The Japanese are very good customers of ours and often make the most beautiful things with our fabrics. I’ve showed some examples before, but I think these baby booties and clothes from a company called Tolbiac are just fantastic. The lady that makes them is so nice and just loves our fabrics. She has such an eye for detail, everything is handmade and combined with other interesting and vintage fabrics and lace.

We’re planning to sell some of her clothes through our millshop and by mail order. We think the baby booties will retail around £20. The little jackets and trousers are going to be a little more expensive and we are hoping to have a little waistcoat available as well. Let us know what you think.

They won’t be available in the shops before next Spring but if there’s a new arrival due before then, and you’d like to get them a totally unique gift, we’ll do our best to help.

For those of you who aren’t on our list (shame on you) and want to see for yourselves; just go to this page and sign on or download a digital version.

Our very own supermodel is called Martha, one of three labradors, Molly, Daisy and Martha who share our office and our lives. They do feature quite regularly in tregwynt product pictures, but this is the first time one of them has made the cover.

We’re always looking for new ways to use our fabrics so this year we have created a new range of lampshades in our signature doublecloth weave. These are made for us by Innermost and they come flat packed, are easily assembled and make an ideal gift.

price: £39.00

Call us on 01348 891644 or click here to email us.

We’ve had so much interest in our fabrics for upholstery that we’ve developed a new range. This collection includes our signature double cloth designs and specially developed colour and weave tweeds. All cloths are woven by us in 100% Shetland wool or a UK spun wool boucle and are suitable for contract upholstery.

The armchair shown here is in turquoise/brown square design with alternative matching seat cushion in aqua luna fabric. Call 01348 891 644 for fabric samples or more information. The armchairs are also available direct from us. See next news entry for details.

Prices £75/metre 150cm wide.

Call us on 01348 891644 or click here to email us.

Our fabric has been used in a new collection of teardrop shaped bags by the Healthy Back Bag Company. This patented design contours to the natural curve of the spine and can be worn either on the shoulder or cross-body. Weight is distributed throughout the length of the bag rather than at one point on your shoulder, reducing pressure on neck, shoulders and back, and encouraging healthy posture.

There are clever pockets for mobile, blackberry, pens, keys, documents, cosmetics etc. There is one size of bag in a choice of five fabrics (see below).

All the fabrics are 100% lambswool with full grain leather trim; naturally weather resistant and treated with Teflon for extra durability. You can download a PDF flyer (5MB) with full information here.

The bags will retail at £95 and will be available from September both from UK and Japanese retailers, and by mail order. This will be a limited collection and if you’d like one we recommend that you book early. 

Call us on 01348 891644 or click here to email us.

They filmed the blanket being woven here at Melin Tregwynt but they also visited Schofields, our finishers in Scotland and then went to South Africa to show the finished cloth being sewn together and filmed. I’ve seen clips taken from the documentary and it looks fascinating, particularly the actual filming.

Unfortunately we never got to go to South Africa ourselves, but it will be great to see how they put it all together. Just weaving it was difficult enough, but to actually sew all the strips together, put a backing on it and then carry it up a hill and roll it down again (again and again) during filming was truly heroic. It took 40 strong men to actually lift it.

The advert was only planned to run for four weeks so if you missed it take a look here. If you want to win a smaller version Waitrose are running a competition with 30 picnic blankets to be won (see below) and click here.

Win a picnic blanket (like the one in the Waitrose tv advert – only smaller)

You could win a picnic blanket (150cm x 200cm) made by Melin Tregwynt just like the one featured in the Waitrose television ad (only smaller).

The blanket used in the television advert was the size of four tennis courts and weighed one tonne! It is no surprise that it has been certified for a Guinness World Record as the largest picnic blanket in the world.

The blanket used in the advert was sent to Westfalia Farm, one of the Waitrose Foundation farms, and cut into more than 500 quilts and then given to crèches across our Foundation farms in South Africa.

There are 30 picnic blankets to be won, and the closing date for the competition is 31st July 2008. Terms and conditions apply.

Winners will be sent the picnic blanket within 15 working days from the closing date.

For your chance to win simply click enter and follow the instructions.

All entries must be received by the closing date of midnight on the 31st July 2008.

Back in March we were approached by Waitrose and asked to make the largest picnic rug in the world for an advert they were shooting in April and that has just been released. We managed to weave this rug which is 40 mts x 44 meters in the three weeks available and it was a sensational job.

This project was only realised because of an amazing amount of hard work & commitment from the staff at the mill, plus tremendous support from our yarn supplier & cloth finisher. It just goes to prove that UK manufacturers can still be best in the world at the fast turnaround of high quality and bespoke products. There were plenty of problems, the main one being the short time available but we really enjoyed it, Waitrose were really pleased and the advert is fantastic.

After the filming the rug was cut up into smaller blankets which all went to the various children’s charities in Africa that Waitrose supports. It was a wonderful project to be involved with (see more details below).

There will be a documentary about the making of the picnic blanket and the advert itself out soon, probably on Channel 4. We’ll keep you posted.

Lastly over to BBC2 for The Apprentice - Your fired and there we were again in the backgound when John Alex and Lee were attacking Sara and Raef came to the rescue and our cushion provided much needed comfort. Blanket coverage for a Thursday night.