THE ENTOMOLOGY TREND

To write this post we need to take you all back to a time before Clementine & Bloom existed, back to a time when one of us worked for the infamous Alexander McQueen. 

With a background in Embroidery, and a particular interest in fabric manipulation and hand embroidery, it was my goal to work in couture. I achieved this in 2009 when I was chosen to work in the Alexander McQueen studio as a Hand Embroidery Assistant - I shall skip the gory details (long hours and tight deadlines) but what I will tell you is that I loved it! All day sewing beautiful, intricate designs for the most amazing garments, really what's not to love? The highlight of the whole time I spent working there was going to Paris Fashion week with the Plato Atlantis Spring/Summer 2010 collection, not just to finish the garments but to work backstage and see the final vision and all that hard work brought together in one fantastic show.

It still gives me a buzz to see the dresses that I embroidered on Lady Gaga in the Bad Romance video, or Daphne Guinness gracing the red carpet in the collar I worked exclusively on.

Now I can no longer claim any involvement in the McQueen studios but just the other day I was browsing Pinterest when I came across a fabulous dragonfly pattern (straight away I pinned it to our Entomology board) and I was delighted to discover it was a McQueen design. Little ol' Clementine & Bloom must be bang on trend then!

All images courtesy of Alexander Mcqueen

I've included a few of my favourites of the dragonfly designs and as we can't afford Alexander McQueen prices we shall be content instead with these cushions and lampshades from our Entomology collection to give our home that designer treatment.

LOVE LETTERS

Just to send a little love out to all our readers on this special day

Happy Valentine's Day!

ARABIAN NIGHTS

It has been a little while since Clementine & Bloom took a holiday- June to be precise for our Parisian Dash. So we booked a last minute deal to Marrakech to catch ourselves some rays. Truth be told we bought back more than just a suntan, having visited this wonderful city five years ago we knew in advance to pack light so that we had plenty of room for all the treasure we intended to buy.

When you step off the plane it's not just a change in temperature that awaits you, Morocco is a wonderful concoction of bold colours and pattern - Clementine & Bloom's mantra! I've included a few examples as there are just too many to share; turn the corner in the souk and you are greeted with another fantastic and intricate doorway. Sit down to dinner and be surrounded by vibrant colourful interiors. What's not to love?

For anyone who is thinking of going the first 'must' is to stay in a riad inside the Medina, traditional Moroccan homes built around a courtyard. We stayed in Riad Lorsya, just a stones throw away from our second 'must' the souk. The Medina of Marrakech is a maze of alleyways (the souk) where you can spend hours browsing, and in our case buying, wonderful artisan products. And when you emerge from these you should find yourself in our third 'must' the Jmaa el Fna - the heart of the Medina where by day you will see snake charmers, tooth pullers and henna tattooists. But at night the square really comes alive, locals and tourists flock here to see musicians and eat at the food stalls. The noise, sounds and smells give it an exciting carnival atmosphere.

There are several places of interest to visit whilst you're in Marrakech, my best advice would be to buy a guide book, not only useful for its maps but they list some great restaurants where you can eat traditional Moroccan cuisine. On this visit we ventured outside of the Medina walls to the Majorelle gardens, lush greenery against the most beautiful vivid blue that made me want to rush home and repaint the house! It was like stepping into an oasis where we could relax away from the hustle and bustle of the souks.

And finally, perhaps most importantly, I know you are all dying to know what we bought. I've included a few of my favourite pieces: these beautiful patterned bowls are a welcome addition to THE kitchen,

jazzy new slippers (babouches), making us the most stylish ladies in loungewear,

and best of all this brass lampshade; now all that's left to do is find the perfect spot in my home for it...

MANET, MORI & MARTINIS

Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets
courtesy of Musee d'Orsay

Last week as the snow had finally melted and the temperatures had crept up respectably I travelled into London to see the Manet: Portraying Life exhibition at the RA. The gallery was really busy, too busy in fact, to the point that it was difficult to see many of the paintings and impossible to read most of the information plaques. Many of the works appeared to be incomplete and having read some of the reviews that have discussed his techniques I'm not sure this worked well for me; there seemed to be an odd conflict of finished, detailed areas alongside what appeared to be unworked areas. Some of the works are exceptional; the contrast of black clothing with the luminosity of skin in Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets is stunning and it's impossible not to be provoked by Dejeuner sur l'herbe if only for the composition. As a whole though I have to admit that I found the exhibition a little bit disappointing and difficult to engage with and whether the volume of people present hampered it I'm not sure.

Dejeuner su l'herbe courtesy of The Courtauld Gallery

The next stop was a short stroll round the corner to Burlington Gardens and the Mariko Mori: Rebirth exhibition. This was completely different from the first one being much smaller and emptier which allowed the viewer to contemplate the work; I particularly liked the contrasting textures, the smoothness of ceramic with the ornate and scrolled opaque glass. The use of soft lighting to reflect and highlight some of the sculptural elements was interesting and reinforced the theme by making the spaces feel intimate and at times womb-like.

Flat Stone - image courtesy of artnet

So after the cultural excursion it was time for some food and a visit to Brasserie Zedel near Piccadilly Circus. You walk off the street and down into a gorgeous art deco interior with fabulous murals and mirrored walls until you enter the restaurant and are transported to Paris. I can recommend the escargot and beouf bourguignon and the wonderful French martinis are a must-have.

Oh and do visit the ladies toilets while you're there and enjoy the lovely tiles in the cubicles!

100 AND COUNTING

Cast your minds back to January 2012, like everyone else we had made New Years resolutions :

1 : start a blog
2 : start a business

And now we're back in January, today marks our 100th post! I think we can safely say we've achieved the first resolution. It's wonderful to be able to look back over the year and see what we've shared with everyone - the food we've eaten, the places we've been and perhaps most importantly our journey to achieve resolution #2.

We've created a snapshot of pictures from some of our favourite posts and memories. To all our loyal readers thank you for sticking by us and to those of you who are new here a big hello!

As is traditional for January Clementine & Bloom have once again set 2013 resolutions - this is our year to think big and say yes! So what better way to celebrate than to share with you all our first piece of press, our beautiful Heart Quilt is featured in the February edition of Sewing World Magazine, it went on sale 18th January so now all we need to do is get our hands on a copy...

Of course no celebration would be complete without cake! We chose these delicious chocolate fudge cupcakes baked by the very talented Liberty Kalinah. Really we wanted one of her fantastic novelty cakes but when there's just two of you in the studio it seemed just a bit greedy. Maybe for our 1000th post we should have a party!

TOP DRAWER

A week has passed since we were at Top Drawer and having rested our weary feet (three days of standing up is tough going!) we thought it was about time we filled you all in.

As Spotted exhibitors we had a 1m x 1m plinth requiring us to be imaginative with our display - it's surprising how much space cushions and lampshades take up. Obviously we did the usual practice run through at home but our set up time on the Saturday was a Clementine & Bloom record - a speedy 30 minutes!

As it was our first trade show we were understandably nervous, however we needn't have been; the past year has been a whirlwind of exhibiting and pitching our products to the public so whilst there were a few new pieces of terminology we had to get our heads around such as drop-ship, trade price and minimum orders, we soon settled into the swing of talking about the virtues of Clementine & Bloom and all nerves disappeared.

Not only have we made some invaluable contacts within the industry we've once again met a great bunch of fellow exhibitors. Our lovely neighbour Roddy & Ginger helped make the days fly by, and if there's one thing we would have definitely bought at the show it's a handmade leather ipad case from the wonderful MES leather. We've added a picture of every stand in the Spotted area and a link to their websites - make sure you check them all out.

top row : Jessica Hayes-Gill, One Must Dash, Stormy Knight, Spann&Willis,
bottom row : Stephanie Davies Designs, Claire Gaudion, Amy Allwright

It's good to stand back a few days after an event and assess what we have gained from the experience and once again we can honestly say it has all been positive. What we've learnt about the industry, our products and ourselves is invaluable and we would encourage anyone offered the opportunity to participate in a similar event like this to grab it with both hands.

So now we are rested and reinvigorated and despite the freezing temperatures and snow it's back to work in the studio.

CABINETS OF CURIOSITIES

With just one day to go until we set up for our first trade show our samples are made and safely packaged away, and as the headache of all the new paperwork we've had to produce has subsided we thought we would settle down and share some details, and more importantly photographs, of a day trip we took over the Christmas break.

We didn't venture far afield - it's nice to find good things that are on your doorstep - straight to the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill, London. This is one of those places that Mum has spoken of having visited as a young girl and thoroughly loving for its eclectic mix of curiosities. As children we never visited (no idea why?!) but I suppose it must often get overlooked as a small and independent museum in the suburbs, but that's exactly why you should go and visit.

As creatives there's nothing we love more than a museum. Natural hoarders ourselves with a curiosity for anything visual, it sometimes feels like the big sights in London have loosened the emphasis on cabinets full of displays and redirected it towards children and computers - it's wonderful to see an object in 3D but I still want to see the original object too! This is where the Horniman Museum is different, it focuses on displaying the weird and the wonderful with complimentary technology alongside exhibits not instead of!

I took hundreds of photographs when we visited (their natural history section was particularly good!) so I have included a few of my favourites for you all...

ICE, ICE BABY

Happy New Year to all our readers and what better way to start 2013 than with ice cream! I've waited until now to share this post with you because having made the ice cream we chose to save it for Christmas day, which is always a big family affair in our household and meant everyone would get a taste.

Way back on a warm Summer's day a crate of over ripe peaches landed in the kitchen; between the family we managed to scoff a good few of them but the left overs gave me a chance to experiment. My usual source of inspiration is the internet but peach cakes and peach cobblers and peach pies just weren't grabbing my attention, then I came across the most beautiful food blog Tartelette and a stunning recipe for Roasted Peaches and Lavender Ice Cream.

Queue some rejigging of the recipe - skip the lavender, make it a little less calorie heavy, oh and minor detail, I don't own an ice cream machine and hey presto I found myself spending a whole afternoon (no exaggeration this takes 4-6 hours) making Roasted Peach and English Blossom Honey Ice Cream.

If you click the Tartelette link it will take you back to the original recipe but I have included my own version below:

6 peaches
250ml whole milk
250ml light coconut milk
250ml fat free yoghurt
5 tablespoons of honey
A handful of sugar

Preheat the oven to 200C

Cut the peaches in half and remove the stone.

Cover a small plate with sugar and push the flesh into the crystals. Place in a roasting tin sugar side up.

Drizzle the honey over and roast in the oven until golden brown and soft (I turned my peaches a few times just to keep them coated in the honey and juice syrup that was forming in the bottom of the tin)

Call me fussy but once the peaches were sufficiently cooled I removed the skin; there's no real need for this it just depends on your preference for the texture of the ice cream and I wanted mine to be smooth and creamy.

In a large saucepan over a medium heat, gently warm the milk, coconut milk and yoghurt until they are just at the point of boiling. Remove from the heat and leave to cool completely. I would recommend refrigerating to speed this part up!

Once everything is completely cooled add the peaches to the milk base and mash with a potato masher.

This is the point where if you're lucky enough to have an ice cream machine you pop it in and let it do the hard work. Now the true commitment to the cause begins.

I separated my mixture into two large plastic containers, both need to fit easily into your freezer. Place in the freezer for 45 minutes, remove and whisk (definitely with an electric whisk and the most robust fitting you have, it's easy now but anything flimsy will not work at the later stages)

From now on every 30 minutes you have to remove your ice cream from the freezer and whisk, for the simple reason that you are not trying to produce an ice cube but rather a smooth and well blended mixture. How many times you will have to do this depends on how good your freezer is but you will get to a certain point where the mixture no longer looks whisk-able and it is at this point that you can either leave it to freeze or eat it!

If like us you choose to save yours until later you will need to remove the ice cream from the freezer and pop it into the fridge for several hours to soften up.

Bon apetit!