Beekeepers, do you want to make a skep?

Bank holidays are never long enough are they?! Ho hum.

The pole pile sort out continues but we also have some other new materials to add to our ever growing arsenal, we have "D" profile centre cane wrapping and copious quantities of "B" grade 6mm wide lapping. The "D" profile is perfect for conservatory repairs, so flexible and it will take a colour. The 6mm glossy lapping is also good for conservatory repairs, but most of the time we supply it to beekeepers for making skeps.

A skep is the traditional housing for bees and the shape of them as a symbol is still used on millions of honey pots. Skeps are hand made from straw tightly coiled round and round then stitched together into a bell shape. There was a time when they could be seen everywhere until the angular wooden hives all but replaced them as favourites with the beekeepers. There is something quaint about the image, but in truth, skeps are liked by bees and if they're looked after well, can go on being used for decades. Being so lighweight and therefore easy to carry they're also perfect for catching swarms. I found this terrific 1970's film of a bee farm in Germany who were still using skeps for their bees, (complete with clear diction from a VERY English narrator!);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrehDfkazO0&feature=related

Sorry it's 14 minutes long but honestly it's fascinating stuff, stick with it! If after watching this you fancy trying your hand at making a skep give us a call. The 6mm glossy cane is perfect for stitching the coils and 1/2 kilo hanks are half price while stocks last - only £8, or if you've got millions of bees, you could make hundreds of skeps with a kilo of 6mm lapping for only £15. Just add straw!

Twittering

You may or may not have noticed that a new button has appeared here on the blog, (top left)....yes we've joined the world of Twitter. Now I'm not a great social media fan, (I find Facebook a bit odd) but I have to say that I AM enjoying Twittering. We haven't got loads of people following us, but that doesn't matter - I don't mind being "Billy No Mates" - it's all about quality not quantity!

If you're a twitterer too please feel free to tweet us - @formerglories.

Meanwhile we have finished 28 of the chapel chairs and tomorrow hopefully we'll do just one more because we have a dozen or so cane panels to replace. Looking forward to a bit of a rest at the weekend!

Seasons Greetings!!

I hope you have all had a peaceful Christmas and we wish everyone a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year to come.

We are making the most of this holiday, (it's our only real chance to take a break all year) and I'm sorry for disappointing anyone, but we won't be back in the office until next Tuesday. So if you can, please leave us messages on the answerphone or e-mail and I promise we will get back to you as soon as we are back in harness!

Our family has a history of Christmas birthdays and I'm no exception. My grandfather was born on Christmas Day, Father in Law on the 27th, an Aunt on Boxing Day etc..... It's not the best time for a birthday, but it could have been worse, I was supposed to arrive around New Year's Day. My father tells me that it was the one and only time I've ever arrived early in my life! (not true of course....)

With my birthday being so close to Christmas, our sons have found a unique way of making it special for me. Every year all of their friends try to outdo each other by arriving en masse and presenting me with the worst birthday card or present they can find. This year, I must say that they excelled themselves. Look at this photo, this is what they bought me.

1. Tealights, because as they informed me, "you can never have enough".
2. A pink notepad, for those "senior, forgetful moments" and in pink because I hate the colour so much and they always aim to please.
3. An economy lightbulb, to increase my eco friendly profile, (allegedly).
4. A book of raffle tickets (?!!)
5. Some out of date paracetamol to treat the headache that I would no doubt have when they all left!!!!

I did tell them that the first thing I was likely to use was the book of raffle tickets, if anyone is interested they are 10p each and the prize is 6 rude young men! (only joking)

To be fair they did also get me some flowers, chocolates and a selection of hilarious cards. It was a lovely day. Hope you have a great time too.....

It's December already

And here is how December started for us in Dorset.

 

There had been a sharp frost overnight, so as the sun rose through the trees, the mist swirled. It was really beautiful.


I'm looking forward to the 22nd when the days start to get longer again. The short, dark, colder days make all sorts of jobs more difficult. I've spent days recently almost literally "watching paint dry!" All of the hard wax finishes, oils and shellac take longer to cure, even in our newly tidied and warm workshop, processes can take twice as long as they would in the spring or summertime. One of the most frustrating jobs at this time of year is tinting new cane to match old - when? First thing in the morning if it's bright, but if you miss that opportunity, you'll have to wait until tomorrow, it's already too dark by lunchtime. A bit of patience is called for I think.

It has been a relatively unexciting week on the work front, lots more of the same really. Cane panels by the dozen, the odd woodworking repair and lots of final finishing which is always satisfying. Another bit of good news is that finally our stock of "reel rush" in one kilo reels was delivered, (note to self - update the website!) We hauled best part of a ton into the store, so guess what? All of that space we made last weekend has disappeared already.

Another bit of good news is that we have a completion date for the sale of Mother-in-law's house. It will be such a relief to not have to worry about it any more. All the long journeys, cleaning, decorating and furniture removals - at last the future looks a little bit less demanding.

A toad and communication problems!

Well looky here.....

A baby waif and stray I found last night making his way onto the road. Well not to worry now, he's safe living under the autumn leaves next to the pond in our back garden. He looks a bit too young to survive the winter, but I hope he does. He can be our slug muncher in the spring!

Back to today, sorry to everyone who is currently waiting for a quotation for overseas deliveries. Royal Mail's website is broken - it's impossible to get any quotes at all!! I think they have tried to update the whole site and it has failed catastrophically. According to their Twitter account they apparently have no idea when it will be fixed....some of the tweets make very interesting reading. I felt particularly sorry for one company who have been waiting for three days to access their postage account online and were finally recommended to take their post to the local post office, all 40+ parcels! Can you imagine? If you want my advice avoid the post office for the moment, you might bump into some very annoyed people and wait an incredibly long time for service.......

The "Silver" Exhibition at Walford Mill

Walford Mill in Wimborne are celebrating their 25th Anniversary. They have also recently secured planning permission to extend the gallery and other facilities hugely - it is already a lovely place but is going to be amazing when all of the building work is complete! So for the next month they are holding a silent auction to raise funds to build the new planned bridge across the river to give better access for the disabled. Dozens of artists and craftspeople have donated items to the auction which was officially launched last Friday evening, many of the items have been specially made for the event.

My contribution was a freeform woven sculpture "bridge", I hope it raises lots of money for them!

If you get a chance, please have a look at the photo gallery of some of the items on offer and make a bid if you can, they are stunning!

http://www.walfordmillcrafts.co.uk/current.htm

It's nice to be appreciated!

We're not very good at joining things.....like clubs, associations and that sort of thing. Partly because we're not able to give them as much time and attention as we'd like to give them and maybe also because we can be quite solitary and private sometimes. So it came as a surprise last week to learn that one of the few associations we are members of had received a note from someone singing our praises! A teacher and professional caner, (we don't know who) had written to the Basketmakers Association just to tell them that they had bought and used all three of our DVDs and wished to recommend them to the membership proclaiming them to be excellent! The Association printed the details in their quarterly magazine this May. We knew nothing about it.

Praise indeed and very humbling, it is so nice when someone takes time out of their day to do something like that. Whoever you are, if you are reading this, I would like to say thank you very much, it is much appreciated!

It doesn't seem like it but it was about five years ago that we finally finished the DVD training "trilogy" and have sold hundreds all over the world since. The filming process took four gruelling years - we spent months finding the right seats to work on - organising venues to film at - voiceovers, (oh how I hated those!) etc. Paul the wonderful film maker, (and now a great friend) has the patience of a saint and a perfect eye for detail. True dedication to a level that I have never encountered before. He is currently self funding and making a low budget British film, it is looking REALLY promising, if you would like to have a look, his facebook page about the film is here On Common Ground. We wish him all the luck in the World and I hope its a blockbuster!! Please give him as much support and encouragement as you can - trust me, there is one Craftsman who TRULY deserves it!

Easter and Bank Holidays

The last full working day before Easter, then next weekend there's the royal wedding and May day. So I hope everyone will get the chance to spend time relaxing in the company of family and friends. The weather here in the UK is promising to be warm and sunny for at least this weekend, so........no excuses....... go out and enjoy!!

We have our usual "to do" list so will be kept busy, but hopefully will get a chance to have some fun too. We'll be answering the phone whenever possible this Saturday then as normal from Tuesday until Thursday next week, normal service will resume as from Tuesday 3rd May. Please bear with us, deliveries will be slower than normal because of these Bank holidays, so if you need something urgently, please tell us, we'll do our best!

Meanwhile........ remember the woven sculpt I did a few weeks back, (here).....? It will be included in the silent auction to raise funds for Walford Mill's project to build a new access bridge to the gallery...... and the egg basket (here).....? This will be in another silent auction to be held at Sherborne Castle Country Fair at the end of May which raises funds every year for local childrens charities.

If you fancy putting in a bid and supporting the sterling work of these two wonderful organisations, please keep an eye on the Walford Mill and Sherborne Castle websites for details. Sherborne Castle already have a long list of items to be included in their sale, some really interesting goodies!!

Have a great holiday, have fun - after all, it's always later than you think.......

A Facebook page

Okay, I said I would never do it..............but I gave in and we now have a Facebook page!

It's all a bit new at the moment, but here it is:

Former Glory Seat Weaving's Facebook

Please have a look - leave us a comment, tell us the sort of information you would like us to post about.

Soda blasting service for small furniture

Having experimented with soda blasting since last April, we're confident enough now to add this service to our restoration armoury.

It will not be suitable to use on all items, but there will be times when soda blasting will be the ideal way to remove a finish. More details are available here on our webpage if you're interested:

8th May 2016 - Sorry we no longer offer this service.

We had a lot of practise last year, the first project was Bernard the Bedford Horsebox!

VAT increase to 20%

Today is the day that VAT is increased to 20%. All of our online prices have now been changed to reflect this increase. We have absorbed the additional amount wherever possible so you will notice that some of the prices have remained the same whilst others have increased a little. We've also tried to keep the prices to figures that are easy to multiply, (because we like to keep things simple and don't like using calculators!)

We are also working on a full price list that you will be able to download from the Seat Weaving Supplies website. Hopefully this will make the ordering process easier. Keep an eye on this page here:

http://www.seatweavingsupplies.co.uk/contact%20page.htm

Congratulations to........

Amanda!!! Her suggestion for a basketmaking kit was:

"How about a letter/post basket? We usually end up leaving our post in a pile by the door for people to sort through to find their own. It looks untidy and often gets knocked onto the floor."

Yes, we have the same problem in our house, so I'm going to play around with a few ideas and hopefully design a kit to make a useful and attractive post holding receptacle!!

Many thanks to Amanda and everyone who took the time to enter our competition. A little berry basket full of goodies will be winging it's way to Amanda next week.

Meanwhile, we wish everyone a peaceful, happy and prosperous New Year. Noses back to the grindstone on Tuesday!

Happy holidays everyone!

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas break and a happy, peaceful and prosperous New Year.

It looks like most of us in the UK will have at least a bit of a picture postcard white Christmas, even us here in deepest, darkest Dorset! So I for one am going to make the most of it and I hope you all will too! I wonder if snow sticks to the beaches..... perhaps a trip to the coast with the camera beckons.....?

We will be in the office until tomorrow lunchtime and then we will re-open on the 4th January 2011, but if you need to leave us a message urgently, our answerphone will be on and we will be checking it from time to time.

Hackers - a cautionary tale.

So you do everything that you're told. You've known the internet since 1997, kind of grown up with it, you were lucky enough to learn about computer programming on a binary system at school in the seventies. As a result, you never open any spurious e-mails and you certainly don't click on any links in mail, even when you know for sure where it came from. No, you open a new tab and type in the full address of the website you want and log in there - like any good sensible person would. You never give out your passwords, you change them regularly and you always make sure that they can't be easily guessed, they contain a good mix of upper and lower case letters with a sprinkling of numbers. You don't "do" free wi-fi and you always have up to date virus checkers, spam detectors, anti phishing software, malware scanners and every other device available to mankind to take away the fear of theft via the internet through your computer. And then.............one day you get genuine e-mails fom your very own Paypal account, one congratulating you on opening an international account and a second confirming your transfer of all of your funds to this account. But you know that you haven't logged into your account for three weeks or more and this has all happened when you were asleep at 2am this morning.

Once your heart has settled back comfortably into the left hand portion of your upper chest and you can breathe freely again, you analyse what has happened. You log in through a new tab and take a careful look around your account. Sure enough it's all true. How? How can Paypal have allowed a US land based dollar account to be set up by a UK resident with a sterling account? How was the account accessed in the first place? So you fill out the statutory report forms, print off the details for your own records and wait. Three reports later and still no cases are showing up in your "resolution" folder, then suddenly you get an e-mail that starts:

"During a recent security check, we found that someone tried to access your PayPal account.........."

No mention of any reports filed, but there is apparently one resolved case showing in your "resolution" folder with no details available. The money, (still in dollars) has miraculously reappeared in your account, but it isn't the amount in sterling that you had before, charges have been taken for the exchange rate. The international account has been deleted.

Then it's on the radio. Lots of big name internet sites have been attacked by cyber hackers for their removal of support for Wikileaks, but it's only a Ddos attack so obviously the hackers just want to bring the sites down for a while to prove that they can cause some disruption. Coincidence? Make your own mind up.

We've decided that perhaps claiming 100% security is a red rag to a website hacking bull and maybe the clever people who write the highly complex security programmes also have more than enough intelligence to break into them whenever they like. We never did trust the internet with financial information, this has just confirmed our doubts.

So apologies to everyone if it causes inconvenience, but we have no choice but to remove the Paypal option from our websites for our own sanity. It's just one thing too many to think and worry about.

Oooooh soooo cold!

No snow yet, the sun is shining and the scenery is wonderful but it is absolutely freezing here, -3 degrees with a biting, spiteful wind. But the good news is that all of our messy building work is complete and we are finally fully installed in our new workshop. What a baptism, the coldest weather for years just as we have finished moving in!

And here is the overall view from the front

The area behind the bookshelves is the "clean" area where we do weaving and finishing, beyond that, through the opening is the original studio which is now our "dirty workshop" where we do any woodwork repairs and colour matching.

This is where the mail order is processed. All very cosy - despite the weather.

So busy.........thank goodness

It might be because we're coming up to Christmas, or perhaps it's just our own fault for trying to do so many things at once, but there never seems to be any spare time at all - not even to put updates here on the blog.

So a quick catch up!

We are currently out of stock of thick paper fibre rush in "Antique" finish. A large consignment will be arriving within two weeks, so unfortunately any orders received cannot be processed until then. Apologies in advance for any problems this may cause. We do however have plenty of thin "Antique" and both thick and thin diameters of "River" paper fibre in stock.