Nuair a thig air duine thig air uile. It never rains but it pours

It is it with much pride and delight that I revel in being the solo member of Rag Tag to make it into the office today.  This is thanks to my much trivialised arcane transport method; the wonderful pushbike. So let this post be homage to the men and woman out there on two wheels.  The bike has been highly discussed topics as I’ve attempted to overcome the wild weather of the last few days via pedal power.  It’s given me an intimate experience of the intensity of the surrounding landscape and it’s invisible forces.  There is something wonderfully palpable about traveling through such epic landscape in such imposing weather on something so small and slow, encountering without barriers the vivid theatre of the towering landscape as it almost cries out.

So from the staggering landscape to the lashing rains of the last week, my overwhelming feeling of living in the highlands is things are not done by halves.

Nuair a thig air duine thig air uile.  It never rains but it pours.

I hope to bring the same vigour and intensity to my work here at Rag Tag.

We Believe Tea Should Always Be Made In A Pot.

As I sit in the Rag Tag workshop in Balmacara in the silence and calm I thought it would an opportune moment to reflect upon my first few weeks at Rag Tag.  Today is in stark contrast to my initial inaugural experience of the workshop, where there has been a continual hustle and bustle of happenings and activities.  It can be a daunting experience moving somewhere new but the constant flow of friendly faces over the last few weeks have made me feel very welcome.

During my short time I have been taught by skilled marksmen in the ways of the tailor and knitter, found sensational bargains at the Rag Tag Jumble sale and swam the divide between Kyle to Kyleakin (ok the last bits not true...yet).

However my favouritest (yes favouritest) thing about working at Rag Tag has been the lunch times where everyone puts together their two fish and five loaves and sit like the knights at the round table sharing an elegantly cobbled together meal.  I have been sampling everything from Norwegian black bread to truly original home bakes.  It has been a lesson in hospitality, which seems so central to Rag Tags operations.  The underlying ethos that tea should always be made in a pot.

So I will enjoy the quiet today, but look forward to returning to a brewing pot tomorrow.

Ps. I have been so inspired by the in house culinary skills I have volunteered to cook 20 roast potatoes for the Christmas dinner.  So watch this space and I will let you know how I’m getting on. 

That There New Bhoy

Reuben our new graduate started work toady.

We first got to know him when he turned up cleanly shaven in shirt and tie at our shop a couple of weeks ago. 

He is a surfing, drawing (soon to be sewing) biking extraordinaire from Ireland and has designed his own range of post-apocalyptic toothbrushes. He recently graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in Product Design.

Reuben will be helping us get our online shop up and running so watch this space.

NB Reuben did not write this himself

Let's buy local this Christmas

So a few days ago the post below was circulating on Facebook.

Let's buy our Christmas presents from little retailers, fair trade shops, local crafts shops, second-hand shops, our neighbors, our friend who makes unique little things, from whoever resists to the economic globalization of our homes...Let's try to make sure that our money goes to the people who need it, not to multinationals and big enterprises that exploit labor ...in this way more people will have a better Christmas.

I don't share posts like very often, but this one had real resonance for me. I think so many of us are feeling quite battered by the current economic crisis and it makes me as a consumer feel like not spending my hard earned pennies with any of those massive conglomorates. I'm not sure which corporation owns which company these days and I'm really reluctant to spend any money on something that will end up forgotten and unused within a few weeks. I'm doing much of my shopping at Rag Tag this year. I'm not doing that because I feel obligated to, there are some gorgeous - and totally affordable things to buy, like Shirley's Yuletide Gnomes for example (shown below)

The Gnomes are handmade in the Scottish Highlands using scraps of wool, I've ordered mine already. There are other goodies coming soon too, Advent Calendars, sewing kits for keen sewers, and gorgeous glittery fairies and angels to hang in your tree. Watch out for pictures soon or pop in and see the shop for yourself.

But you don't have to buy from Rag Tag, really, you don't. What about using some of your Christmas money where you live? Obviously, being who we are, we'd suggest that your nearest social enterprise might be your first port of call. How about Ness Soap in Inverness for example? Whilst there, you could pop into Artisans for a delicious cup of coffee and a browse of their gift selection. Or, as you'd be in Strother's Lane anyway, why not pop into Maya's new shop? Not a social enterprise, they are however a local business who make the most delicious chocolate.

There are chain stores who sell similar things, but they are chains, they are corporate not local and most of the money you spend there does not stay in the Highlands. Every area has its own lovely wee shops, cafes and businesses with their own identity and a high percentage of local goods. There are craft fairs and markets and all kinds of events running in your area, why not try them out and buy something just that little bit more special with what money you have to spare?

I can't possibly list every destination, the ones that I've listed here are amongst my favourites, I could mention many more. Why not find something rare and unusual at The Greenhouse in Dingwall, or something funky at Babalu in Forres, something delicious at the Skye Bakery, try investing in some art at the Inchmore Gallery or why not brighten the winter months with some candles from Ullapool?

All excellent local businesses and enterprises. If you are a maker or producer, tell us about yourself, post a link to your shop, website or event on our blog or Facebook page and we'll share it and tell people about it. Share your recommendations with us and we'll share them with others. Maybe we can't change the world, but we can make a difference. If we're all spending less this Christmas, let's make it count for more.

November already!

Can't quite understand where the year has gone, how can it be November already? I think it's probably because we've all been so very busy. The fashion shows are over for another year and what wonderful events they turned out to be. We haven't got the final statistics yet, but we think that at least 60 people took part in one way or another, either as models or makers or behind the scenes. It was so wonderful to be involved in something so glamorous and to see everyone working together, those who needed support and those who didn't, those who have suffered with mental health issues and those who haven't. The Inverness show models are pictured below, thanks to the lovely Fin McAteer, who took some gorgeous pictures

The shows were also a great showcase for the things that we make and we think that the quality of what we're able to produce from disgarded fabric and recycled textiles.

Pictured below are Meg and Fiona our two tutor co-ordinators, who undertook to do a prodigious amount of work in order to make everything run as smoothly as it did, and in order to ensure that everyone had such a fantastic experience, photo this time by Caroline Dear.

There are loads more pictures on our Flickr site, not only of the fashions shows but of some of our products and workshops too.

Rag Tag Flickr page

We've also had a couple of online articles published recently which cover a little more about the history and ethos of Rag Tag

Firstly this one, which features some of pics from the Kyleakin show, taken by Caroline Dear at Trendhunter

There is also a lovely article on the Hi Arts website, we're in the Craft Spotlight for November read all about us here

We're also planning a busy winter! We have several creative workshops coming-up, including beginner sewing and rag-rugging for Christmas. In November we will be holding an all day drop-in Christmas craft event as part of the Balmacara Fayre and Square open day. More details about workshops and events are on our website on the workshops page

Our website was relaunched in August and our e-shop will follow soon, so finally people will be able to buy our goodies online. However, we couldn’t have done any of this without the support of the local community. So as a thank you for all the donations support and kindnesses we have received we’re launching our Rag Tag n Textile local loyalty card. The card will offer 20% off all Rag Tag label products and selected workshops to anyone who lives in the Skye, Lochalsh and South West Ross area.

Come in and see us soon! Winter opening Tue-Fri 10-4

Sadly all this activity will take place without our lovely intern, Andrea, who is off to work with the Calman Trust in Inverness. We'll miss her loads, but we know that Calman have landed a wonderful asset in Andrea and wish her loads of luck for the future. She's pictured here in some of the gorgeous clothing that she purchased from the Balmacara shop

Natalie's Placement

Things have been as busy as ever here at Rag Tag, and this week we have been very lucky to have a visiting graduate, Natalie Deacon. We're going to hand over the blog today, so Natalie can share her experiences! Please be nice about us Natalie!

Natalie learning to sew!

As I walked through the welcoming shop entrance of Rag Tag n Textile I felt a sense of warmth the minute I ran in the door to escape the bitter morning! Little did i know...

I was about to embarke on an array of eventful activities which would be GO, GO, GO!

First stop...Fashion show practice run at Breakish Hall!

'From Ross-Shire with Love'...The captivating theme for the eagerly anticipated 'Rag Tag 'N' Textile' shows.

The reaction of everyone involved spoke volumes, as everybody put their all into it. Not a bad murmur in sight! The born naturals had to strut their way down the make-shift run way! This confidence booster had us all in good fettle for our yummy lunch with the team at the Broadford workshop!

My second day set off bright and early in the Rag Tag workshop. We had an accessory making workshop planned, the exquisite fabrics, rugged furs and vintage jewels danced along the shelves of the busy workshop! All 14 of the team contributed with complete unity helping one another with an idea or stitch here and there.

The results of the fun-filled day were not a reflection of the weather!...Less of the drab and in with the FAB!

Days 4 and 5 were spent capturing photos of the clothes and accessories which are definitely a license to thrill!

I learned some skills that I didn't have before I came. I learned to sew (see the picture above) I made head-dresses and necklaces and stitched the lining of a bag, but you'll have to come to the fashion shows to see my handy-work!

These are two of the colourful ensembles you will see at the 'From Ross-shire with Love' Fashion show.

The team behind the brand embody the Rag Tag image, both with enigmatic style and even more enigmatic personalities. Spending a week in their company you can understand that the WOW-Factor designs are no gimmick, they’re a passion and a lifestyle. I enjoyed witnessing designers first hand who are having fun with their clothes and who are just a lovely bunch of amazing people!

As you can see the symbolism of crafts binding friendships is the key to what 'Rag Tag 'N' Textile' is all about!

Fashion, Flowers of Scotland and the Yuletide Gnomes

So we can hardly believe it's September already! We're incredibly busy right now with so much going on. It's only a little over two weeks to the fashion shows, but we have some really gorgeous clothing ready as the team has been working so hard. The standard of clothing last year was really high, this year it's even higher. But the winner so far is Crispin, who's made three times as many clothes as anyone else! See our new range for yourself at any of the three venues below.

Kyleakin Village Hall – Saturday 1st October 7.30pm
Tigh na Sgire, Portree – Tuesday 4th October 7.30pm
The One Touch Theatre, Inverness – Thursday 6th October 7.30pm

The clothes are absolutely amazing and all three evenings should be great fun!

The Skye fashions shows are free entry and there is no need to book, if you want to go to Eden Court you can buy tickets from their website here

The fashion shows are being held as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival. Find out more about what's on in the Highlands and Scotland-wide by checking out this website. The arts festival is a really good way of highlighting mental health issues, the various shows and events will be thought provoking, interesting, challenging and fun!

Working hard on the fashion shows hasn't stopped us stocking the shop, with lots of new goodies coming in over the last few weeks and more being added every day.

Sarah Berry's pincushion cups have been selling well, hardly surprising as they are so pretty and delicate, they retail at between £5.00 and £9.50

Shirley Taylor's also been working hard on these adorable Yuletide Gnomes. Adorable in this picture, they are even nicer in real life. Handknitted with love they are selling at only £14.50 each.

We also have introduced a brand new range of cushions and placemats. The Flower of Scotland range is a salute to the Saltire using gorgeous floral fabrics in shades of blue. The placemats are 2 for £10.00 the cushions in the pictures below sell at £14, but prices range from £10 and include the pad

Our online shop should be launched by mid-October and a number of our products will be available to purchase soon.

For more information about our events, workshops and online shop, check out our website here

All about the website

I can't believe it's been so long since we updated our blog, but what a busy six months we've had!  In April, we opened the shop.  It was literally all hands to the deck as we stapled and pinned and painted and arranged and managed to get the shop open as planned.

Since then the shop has been busy and buzzy and we have had all kinds of visitors with their own stories to tell.  We've had some amazing donations and sold some lovely stuff.  We try to mix old and reclaimed items with gorgous gifts.  We sell Ness Soap and lots of lovely crafts made by some of our very talented local crafts-people and, of course there are the things we make ourselves.  We have run workshops and have more to come, with Sarah, Monique and Sue, all supported by the wonderful Andrea. Check out our new website for more details and the piccies below to see some of the things that we have tried already.

Next year we hope to have workshops in willow-weaving, felt fleece making, rag-rugging, Christmas stuff from scraps, Christmas flower arranging and a crafter's swap shop, to keep up our recycling practice! And lots more.

Meanwhile the fashion shows get ever closer!  Fiona and Meg have been leading the team at Broadford and I've been consistantly impressed at the incredibly high quality of the things that we're making.  See the fabby red dress, made by Beth, below.

Last year the fashion shows were a great success as well as great fun! This year we're holding 'From Ross-shire with Love' will be in Kyleakin on 1st of October,  in Portree on 4th October and at the One Touch Theatre at Eden Court in Inverness.  Check out our website again for more details, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter 

When all of that is over you'll no doubt be expecting us to take a well earned rest?  You'd be wrong!  In mid October we'll be closing for a few days in order to reopen for Christmas.  We have lots of gorgeous goodies planned to go on our shelves and rails  and then it'll be jumble sale time again.  We're also still supporting vulnerable adults, delivering training and support and employability.  Oh yes, and did we mention we've relaunched our website?  The online shop will be available from mid-October, just in time for Christmas shopping. 

Perhaps that's why we've taken so long to update our blog!

Working in a social enterprise

Social enterprise seems to be cool at the moment, everyone is talking about it and if I'd been writing this yesterday I might have talked about how hard it can be sometimes.  How some days you get in to the office to find that nobody has paid their bills, so you can't pay yours.  That the vulnerable people you are supporting have all had issues or problems come up that they are struggling to deal with.  That even though you have a really important client on the phone, someone that you are supporting has a really serious problem that has to be dealt there and then, because it could, just possibly, be a matter of life and death. 

Then there is the struggle with funding, the difficulty that you have trying to convince bureaucrats, who have a secure job, with a pension and a benefits package that allows them to take six months off on full pay, that the few thousand pounds that you are asking for, for services you are delivering is good value for money.  That the 'spend' can be justified because of the savings it brings.  So you talk about the savings, the fact that you reduce the need for support from other, more expensive services, that it costs over £1,000 for someone to be in hospital for one day and that it costs around £40 per day to have that person at Rag Tag instead

You can't always go into the personal stories, you don't always want to - if you support a person then you support their family too, you stop them self-harming or sitting alone at home and becoming ever more depressed, properly, clinically depressed or suicidal.  To the bureaucrat that person then becomes a statistic a box they can tick, to me they are an individual, someone I have sat and had a cup of tea with, who has shared their story who has started on the road to being more well   We help people see that they do have a purpose, that they can make a contribution, that just because they are only well enough to give a few hours a week those hours are valuable, worthwhile, that they do have something to offer.  We have helped almost 100 people in the past three years, some are now employed again, some are in further education, some are volunteering, some are coming in every week, because they like being at Rag Tag, in a creative atmosphere where they have a contribution to make. 

But on other days, like today, you have a good day instead.  

We need to make money, to sell our products, and so we are, more all the time.  After all that's what social enterprise is all about.  We want to help other groups to support people just like we do, because what we do works, because we want other people to be able to do it too.  So we have spent the past few months working on a series of manuals which will help others to teach sewing and other practical skills.  To learn about marketing, product placement, quality control, enterprise etc so they can ask more money for what they make.  To learn how to generate textile donations so that they to can use resources as we do and help the environment, to process the donations when they do arrive.

So I sent out some e-mails with JPEGS of our manuals asking for help and I got so many replies, so many offers of help, so many possibilities for moving forward.  And that's what social enterprise is all about.  The help and support that we give eachother, the ten minutes that we take to help someone else if we can, the staff and the volunteers and the friends and collegues.  Not everyone I deal with is a faceless bureaucrat who's more interested in figures and statistics than anything else, some officials have sympathy and understanding and go above and beyond the call of duty, just because they can.    There are people in all sorts of organisations who make an effort, who try to help, who make suggestions and give offers of help and people who do more than we could ever have asked at Rag Tag too.

So thanks to David and Lindsay and Pauline and Phillip and Daniel and Mary and Gillian and Fiona and David and Andy and Andy and Rhoda and Jennifer and Vicki and David, because of you and your help and support, today was a very good day indeed.

The Manuals

If you are interested in our manuals and training courses then please e-mail us to ask about costs and the courses that we are running, because of all the help and support that we have had today and in the last few days, they should be available soon.

Newish Year, New Blog

We've decided to update our blog and start again and we've added some of our chick, chick, chickens in plenty of time for Easter.

In case you haven't heard of us, Rag Tag n Textile is a social firm based on the north west coast of Scotland, we primarily support people who are recovering from mental health issues, helping them to regain confidence and train in traditional crafts and in a variety of employability skills.

Everything we make is upcycled and we are lucky enough to be well supported by the local community with lots of donated fabrics and wool and other textiles.

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Or check out our website, which should be undergoing more development soon