Welcome



Set up by British designer Jacinta Walton, Whinberry & Antler design and produce unique fabrics and homewares by hand in rural England. Incorporating a passion for traditional skills by using hand printing methods, and taking inspiration from British wildlife and countryside, Whinberry & Antler hope to bring a beautiful token of the countryside into your home.

Please have a look around the blog and follow us to see how Whinberry & Antler products are made, with step by step photographs demonstrating the traditional skills used on the 'Behind the Scenes' page, as well as other information and updates about the company.

For more information please see the company website www.WhinberryAntler.com or email info@WhinberryAntler.com




Thursday 20 February 2014

Anyone for Whinberry Pie?

Over the past few weeks the organisers of the Frome Super Market - now rebranded as the Frome Independent (nice new branding it is too) - have organised various workshops for the traders to attend. I have been fortunate enough to attend all of them covering accountancy, social media, making the most of the web and this weeks branding. I thoroughly enjoyed this Mondays workshop on branding. The workshop was led by Luke Manning of the award winning Pencil Studio based in Frome (http://pencilstudio.co.uk/) and was another great chance to meet like minded people to exchange ideas! Very much looking forward to the next market in just under two weeks.

Whilst in the branding workshop we each had to describe our company, what we did, and the brand surrounding it. This got me thinking that perhaps there was not enough information on the website about where the name 'Whinberry & Antler' actually came from. So I thought that I would create a little bit more information on the 'About' page to illustrate where the name came from.




So I created a new page 'What's a Whinberry?' - as a lot of people often ask if I am either Whinberry or Antler at markets! 

I also thought that it may be really nice to include a Whinberry Pie recipe. So you can now find out the story behind the name and then bake yourself some very tasty Whinberry Pie!



Tuesday 11 February 2014

Follow the trail

You may have noticed a few changes on the W&A website homepage over the past few days... Well, I have been having a few little doodling sessions and thought that it might be quite nice to include some deer footprints in the website banner image as I have been trying to think of a nice way to use this space for a while now. It's also given me a few ideas for future products. So here you go, follow the deer trail to W&A!






I also experimented a little bit with one of the new designs on Photoshop to create a little Valentines image for whinberryantler.com. It was nice to use a little bit of colour which I might try to use in some future screen prints.


I hope you have a lovely (badger badger badger) Valentines day! W&A.

Wednesday 5 February 2014

Getting creative with ceramics

I've wanted to create a ceramic range for a while now but it's taken me a while to decide on how much of the manufacturing process I wanted to do myself (in an ideal world I would be doing all of it!). It seems that the best way forward is to use a British company to manufacture the items for me so that I still have time to draw, print and sew all of the other Whinberry & Antler products. As I'm sure anyone who has ever tried running a business selling products they have designed or made, you soon learn that there is only so much you can do yourself!! 

Yesterday, whilst in a stationery shop in Frome, for which I am a very frequent customer, I picked up a ceramic pen to have a bit of fun with. This is a pen that once oven baked onto the ceramic leaves a design that is dishwasher proof, which is so important now that most households today use a dishwasher. And nothing is more disappointing than when a design on your favourite mug starts to fade.


So I came home and grabbed an old white plate from the cupboard and got drawing! 


I am quite pleased with the result. The lovely feedback that this plate received on the W&A Facebook page has really made up my mind : I need to do a ceramic range!

The only downside of the porcelain pen is that it does leave a raised surface and tends to go a bit textured in areas that are coloured as the ink layers up on itself. Plus whilst I enjoyed drawing this plate, I would certainly find it difficult to maintain stock levels!! However, I have now placed an order with a company in Cornwall to get the very first collection of W&A mugs made up (very exciting!). They source their ceramics from Stoke and then do the entire process themselves in house.

So hopefully if you get a chance to come along to the Frome Super Market on Sunday 2nd March you'll get a chance to see the new products in person!! I can't wait for customers to see them! 

Stay tuned and watch this space for photos....

Saturday 1 February 2014

New ideas for a New Year

Well 2014 has been off to a good start after a very busy Christmas season. Over the past month I have been really thinking about the year ahead and what that means for Whinberry & Antler. Creative Thursdays have gone well in January with two new designs complete... I am trying my best not to share these until they are on finished products! 


A sneak peek.... 


I have also been attending some workshops organised by the Frome Super Market for their traders. They have been really useful (accounting and social media covered so far) and I'm really looking forward to the next sessions. More than anything it has been great to meet other designer makers in the area - working at home is great but it can be quite isolating, so having the chance to meet like minded creatives is always so nice. In particular I have met fellow screen printers Robin and Mould (http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/robinandmould) who design bright and bold animal illustrations to make lovely homewares and Lost Shapes (http://www.lostshapes.com) who screen print ethically sourced clothing with their quirky designs - definitely worth checking them out!!

W&A will be back at the Frome market in March - the market runs the first Sunday of every month from March through to December. Very much looking forward to another lovely Sunday in Frome - this really is the best market I've ever been to so definitely worth getting there if you can! 

Scenes from the market in December, it was very busy and had such a friendly thriving atmosphere!