Autumn Trends in Abergavenny -

Time for an update on Abergavenny and how this small town in Monmouthshire is keeping up with the latest fashion trends.

Fortunately, in our modern culture, owls are not the symbol of doom that they were in the past and still are elsewhere. If they were, a shopping trip in Abergavenny would be very depressing indeed - owls seem to be taking up residence everywhere!

But the owls that are filling the shelves of our local stores and our window displays are decidedly friendly-looking, cute creatures - most of them not even looking particularly 'wise'!

And owls are also not the only woodland creatures to be popular this autumn - it wasn't always possible to photograph some of the lovely little animals - including squirrels and hedgehogs - that I spotted. But here are a few that were accessible to my camera -

My personal favourites are the Toadstools and I love them so much that I'm working on a new toadstool pattern when I get time.

I suppose it's a natural progression from the forests of the Northern climes to the unmistakable Scandinavian style of Christmas. 

And there's plenty of that in evidence in the Abergavenny shops, as well as the year-long trends, Black and White, Emerald Green and Chevrons, sometimes all three combined!

Strangely, though, I didn't notice these colours carried over to the High Street dress shops, though the styles were in evidence in Fair Isle jumpers, Chevron pattern knitteds and the ever-popular black and white. 

But the overriding colours are vibrant pinks and magentas continuing along the purple spectrum, right down to a really deep, dark aubergine:

This beautifully nostalgic lavender lace particularly caught my eye!

What will 2015 bring to tempt us to throw out the old and rush out to buy the new?

That remains to be seen. But this year's look at the way Abergavenny shopkeepers have responded to global fashion trends encourages me to believe that, small though the town may be, 'out in the sticks' doesn't mean we have to be 'out of fashion'!

Gifts from my new Candy Pink Collection . . .

. . . on my

Mugs, Mousepads & More

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Spring 2013 - What's Trending Where You Live?

One thing I learnt as a result of the Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design course is to keep my eyes open and my camera at the ready, even when I go shopping!

I live in Abergavenny, a small market town in South-east Wales, not far from the border with England. Abergavenny is known for its 'Markets, Mountains and More . . .' and if I walk into town on a Wednesday morning, I hear the sounds of sheep and cattle from the livestock market on my way. And from the park I cross on my way to the shops, I can see Sugarloaf, Skirrid and the Blorenge, the three mountains surrounding the town.

Not exactly the kind of place you would expect to find high fashion in the shops. But in fact, Abergavenny has far more shops than you might expect in a town of fewer than 15,000 inhabitants. And there's a good variety, ranging from quite a classy little department store and independent boutiques to small branches of most of the national chains.

I've been too busy to venture outside of Abergavenny for a while so I don't know how its shops compare with other places, but my impression is that most of the shopkeepers have at least some awareness of what is currently trending.

So here are some Trend Boards I've made from photos I took in town this week and you can decide whether or not Abergavenny's style is up-to-the-minute or lagging sadly behind!

My first impression was that there was 'Nautical' or 'Coastal' everywhere. There is certainly a lot of denim, canvas shoes, boater shoes, more denim, blue and white, even more denim - and 'deckchair' and 'matelot' stripes. But I also found some butterflies - on mens' clothing, unfortunately too small to show up here.

There are also a lot of 'Conversational Prints', which anyone who read Part One of Repeating Patterns for Painters, will know are patterns with everyday objects as motifs. Today I saw sailing boats, bicycles and paper aeroplanes on men's clothing! And I was pleased to find mini-prints that could have been Laura Ashley's in the Sixties and Seventies.

There is almost as much 'Tribal' - mostly in black and white and again, lots of stripes.

These were the shop windows that initially caught my eye. Not all of the green is Pantone's Tender Shoots Green and I think the yellow may be more influenced by Wales' national symbol, the daffodil, than by Pantone's Lemon Zest. But it all looks lovely and spring-like. There are bright green trousers for men and even the charity shop's window sported various shades of green, teamed with check shirts.

I finally spotted some Tangerine Tango in Abergavenny - better late than never! It was almost always teamed  with bright pink, one of my own favourite colour combinations.

Reds ranged from Pantone's Poppy Red in the department store window, through rusts and Burgundy to Aubergine. And there are still plenty of large florals, polka dots and lace.

Turquoise abounds in Abergavenny, often in combination with pink and white - checks, polkas, florals, and some with a definitely 'oriental' feel about them! If the green and yellow feel springlike and the orange and pink combination reminds us of roasting high temperature, this turquoise, pink and blue palette is somewhere in between.

In fact, I've got my eye on that check shirt - it's just the sort of thing that I'd be likely to wear a lot when the weather gets warmer. But after last year's wash-out of a summer, I feel it would be tempting fate to buy something so summery while it's still snowing outside!

So what's your verdict?

Are Abergavenny shops keeping up-to-date?

And what's on offer where you shop?

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Screenprinted Sweet Peas

One of the blogs that I follow is Carole Barkett's 'Country Mouse Studio' and a couple of days ago, I was delighted to see that Carole had written about making bookmarks for sale on Zazzle because it's something I've often thought I'd like to make, but hadn't been able to find them in the list of 'products' to create.

But now, thanks to Carole, I know that the tall, thin business cards can be used as a bookmark, so I've been able to use a design that I've always thought would make a very nice bookmark.

I originally created the 'sweet peas' design for a repeating pattern on fabric - working out the repeats is something I always find fascinating and sweet peas are one of my favourite flowers. In fact my priorities in my tiny walled garden are colour and fragrance and as well as sweet peas and climbing roses, I have lots of lavender, mock orange (philadelphus) and jasmine (providing the cold spell in January hasn't killed it!).


Devising a system to make sure that the images are printed on the fabric in exactly the right place involved an 8 ft x 4 ft table and several reels of black thread - and wasn't easy! But I succeeded in printing enough fabric to make a roller blind for my glass-panelled kitchen door to the garden of my house in Norwich. It was very pretty but the white background quickly turned a creamy colour, presumably because of the proximity of all the cooking, steam etc. It actually didn't look at all bad - a more 'natural' colour than the stark brilliant white it was originally. But when I moved house, I abandoned it so I am really glad to be able to use that design again now!

I also think it looks attractive on a frosted glass mug in my Zazzle store where you can also see the finished bookmark. (The baby's sweet peas are from a more recent wet-in-wet watercolour painting.)