I've always been drawn to old fabrics and, as you may know, the nascence of Twice was in the old fabrics and blankets that I found when we moved into my husband's family house in Scotland seven years ago. I love used fabrics infinitely more than new ones, however beautiful the pattern, because of the wonderfully soft feel and dimming of colour that use has given them. I had always hoped for Twice to produce fabrics based on the huge archive of antique fabrics that I've built up over the years but, when we finally started doing just that this year, just printing fabric wasn't enough. I wanted to try and replicate the gorgeous 'lived-in' feel of old linens. It has taken a long time and a lot of perseverance by many people along the way but I think we really have cracked it. Our linens now go through several processes (which for obvious reasons I'm going to keep secret!) to achieve a wonderful softness and subtlety - but with all the strength of a new fabric.

At the moment, we have our beautiful Framboise linen alongside natural and bleached linen, all of which have been given our special treatment. Our next pattern is in the pipeline and I have plans for many more which will appear at Twice over the next year or so.

Here's the thing. When I started Twice what we did was re-use old things and give them a new lease of life, hence the name. I remember looking at a pile of pretty cups and saucers and thinking - those would make good candles. I made about 20 and took them down to the Country Living Fair and sold out. At the time I hadn't seen any anywhere else - but now, of course, they're everywhere. I'm not saying anyone got the idea from me - I'm quite sure it had been done long before I did it, but my problem is that now I find myself not wanting to make them because so many other people are and, yet, they are so quintessentially Twice. What to do? Not sure.

Just arrived! Our new notecard wallets have just reached us - it's always fantastic to see things that have been in development finally in the flesh. We're really pleased with these - showing two of our fabric designs, Framboise and Posy (fabric coming soon), the cards are of the best quality and come in a pretty wallet containing eight cards and envelopes. Wonderful.

We're finishing off some of our delicious merino wool hotty covers today - here's a pile waiting to be labelled and packed. Just in time I think as there's a definite autumnal nip in the air today.

It's full steam ahead here as we get stock ready for the autumn. We've got a photo shoot for the next catalogue in a couple of weeks and we're also stockpiling for all the autumn fairs, mail order sales and, of course, the new shop which opens in October. It's definitely time for list writing - endless, endless lists! This morning Sarah was preparing the leather bases that we put in our linen tote bags - the leather is wonderful deerskin tanned near Glasgow and then pressed to make it stiffer for the bases.

We were very pleased recently to be asked to join Discovering Life, a fascinating new website that aims to offer it's members the very best of what's on offer in Britain with many special offers and discounts just for members. As membership is free for 2010 I'd definitely encourage you to sign up - no cost and lots of money off, can't be bad. Our page on the site went live today - and we are offering all Discovering Life members a huge 15% discount across our entire range.

Hmmm ..... Running a business is fraught with problems - just when you think you've got something sorted something else turns up to frazzle you. Our Summer 2010 catalogue went to print last week and was then shipped off to the fulfilment people so they could pop them in little plastic wraps and wing them off to you all, and then .... I received this photo showing me how they had turned up in Rotherham for mailing! I think someone was a little clumsy. This resulted in a bit of a panic as we had only allowed an extra hundred copies for the mailing and it looked as if more than that were unusable. In the end it wasn't quite as bad as we feared and we have managed to send the full mailing - but if your catalogue turns up with slightly dog-earred corners, you'll know why!

Harry Wallop sings from my hymn sheet in his forecast for shopping in the Noughties. I cut this out of the Daily Telegraph at the beginning of the year and a blown up copy hangs in the Twice office. Slowly but surely quality will outshine quantity in this mixed up world of ours.

Here's a little extreme ironing being done at the photo shoot for our next catalogue! We've been very hard at work for the last few days - and the results are fantastic.

With luck and a fair wind (which we had plenty of today as we were trying to put together the table scene above) the catalogue should be out towards the end of May. Amongst the many new things you will find is the first Twice printed linen - a pretty floral inspired by a beautiful antique French fabric that I found several years ago.

Big thanks must go to the lovely Shona, our model, who braved some very, very chilly weather on Friday to show off our summer tunics and wonderful new bags.

A huge thank you also to everyone who has worked so hard over the past few months to get all our new designs ready for launch and also to the photography team for being great fun to work with over the past few days and for producing such fantastic results.

A big thank you to our friends at From Britain With Love - our Goldilocks porridge bowls are one of their three featured products this month. Click here to visit their website to see all the best of British.

The latest issue of Period House has just arrived from the publishers - and includes a lovely feature on Twice. Aside from the fact that I hate seeing myself in anything, it is a great article which gives a really good flavour of what I am trying to achieve at Twice.

The only slightly sad thing is that so many of the lovely homewares and fabrics shown in the feature are from Twice but the two pages showing readers how to 'Get The Look' point them in every direction but us. It goes without saying that the easiest way to get my look is to visit our website!

Brrrr - still chilly enough to make a cosy eiderdown a great addition to your bed. Lots of 'new' vintage eiderdowns have just been added to the website today.

Thought you might like to see a sneak preview of one of our new Linen Lavender Hearts. This is a prototype but the finished hearts will be available in our next catalogue and should be on the website in a few weeks. I'm always looking for new ways to use the natural Scottish linen that I love so much - and I've been working hard to come up with lettering that works well. It took a ridiculous number of attempts to get the heart shape exactly right (actually I think this one was just before we finally managed that) but I think we've cracked it now.

SO pleased to be able to introduce this to the website - the classic Gluggle Jug is one of the new things going into our summer catalogue (due out in May). This perfect old design was first made in Staffordshire in the 1870's - and got it's name from the wonderful gurgling sound that the water makes when you pour it. The design was bought by the Wade pottery when the jug's original makes, Dartmouth, closed down in the early 2000's. Wade made the jug for the American market but this year it is happily available again in the UK. We are thrilled to have the jugs on board at Twice - they tick all our boxes!

Currently available in this pretty blue, click here to buy and cheer up your kitchen!

The blue skies and snow covered mountains of the Cairnwell Pass last Friday.

We are lucky enough to be under an hour from Glenshee, which has the largest ski area in Scotland and so, unlike much of the country, we are able to make really good use of all this snow! I took the children skiing and I have never known better conditions - the bluest skies imaginable with not a cloud in sight, no wind, sun all day and deep, deep snow in perfect condition and lashings of hot chocolate in the back of the car. We had a day of the best skiing - and felt really rather smug!

Well, that's one use for our beautiful Lily bag!
Minty our tortoiseshell knows a good thing when she sees one and it doesn't take long for her to find my Lily bag when I leave it in the kitchen - she's on it in a flash and it's obviously very warm as she would happily stay there for hours. Anyway, the other day, as you can see I picked up the bag and she stayed on/in it and this was the result!

This poor chilly girl is a rescued battery hen waiting to go to her new home - as newsletter subscribers will know, we have recently re-homed six ex-batts and it's been a great experience. We picked them up two weeks ago from Jim and Lorna Duff near Stirling - Jim and Lorna are the local reps for the Battery Hen Welfare Trust and do a wonderful job of liaising with the farmers and prospective new owners and then picking the hens up and giving then a health check. New owners then go to their farm to pick the hens up on the designated weekend.

This photo show our girls on their first day in their new home - they are very unused to everything a normal chicken would take for granted - like dark and silence and roosting and nesting. As you can see, they are also quite bald - but their feathers should grow back pretty quickly. And these are our first eggs! -

We are already getting one or two a day and slowly they should settle down and produce more than enough for all of us. I've fought the 'having our own chickens' thing for years - but the whole rescue chicken idea got to me immediately and I'm really pleased that we've gone for it.

As for names, the children have each named one so we have Lavender, Daisy and Un-named (so far!), then Ray who helps us here has named his Harriet, James has gone for Lady Marmalade and I asked my newsletter subscribers to help me out with a name for mine - there have been lots of great suggestions and I will be announcing the winner in our next newsletters (about 18th Dec).

Day one of the new me! I always mean to use the car less and shop locally more and all the other things that are good not only for the planet, but also for me and so this week I have started to try and practice what I preach. Yesterday I cycled to an appointment in our local village - which isn't much, but usually I would have been running late and so I would have hopped in the car. And today I cycled to Errol which is the nearest place with a butcher, Post Office and chemist. It's about an 8 mile round trip and as I cycled along I realised that it really is a no-brainer in so many ways to do this - it's 25 minutes there and 25 back, so that's nearly an hour of aerobic exercise - completely free! No gym membership, expensive kit or clothing - plus I got my shopping done and supported local small businesses. And I seemed to have more time to chat to people.



On the way back a buzzard flew right by my side for about 50 feet with a mouse in his claws - nature in the raw! I noticed rabbits and squirrels, trees, autumn colours and the thing I noticed most was the smells - which you never notice zooming along in your car.

The next schedule visit to Errol is this Friday morning - and now I've gone public I will be even more determined to keep it up. Three trips a week should keep me fit, keep more money in my pocket and, maybe, I'm doing a little bit to help the environment.

Very exciting - I've just been watching the new catalogue coming of the production line at the printers in Perth and I now have the first 300 copies in my grubby little mits! At last! Wow. It's like giving birth (well, not quite, obviously) every time I do this and it is always such a good feeling to actually hold a copy in my hands having worked so hard to get it to this stage.


The first copies will go out tonight to try and avoid the post strike and then the bulk will be sent out to everyone early next week. I so hope that you like what you see ....

Quick post just to say that I have just managed to buy some more vintage crocks and so they are now back in stock. They are becoming increasingly difficult to find which is why they aren't always in stock - so if you've been waiting for one, grab it quickly!