Baby Playmats coming soon

I am currently working on some new organic cotton Baby Playmats for Pogglers. It will probably be a week or two before they are online but I have a blue and purple version and a pink, red and yellow version. The blue one has brightly coloured stars on it and I have still to decide about the girly one. I am thinking about stars again or hearts or simple flowers. Any opinions are gladly received.

They are about the size of a cot quilt, so bigger than most baby playmats. Small ones work fine until babies start to move a bit and then as soon as they roll over once they are off, so I decided to make these a bit bigger. This also means that you can continue to use them as a quilt for the bed when the babies are over 1 year, which makes them well worth the money as they will be used way beyond the first months.
It is recommended not to use a quilt to cover a baby under one year as they may overheat.

Happy poggling!

Green Holidays

We have just come back from a lovely holiday in Italy which we booked at the last minute. We have driven to Italy once or twice a year for the last three years, not so easy if you live in the UK, but from Switzerland it is a days driving. We usually stay on an Agriturismo, a farm which either rents out holiday apartments or has rooms on a B&B basis. Some farms also have an on site restaurant or have other activities that you can do, such as horse riding, or tours around the farm. It is a great way of supporting smaller farmers and can be very informative and interesting whether you have children or not. The farmers have always been very welcoming and interested in us too, so perfect for practising our Italian. And there are usually wonderful products to buy to take back home with you.

This time we stayed in an apartment on Agriturismo Fiametta near Rimini in Emilia Romagna. They are an organic farm producing 6 different wines as well as olive oil and a liqueur made from nuts which is particularly delicious. They have a new swimming pool, but unfortunately it was too cold to be open. The farm buildings are perched on the ridge of a hill so there are fantastic views over the countryside and out to sea on one side, and to the vineyards and rolling hills on the other. There was a big garden area with a little castle and slide for the children to play in which they enjoyed. The only down side was that the house was right by the side of the road, which although small, could be quite noisy with Italian drivers zooming along every now and then. However the shutters did shut out much of this at night, and we weren't in the house much during the day, and the gardens were well enclosed by a wall and robust gates so we didn't need to worry about the children running into the road.

We found some wonderful caves at Onferno about 20 mins drive away. They do guided tours through the caves which are home to 6 different species of bats. The children had great fun and loved wearing the hard hats and we saw 2 species of bats in the caves.
We also visited Montefiore Conca, San Leo (village pictured left), Gradara and San Marino (pictured above) with their wonderful castles, as well as Rimini, which must be teaming in Summer, and Urbino a beautiful walled town.
We also found a brand new organic Gelateria (ice cream parlour) which opened in Marciano on our last day there. Probably just as well or we would have spent far too much time in it!

If you are interested in an organic farm holiday in Italy then Bioagriturismi.it is the place to start looking.

Indian Cloth Doll

I just have to have a rave about my Fair Trade Organic Indian Dolls that I have at Pogglers, even if I didn't make them myself. When I received my first batch of these I just couldn't believe how wonderful they were and what good value.

The Indian Doll comes dressed in a sari with instructions on how to put it on again. She also has a change of clothes in a little cloth bag. Now all that would be great, but there is more! She is lying in a hand woven rush cradle complete with mattress and pillow. And there are a number of different sari colours to choose from.

They are made by Bishopston Trading's producer partners in K.V. Kuppam in India , where there is a tradition of hand weaving. They are made in an architect designed factory which was funded by the South India Rural Development Trust. All of Bishopston Trading's profits go into this registered charity to benefit the people of K.V. Kuppam. I looked very closely at the company before I bought from them as I didn't want to compromise my ethical standards, and I was very pleased with what I found.

Going Organic

We started buying organic food way back when I was at Art College. Although I probably couldn't afford it so it was really my then husband-to-be who stumped up the cash. The link between less chemicals, in the way of pesticides and fertilisers, and better health seemed quite obvious and there were articles and general musings in the press about the health benefits of organic food.

When we bought our first home we found an organic box company in Edinburgh called Grow Wild and had a box of fruit and veg delivered to our door every week. We did get the odd strange vegetable in there that we had no idea what to do with, but luckily they would put in helpful recipe ideas and were always glad to give advice over the phone.
I am afraid we still did most of the rest of our shopping at the nearby-ish supermarket in the car. Looking back, buying only organic food having driven to a place we could have walked to was somewhat ironic. When we return to the UK that is something I want to avoid.

When our first child was born we went down the cloth nappy route. I think I need a separate post about nappies - I love them! I avidly read magazines and scoured the ads. I found that there were some companies making organic clothes for children and we bought one or two things, although they weren't that easy to come by at the time.

When our daughter was nearly two and I was heavily pregnant with our second we moved to Switzerland where we found it was incredibly easy to buy organic food even in the tiny local Co-op supermarket and they even sold organic clothes for children and adults too. So now not only do our children get to wear organic but we do too.

I did a bit of research and finally came up with a company in the UK, Bishopston Trading who sell Fair Trade organic cotton cloth by the meter and wholesale too. I decided to order their minimum wholesale amount in order to make clothes for the children for the summer. It was fantastic to be able to make my own organic clothes, shorts, skirts and tops for the girls and lightweight trousers for me. And then when I decided to set up Pogglers I already had some fabric to create with.

The more I read about the difference between organic and conventional agriculture the more I am amazed. It is something I will talk about in another post, as the facts deserve their own space and some of the statistics are truly shocking.

Happy poggling!