I've had a vague idea in my head for a while now, about a couple of new lines. It started back when I designed my Dungeness line. I had so much fun with it and enjoyed the creative process so much more than normal, that I decided I wanted to try something else similar.
My childhood involved a lot of moving around and a lot of new places, and for me, the easiest way to remember where I had been, was to remember a feeling rather than a specific place. We almost never returned to the area once we left, and I was pretty young for most of the moves, so specifics just didn't work.
As I've gotten older I've realised that my memories are often colour based rather than geographical. It's something that I spoke about when I posted about Dungeness, but it's not something that I've sat down and thought about too much when it comes to other places of my youth.
Until recently. When I decided to focus on some specific design lines, rather than just randomly crafting/designing, as I usually do.
My first decision was where was the inspiration coming from. I'd obviously already started looking at Dungeness (although there's still more to come), but where else did I want to remember through colour?
It didn't take me too long to decide. Although there's been a lot of houses, there's only really been two homes for me.
And of those, one will always be the most important. It is the only place of my childhood that holds no bad memories. My memories are of the light. Of greens and yellows and deep blues. Of huge oak trees and beautiful silvery birch trees, with their papery skins peeling off. I remember the sunshine and dog walking and drawing the flowers of the huge rhododendron bushes. And I remember the smells of the beach and the country lanes. Sometimes beautiful and sometimes a strange, slightly rotten smell, as the seasons changed.
I have so many good memories of Mudeford that I'm almost overwhelmed when I try and sort them in to definite images in my head. But if I just unfocus my eyes and stare off in to the middle distance of my memories then I can see it. I can feel the colours. The fact that they're golden and pure, and yet still dark and slightly muddy. They're the colours of the nettle bushes that lined all the roads. The colours of the stream covered in grey pond skaters and the colour of the deep, blue sky. They're sunny and sandy combined with the dark, dank greens of the forest.
And they're the colours of my latest line - simply called, Mudeford.
It's a line that includes baby blankets (above), baby clothes, pillows and totes. And as with all the new stuff that I'm working on, the line is aimed at the entire age range, but I'm also really looking at focusing a little more on baby gear. But baby gear that's going to make both baby and parents happy. Baby gear that doesn't look out of place alongside your favourite Eames chair ( I wish!). But that is also soft and comforting and fun.
And all of it will be inspired by my favourite and very best childhood memories. And the colours of Mudeford.
