The dog days are over!

Hello friends and supporters!

The dog days are over, and what fun they were!

We’ve loved doing this Bledsoe & Bristowe limited edition collaboration with Fulham linocut artist @jane_bristowe! We worked together to have her dog designs printed onto fabric, which we used to make our popular walkabout phone bag and matching facemask.

We decided to use the collaboration to support the Mayhew, a charity that helps people and their animals in the community, by donating 10% of sales of the Bledsoe & Bristowe. Thank you to everyone who has supported the project and purchased an exclusive Bledsoe & Bristowe.

Here’s a little video to give you a taster of how the project developed.

Thanks to @rvernaglia and his wonderful @proceed2gate for generous genius magic with this video! And thanks to @apt659 and @jane_bristowe and @siegelcaryn for fab photos! And thanks to all our lovely models, especially the furry ones.

We also want to wish you all a healthful and happy new year and thank you for all your support for Bledsoe Bags. It’s been a tough time for so many, and we hope things will be brighter and less socially distanced in the not too distant future.

For Bledsoe’s, it’s been very strange because we haven’t been able to do most of the face-to-face festivals and craft fairs we would normally do. We’ve missed them, and we’ve missed you! And we’ve missed working with each other, in Atlanta and London. But Susan has been involved in an innovative, grassroots, neighbourhood ‘craft crawl’ in Atlanta, which brought people out and together in a safe way. And in London and Atlanta, we’ve been able to have Bledsoe Bags on show, in the flesh, at Spruill Gallery and Ad Lib Gallery and at the Couture Collective shared shop and workspaces. All these have meant we’ve been able to see at least some of you in person.

This year we’ve also changed our name and website (www.bledsoebags.com) and joined Instagram (@bledsoebags). We’re not that keen on living in the virtual world, but it’s been great to have new ways to connect with people.

Once again we’ve had to close our London shop to customers because of the lockdown. But we’re being innovative, and wherever you are, we can offer phone and email consultations and even do virtual shopping experiences by WhatsApp and FaceTime. We can help you choose things for yourself or for friends, and then wrap them and send them out. If you need to get a feel for what we make, have a look at What we make.

Lockdown has also meant some time experimenting with linocutting and fabric printing, and we’ve sold a few of our printed tea towels and facemasks. We’re also using the handprinted fabric in some of our bags.