Hooray - new items are here!

We always love it when new products come in....

Charlotte Farmer designed some new mugs and tea towels that we showed at HOME, and they went down so well that we got loads of orders!

Our UK factory delivered the mugs today, and her new tea towels will be here tomorrow

My favourite, and the one I'll definitely be sipping tea from (come Diamond Jubilee Day) is Charlotte's 'woof' mug - take a look at http://www.newhousetextiles.co.uk/product/4599/312/jubilee-woof-mug

HOME - London 2012

It doesn't feel long since New House appeared at Top Drawer in Autumn, but here we are exhibiting again!

This time we've showing at HOME, which is a classy off-shoot of Top Drawer in Earls Court Two, London 15th - 17th january.

Have you ever set up a stand? If so you'll know it's all about preparation, loading the van, setting out long-before dawn, feeling a little nervous (before turning up at some hall), and then making your space our own. This is us with our boxes, getting stuck in...

Just arrived

Setting up our washing line

Charlotte writing the captions (bobble caps show how freezing Earls Court was)

M & C in front of our (almost ) finished stand

We've got some great new designs - some new tea towels and mugs, and especially the Diamond Jubilee souvineer sets. I don't have the pics to show you .....but let's say me and all the New House staff are busy buying up the Jubilee souvineer items - they are that good! 

Laura Fletcher Cushions

This weekend we launched some lovely new products on our website:
newhousetextiles.co.uk
These include my range of stripey cushions, so please check them out!

The cushions were inspired by my photography of nature and of old antiques and are woven locally at a mill in Suffolk, using a mixture of soft wools, silk, linen and cotton. I like to use a neutral backround to my cloth and add a pop of colour in the stripes as I love playing with colour and proportion. I have used herringbone and sateen weave structures to keep the colour saturated as much as possible.

Sweet Things

When new products arrive it's always exciting opening the boxes for the first time. Charlotte Farmer's new tea towels are here and look great!

As soon as we take the proper pics, they'll be on our website...

                                                      Sunday Sundae

                                                     Sweet Shop

                                                     Pick n'Mix

New York, friendly New York

It's been over 12yrs since I was last in NY, so was especially happy when work demanded I make a new visit.

New House already has some really great North American customers, so after showing at Trade Fairs like Top Drawer and other things, we are happy that we might be moving up one or two gears in the States.

NY people are always meant to be in a huge hurry, but my first experience was of a very lovely lady who explained the NY Subway system to me (insisted on paying my ticket), and later a taxi driver asked 'how much do I want to pay?' These two kind people really won me over. I'm from a tiny English village where you expect curtesy.... but New York???  I beamed at everyone after, most people smiled back and I really enjoyed my visit.

My hotel room overlooked the most famous building site in the world, the 9/11 site. It was very moving looking down on the construction, happy that I wasn't visiting 10 years ago :

                                                     

I'd forgotten how big American beds were - I know it doesn't look SO big in my photo, but to me this felt like sleeping on top of an aircraft carrier, with miles to walk each morning to reach the alarm clock.

USA can have a very different style to Europe, so I visited some of the great shops like ABC Carpets and home or Anthropologie .

 

top floor at ABC

    

 Anthropologie

The best cheese sandwich I've ever had came from Beecher's - a micro-cheesery that make fresh cheese on the premises. I've never had a toasted cheese and fig sandwich before - but theirs has got to be up there amongst some of the most memorable gourmet foods I've ever tasted.

 

Beechers

Walking the High Line was my most interesting NY experience. It's an old raised level railway that originally served New York with goods, but had fallen into disuse years ago and was mostly demolished. However some of the local residents spotted how plants had taken root on the deserted railway, and campaigned for it to become a park. It's the best bit of urban re-design I've seen in years.

    

London Design Week

I do love my quiet peaceful rural Herefordshire village ....but when London Design Week is on I'm up in London faster than a shot. 

My first mission was 100% Design as it's a show I've been visiting since it begun in tents on the Kings Road. It's gone through many changes, and New House has exhibited twice at 100% Design Tokyo. Walking through the doors, the opening graphics looked good :

 

 
My best 100% stand was Mark and Sally Bailey's Home and Garden store, who are truly design geniuses. I cannot show you any pics, as Mark was busy shooing off groups of Asians (despite the blatant NO-PHOTOGRAPHY signs) so I dared not take any myself.

My most interesting show was Designers Block

Great designers were there, and I especially enjoyed meeting the clever young Korean designers, an amazing RCA weaver, learning about a new design/science project, but my hat came off to a St. Martins collective called Post Textiles. They were amazing, and I'd love to have them pop up amongst New House, as they'd help us deign the future. 

In the evening there was the House & Garden party at the Phillips de Pury & Company

Thank you for everyone who visited us

For us Top Drawer was one of the most enjoyable shows we've done in ages, and met masses of interesting people. Each day one of our talented designers was at the show, and many well-known companies visited our stand, asking us to design new items. However as a small family-run business ourselves, I especially enjoyed chatting to people from similar-sized companies or the many clever vigorous people with great ideas that will shape our retail future in the years to come.

Me (Nick) on our stand

Olympia, with the bee hive of Top Drawer underneath