All Things Considered

Merry Christmas!
Posted by Simon Lewin

We'd like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas!

We have lots planned for 2008 at St. Jude's - we're part way through organising our exhibition calendar at the gallery and have several new screen-printed textiles in the pipeline.

And we'll be making a New Year's resolution to keep posting to this blog a little more frequently.

Wishing you all the best for 2008!

Simon, Angie, Audrey & Kate

The image to the right - by Edward Bawden - is taken from 'Entertaining À La Carte' which features over 200 illustrations of his work for Fortnum & Mason. More...

Posted by Simon Lewin on December 25th, 2007

Christmas Card
Posted by Simon Lewin

We're delighted to announce that apart from a handful of copies at
our gallery/showroom we have now sold all 1250 copies of the charity Christmas
card printed this year.

For every card sold we're donating 75p of Maggie's Centres.

With
locations across the UK, each Maggie's Centre is a place anyone
affected by cancer can turn to for help. The centres are open to
everyone - not just to people who have been diagnosed with cancer, but
also to their families, friends and carers. Their Dundee centre was
designed by architect Frank Gehry. Find out more >

Thanks
to everyone that purchased the cards - you've generated £937.50 for the
charity. We'd like to add to this, making a total donation of £1200.00.

Next year we'll have to print a few more copies! 

Posted by Simon Lewin on November 25th, 2007

Contagious Toys
Posted by Kate Sullivan

Buying a silicone teddy bear which resembles a large jelly baby, which
also contains the chicken pox virus, is an odd purchase. I have heard of
parents holding chicken pox 'parties', where children are encouraged to
drink from their spotty friends beaker for the 'itch' to take over, so
perhaps administrating a teddy with a flavoured tummy button for
your child to 'taste' isn't that different.

The designer of PoxTeddy, Mikael Metthey, is exploring design technology with a
scientific twist and creating some very exciting products, visit his
website to view more inventive concepts.

Posted by Kate Sullivan on August 19th, 2007

Road Runner
Posted by Simon Lewin

Following on from Kate's post about the Hemingways, commited cycle commuter Wayne Hemingway has designed a £100 folding bike called the Road Runner. A search on Google has failed to find photos of the bike but I'll post some as soon as I do - it's due to be launched in the next couple of months.

The introduction of this folding bike is a natural extension to the scheme recently launched by Hemingway at his Staiths South Bank housing development in Gateshead. Residents can make use of the cycle route into Newcastle using one of the pool of 10 bikes. And every household has been supplied with a £57.50 voucher to spend on accessories.

You can find out more about the Cycle@Staiths scheme in this YouTube video.

I'm also keen to see photos of the forthcoming Shack Up bike shed. Not sure about the water butt though...

Posted by Simon Lewin on August 7th, 2007

Old Skool Kool
Posted by Kate Sullivan

A few years back, Stuart built me a shed. This romantic birthday gift
sits at the front of the house opposite the kitchen window. The shed
has a large solid old pine door and is angled into one of the corners
of the garden. When I first looked inside my birthday shed, it was
decked out with a collection of very odd auction items, one of them
being the stylish ‘Osokool’ fridge.

Back in the 1950’s, this plaster of Paris cube with an aluminum inner
lining and a nifty polystyrene lined plastic door, would sit
commonplace in many boats and houses – so very carbon neutral. All you
needed to do to keep your perishables cool was to keep the plaster damp
and you would do this by topping up the bowl like top with cold water.

I’m pleased to say we do use our cool box. Usually at this time of the
year, we would have made use of our Osokool on our camping trips, where
it sits outside our tent door so we remember to water it along with a
long plastic planter containing 4-week-old salad plants. You see, the
great thing about the Osokool is that it is not only runs on a glass of
water twice a day but if it rains, as it always does, you can just
forget about it along with the salad leaves.

Posted by Kate Sullivan on July 6th, 2007

Well, it’s a start…
Posted by Simon Lewin

So, here it is - the first entry on All Things Considered.

Not entirely sure why it’s taken so long - I guess the problem was exactly how do you start a blog - just leap in with the first entry or try and mark the occasion somehow? The result is that I’ve spent far to long thinking about it.

Some of the content here will cover the activities at St. Jude’s - both our fabric design business and gallery specialising in British printmaking. We’ll also keep you up to date with news about Angie Lewin’s work.

Beyond that, it will really act as a journal of everything that informs, inspire and entertains. Art, craft, design, culture, food, music & travel.

Right - that’s the first entry done. Wasn’t that hard, was it?

Posted by Simon Lewin on March 9th, 2007