Little Walton Bank and needed-stocking . It was great to see our pots in such a fab shop, just the boost we needed before setting up the show.

 We set up the show on Saturday and prepared for day one, as I was on my own this time I was quite nervous. Just as the show opened on Sunday morning I got a text from Hayley's husband to say Hayley had just  delivered baby Harry Baden , mother and baby doing fine, what a great start to the show.

 Sunday was very good we will now be supplying lots of new lovely shops, so the distribution of our first collection is now spread nicely across the country...even Northern Ireland.

On Monday and Tuesday I had lots of visitors from my very good friends and again met lots of new buyers, interested people and importantly shops who'd ordered at Top Drawer came with great feedback and repeat orders. One of the high lights was Mary Portas, the whole show went a little bit crazy as we tried to grab her attention.

On Tuesday afternoon, my good friend Dean came to join me on the stand and helped take the show down...so here's a BIG HUGE MASSIVE THANKYOU, you're a superstar for helping out and also coming to the rescue with a car issue...that still hasn't gone away !!

All in all Pulse was a good show, I met some great new customers and lovely fellow stand holders. Time to look forward, design a new collection and some additional  pieces to build up the birdware range...my customers seem to be crying out for jugs !!!

Monday 30 May 2011

looking forward to PULSE

let's look back first....

A big thankyou to all who came to the third open studio at Little Walton Bank, here are a few photo's of the day.




Okay lets look forward......It's PULSE at earls court next week ( 5,6,7th June ) , it will be our second trade show. This time I'll be on my own for most of it as Hayley baby is now over due ! The boxes are packed and I just hope my car is fixed before friday...I got towed home from Stoke last week....not my finest hour.  Our stand will be the same as Top Drawer so I'm hoping to get a good reaction again, if anyone is around come and see me it's stand A15.

Well it's raining here at Little Walton Bank , I've got to get the wellies out so I can go and feed our wet and sad looking rabbits. Enjoy the Bank Holiday you never know we might get a rainbow later.


Saturday 30 April 2011

OPen Studio

Well I spent most of yesterday morning glued to the TV, even the rabbits had a long wait for their breakfast ! We had our own little celebration and the girls baked a brilliant red,white and blue cake.

Royal wedding aside we've been preparing for the next open studio event, this year we're hoping to get lots of lovely people through the door. I've been madly making pots for my other little pottery which is quite exciting and a very different challenge to Little Walton Bank. So if you fancy calling in to see us come along on the 14th of May.......we are aware of a very important football match on this day so a screen will be set up for all you stoke fans. There will be lots of lovely things to see and buy from our maker friends, Graeme will be showing his latest work and our children have a great idea to keep your children busy. Come along we'd love to see you.

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Press and Spring

Spring is here at Little Walton Bank, actually the house is still very cold so fires continue to be  part of our daily ritual, there's nothing like putting on extra jumpers and hand knitted socks ( my sister is a demon sock knitter ) and then when you leave the house taking it all off as it's warmer outside . The joys of living in a old jail !

This month we've had a bit of local press interest, mainly from the derbyshire magazine, it's a great article   http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/news/Pottery-sees-boost-sales-TV-appearance/article-3023198-detail/article.html

 If you look closely you can see me throwing a pot. We've also had some really nice blog interest, one of my favourites was from the fab blog -   http://lovelyprettycheerythings.blogspot.com/

We've updated the stockist list so if anyone out there wants to see us in some great shops and on some lovely internet sites check out the website for details.

As for the rest of this month we'll be getting the pottery fully up and running, so I'll be rolling up my sleeves and getting dirty, once we are fully working I  plan to start working on our next collection.

Oh and our next open studio event will be on May14th ....more to follow later but if you fancy having a go at throwing your own pot Little Walton Bank will be the place to be !

Friday 11 March 2011

the afternoon off !

It's been a very, very busy month for me and last week I took the opportunity to have the afternoon off....if you've read any of my blog entries you'll be aware that I live in the beautiful market town of Ashbourne, Derbyshire. Now this town has a crazy tradition of playing street football on shrovetide Tuesday and Wednesday, basically one side of the town play the other in a battle to get the ball to one of the goals that are positioned 2 miles apart. Hundreds of people join in and the game is played until a goal is scored. It's a mad time to be in Ashbourne, the schools shut, the shops get boarded up and everyone is hyped up for two days. We had such a good time on Tuesday, you wouldn't  believe how much fun you can have following a scrum around the town for 5 hours and how exciting it is when you see the ball and a hundred players heading in your direction ! If you've never been I would recommend it but in the meantime here's some photo's taken at Tuesday's match....if you are really interested the match ended up in a draw one goal each to the up'ards and down'ards.
boarded up shops and flags
the high street
following the ball to the start
'turning up the ball'
in the streets
in the river
Lullah hanging on to a shop!
walking back from the clifton goal where the down'ards scored