From Britain with Love

I was working as a creative consultant for a marketing agency when I was faced with moving to an office in Europe, but I really didn't want my children to have to move schools. That opened up the option of changing career and the seeds for Rosablue were sewn. The objective was to develop original fabric designs along with my partner, Penelope, a long-time crafter who already had a shop in Cheltenham. She was a seamstress, a lover of fabrics and an inveterate maker of things, while I'd been involved in design and media for a long time but always in a corporate environment. The name Rosablue (a combination of “Pink” in Italian and “blue” in English) was a reflection our friendship - the bond between an English gal and Italian boy.  

We have two locations in Cheltenham: the shop in town and our workshop which is an extension of our home. We expect to move eventually, but it will have to happen organically.

I design all our patterns in my studio, print all our cotton digitally in my workshop and then pass it on to Penelope to make up into finished products. As a pattern is developing I will show it, share it, test it and let her live with it. I may have as many as ten patterns in development and new ideas evolving all the time. Some will start with drawing, some with a detail and some with a photograph. The technology of digital fabric printing is relatively new but I've always had a strong geeky side! What I still consider miraculous is that, thanks to our equipment, we can take a product from concept to manufacture in just one day!

We’ve had a great deal of success with our chair slings - I think we could develop a business around those alone. But we’ve also had satisfaction with our fold-away shoppers and a wide range of home accessories, including door stops, draught excluders and tea towels (pictured). Whenever a magazine features something, it will inevitably become the bestseller for a period.

Our partnership was the biggest challenge at the outset: blending the energy of someone was was leaving a corporate design environment with that of a crafter. So the biggest satisfaction now is when a new product emerges from that collaboration. Inevitably it's something Penelope would never have considered making before I joined, and something I would never have thought of without her counsel. After that, the best feeling is definitely when a customer likes a pattern I've designed. I often spend time in the shop and on occasion people will be very complimentary about the fabrics without knowing I'm the designer and printer - that's always lovely to hear!

Whenever we discuss growing the business, one of the first questions is that of outsourcing and invariably the destination would be outside the UK where there is still an active industry for producing fabric-based goods like ours. But for me a big issue is our modern addiction to consumerism which depends so heavily on the exploitation of the lowest paid in society. I like the fact that what we produce here in the UK is so clearly accountable, and I just don't think I could be comfortable with anything else.

I hope it's still ahead! But when my very independent-minded daughters asked to have their own Rosablue products to furnish their university digs, I took that as a huge vote of confidence.

Our Rosablue shop has been operating at 215 Bath Road, Cheltenham in Gloucestershire for five years now. It was an 'inheritance' from another lovely crafter who Penelope knew, so the place has been a little creative hub for a long time and is in the midst of a very active and warm community. Besides that, we use the internet extensively to promote, network and retail our goods via our website www.rosablue.com, and I've spent quite some time maintaining the site and building links online.

One of Penny’s heroes is contemporary folk artist Julie Arkell, whose paper mache and mixed media work she's been known to wax lyrical about. While other kindred spirits among contemporary designer-makers include Claire Pugh of Cloud Cuckoo Designs, who uses fabrics to create original artwork which she then turns into a whole host of quirky ideas, as well as Cornish-based embroidered textile designer Poppy Treffry.

Our lifestyle is very simple so we buy frequently and locally. It’s not a conscious act, but rather a consequence of the decision to live with a minimal footprint, avoiding the excessive use of cars, mobile phones and other stuff that can be such a distraction in modern life. It reminds me of the  self-sufficient ways of the smallholding families in the Veneto region, where I was born.

I like Wales. Friendly place, friendly people. I have always felt welcome and happy whenever I have visited or spent any time there.

I’m busy plotting a European tour which I hope to finance by selling goods along the way, like a latter day gypsy trek. We’re identifying a route through France to Northern Italy where we'd like to present Rosablue at a variety of street markets.