"Love Irish Crafts" - Meet Red Rufus

Good morning everyone from a very rainy Nenagh. Our Internet was down for 24 hours which initially sent me into a bit of a panic but then I realized that maybe this would be good for me just to relax a bit and not be glued to the computer all evening.

But I'm back this morning! And I am finally posting about the wonderful work of Christina Sanne, who has made a business out of creating these delightful Sock Dogs. Her company, Red Rufus, was formed at the beginning of 2010.

I find these just adorable and I just love hearing how businesses get started. The story behind Red Rufus?

Well, as you might expect, it has something to do with a dog, a particularly red dog, an Irish Setter named Rufus who came to live with Christina and her family at the end of 2008. They fell in love with him instantly. And for Christmas that year, Christina made her three children a sock dog. Christina told me" they were amazed and overwhelmed that I had done this and showed my creations to anyone that was willing to look. Very soon people asked me to make Sock Dog for them and the seedlings of a small craft business were born.

Above: The handsome inspiration for the business ( I think Sugar might just adore him).

I continued to make commissions for people and was persuaded to do a craft fair where I sold out! Slowly my confidence started to grow and I realized that I could actually make something out of my SockDogs. At the beginning of 2010, I formed the company, designed a log and got to work on making a website."

Christina's SockDogs are made with a pair of socks, cut, sewn and stuffed to look like a dog- then she embellishes them with ribbon, buttons, wool, felt and fabric.

Her greatest inspiration is Rufus- she told me that he is a wonderful companion and a friend. And for those of you who are not dog lovers....I know exactly what she is talking about! Christina takes him for walks every morning and she loves watching him interact with all his dog friends- their antics- their individual traits. All this keeps Christina going with new ideas.

At a quick glance this trio really looks like a bunch of real puppies waiting in their basket. So sweet...!

Christina continued to tell me .."I am inspired by fabric, colour, ribbons and buttons and could spend hours looking and dreaming. I love interiors, design and fashion and do get inspiration from all these things."

Christina told me that "they lived in New York for five years and before that in Russia, Luxembourg and Germany and in all these places she saw a love of craft and traditions of old being kept up. In Russia, out of necessity, were the felt shoes and warm knits. In Germany the wonderful tradition of the Christmas market and the wooden toys. In Luxembourg again the Christmas Market and international fairs. And in New York, although not as crafty as such, there is a tradition of reclaiming objects and art in general which always inspires me."

You can see more on the Red Rufus website or LIKE Red Rufus on Facebook.

Many thanks to Christina for sharing her charming story!

Meet The Scullery- A Tipperary Food Producer

Last night I attended a wonderful Awards dinner for Businesswomen of the Year Awards 2011 as part of Network Ireland's North Tipperary branch. The dinner was held at Sous Le Vent in Thurles and was well attended with members of the Network and guests- about 40 people. The buzz in the place was unreal. I'll be doing a longer post on this but for now my heartiest congratulations to the two winners, Louisa Condon from The Ant Team in Thurles and Anne-Marie Walsh from The Tipperary Kitchen in Holycross, just outside of Thurles.

Continuing on featuring Tipperary Producers, today I wanted to introduce you to Florrie Purcell of The Scullery- another Nenagh based business that I discovered up at Showcase back in January. She was also up at Bloom 2011 over the bank holiday weekend although I could hardly get near to her due to the crowds.

Her website is not up and running yet but you'll find her at festivals and food fairs around the country. Her Apple, Sultana and Cinammon compote won One Gold Star at the British Guild of Fine Food Awards in 2010. But she has many other awards as well and has received much publicity about her products.

Her Roast Corn Relish is fantastic and I recently inhaled some with slices of cheddar cheese.

Florrie launched The Scullery in 2004 and now has 21 products in her range. They are based on old-fashioned simple cooking- with no additives and preservatives.

She makes individual Christmas puddings and a beet root relish as well along with many more. The general consensus is - they are all great- although I have not tried them all yet myself.

Florrie, being a Tipperary Producer will, of course, be at Totally Tipperary on the 25th June in Cloughjordan so be sure to come out and taste her products in person. If the products don't win you over- Florrie's wonderful personality will!

You can contact Florrie at florrie@thescullery.ie if you want to find out where to buy her products or ring her on 086-1744402.

Fota Wildlife Park- A Great Day Out

This past Saturday- Sophia and I picked up my sister in law and her son Matthew and we headed off down to Fota Wildlife Park in Cork. From Nenagh we took the Thurles road over to the motorway and headed straight down and it took less than 2 hours because you don't have to go into Cork at all- just get onto 25 heading to Rosslare and follow the signs. By the way, there is a fantastic new service station in Cashel right off the motorway with Topaz and McDonalds- it was immaculately clean and modern.

Anyway, I hadn't been to Fota for about 5 years- before we even lived in Ireland we had come for a visit but it has been beautifully renovated quite recently. There are loads of parking spaces, a big new entrance, cafe, gift shop, and education centre. At the entrance is this lifesize giraffe family

Right inside across from the cafe is a playground for smallies (the playground for bigger children is further into the park) and there is an enclosure for Meerkats and monkeys. We could have spent hours watching these comical animals. Of course many of us, who were not previously familiar with Meerkats, have come to know (and love them) through the clever advertising campaign of Compare the Market.com- featuring Meerkats.

There were lots of babies playing around and these two characters, below, reminded me of a couple of old guys. Too funny.

This is what you see when you enter the main section of the park - the enclosures are simple and the animals are not caged in but everyone is completely safe.

Rothchild Giraffe's live with Grant's Zebras, Scimitar-horned Oryx, ostriches and emu's. If you go to the Fota website even before you go down there you can see where these animals in regards to being endangered, threatened etc.

Here you can see Fota House which is also a great place to visit but we did not go there this time.

There was a marquee set up with arts and crafts and we all sat down coloured in these owl shapes they had. Sophia is holding up the two we did- hers on the left.

And my nephew with his creation.

This is where we sat and had lunch- we chose to buy it in the cafe and the kids were delighted as they got nuggets and chips and we were happy because they had lovely salads with a choice of chicken breast or salmon.

Flamingos- the mirror behind was very effective.

The view across to one of the islands where the monkeys live.

A yawning Grant's Zebra.

A Rothchild Giraffe with legs splayed to eat some grass a herd of Oryx behind.

Close up and personal with an ostrich.

As we looped back around this is the view of the cafe- it's a lovely open space with attractive paving.

A sculpture of two cheetahs to mark the officially opening of the education centre by the President in April 2011.

On the day were were there, a new group of cheetahs had just arrived in from Dubai that week- they had never seen grass before and we saw them lying flat out in it- obviously relishing their new life in Ireland. This is only a quick overview- there are penguins, loads of different kinds of monkeys, kangaroos, maras, a tapir, an incubation house where you can see young duck and penguins just out of their eggs. It's a great day out for everyone plus if you have tiny smallies that don't want to walk through the whole thing- there's a train to take you down to the lower section.

Bloom 2011- Follow Up Photos

There was a great piece in the Property section of the Sunday Business Post yesterday about the gardens at Bloom and made me remember I still had loads more images to show you. Ros Drinkwater covered the gardens very well in the piece and I was amazed to read that numbers were up almost 50% from last year - 90,000 people walked through Bloom throughout the festival. Clearly this is an indication that people are definitely turning back more to the land or certainly want to take more control of their lives in planting their own gardens or growing their own fruit and vegetables. There is a wonderful spirit of embracing local Irish produce as well, at least that's the sense I'm getting.

One of the garden's Ros mentioned but unfortunately did not show any images, was this amazing bog woodland garden, Portach, which was created by sculptor Peter Little of Hortisculputures and sustainable designers Anu Green.

It was magical- wacky and wonderful and those of us looking in from the outside all wanted to take a walk inside.

A detail from the minimalist garden by Liat and Oliver Schurmann who won the award for Best Large Garden.

Ros also touched upon the recycling focus in the show gardens - this garden had some very interesting features and I'm so sorry but I seem to have misplaced who did this one.

I loved this innovative idea for creating edging.

And this was a creative way to make housing for various insects that benefit a garden.

The Alice in Wonderland garden had long lines for viewing it and of course Sophia and I filed through with the rest of them- it was certainly inventive.

Personally I loved this space - the colours- the raised beds. This is Ken Byrne's Party garden- so perfect for that and it was the Winner of RTE's Super Garden Competition.

The Victorian walled garden was very impressive and I am always amazed by the structure and organization in gardens like this.

Caragh Nurseries had loads of plants for sale- when I passed by I couldn't get near them but I loved their big inspirational wall of images.

And the Glenisk mini-truck- adorable.

The Craft Council of Ireland space- that was continuing it's celebration of the Year of the Craft was also great and you know I'm a big fan of supporting that cause.

As I said earlier- it was a wonderful day out and I'll be sure to try and go again next year- sorry no photos of the food tents but it was absolutely jammers in there when we arrived- you could hardly get close to the stalls but I know they all must have had a fantastic show.

Make sure Bloom is in your calendar for next year's June bank holiday weekend!