Curtains By the Sea - Introducing Swanvale Studio

At Swanvale Studio in Falmouth, talented seamstress Kate now offers an expertly crafted, full-service curtain and window dressings solutions. Certified with Masters Diplomas in Soft Furnishing Levels 1, 2, and 3, she brings traditional hand-sewn techniques and a refined finish to beautiful, bespoke pieces.

What Kate Can Create:

• Curtain styles: pencil pleat, French, goblet, cartridge, eyelet, wave, swags, and cascades

• Linings: fully lined and interlined curtains for enhanced light control and insulation

• Roman blinds: tailored to chain-operated mechanisms, with elegant side returns and trim details

• Pelmets: classic or contemporary designs to frame your windows beautifully

Kate’s craftsmanship ensures every piece is beautifully finished, fitted to your exact specifications, and tailored to elevate your home’s style. She works with you to choose fabrics, styles, and trimmings, delivering polished, professionally made results.

📍 Based at Swanvale Studio in Falmouth, Kate serves clients throughout Cornwall and beyond. I’ve seen her work firsthand—her attention to detail and finishing skills are outstanding. Swanvale Studio is your go-to for high quality window dressings and excellent service.

Our partnership with Maison Flaneur

Poppy and Honesty are thrilled to have been hand picked by Maison Flaneur to be part of their beautiful curated marketplace of homewares from around the world. We very rarely offer wholesale but could not resist being part of this gorgeous collection of products that have been carefully selected for their originality and quality of craftsmanship. Like many of us when the temperature drops, I automatically look to feather our nest and update items in our home. As we have rather abruptly descended into Autumn, I thought it might be nice to have a look at some of the other brands available at Maison Flaneur.

Mattina Moderna

Mattina Moderna is slow design studio based in the South of France who create unique and limited 3D objects including some very desirable lamps. Reminiscent of lollipops and candy canes, Mattina Moderna’s delicious hand painted lamp bases are beautifully decorated with swirls, checks and stripes in soft pastel colours. These gorgeous lamps not only bring joy but will add a welcome glow to your home during the long evenings.

Dinner With Friends

Dinner With Friends create beautiful illustrations of the everyday objects that surround us when we are eating with loved ones. These whimsical drawings are playful and amusing. I particularly love the bottle of Madre Mezcal and Butter Art Prints with their beautiful fonts. These affordable art prints would make great presents for the foodies in your life.

The Platera

Elizabeth Castello started painting ceramics at her kitchen table during lockdown at her home in Barcelona. Her tableware brand ‘La Platera’ soon took off with its unique style and imaginative designs. The joy of her range is the mix and match element of different colours and illustrations. Each piece is individually painted using oil paints, so no two plates are identical. I particularly love the combination of red stripes and mushrooms in the M&M Mushroom Plate Set.

I could include so many more wonderful creative businesses in this edit. Maison Flaneur have done a fabulous job of bringing a wide range of craftsmanship together on one unique platform. Grab a cup of tea and discover some more gorgeous things over on their website.

Sophie x

Shop Early and Shop Small

According to everywhere, Christmas is on. As someone who won’t put up the tree until mid December and is likely to punch a box of mince pies if Maria Carey sings in the supermarket before next month, the prospect of Christmas shopping seems very premature. However if you are planning to support small independent brands it is important to get ahead with gathering your Christmas haul.

Small shops like Poppy and Honesty don’t have the capacity to stock all of their products as many of these are handmade to order. We offer such a huge range of sizes, that we ask our customers to allow 2-3 weeks for bedding sets and quilts to be handmade. Other small retailers will need longer lead times as they will possibly need to source materials to make your beautiful orders

The joy of shopping from small businesses is that there is no big guy in a shiny office taking a handsome cut from profits. Therefore your hard earned cash is more likely to be reflected in the quality of the product and will find its way more easily into the pockets of makers and small business owners. Think of it this way, your Christmas pounds could be paying for someone’s ballet lessons, school holiday, electric bill or even turkey!

I am absolutely no expert in economics but including shopping from small brands when you are gathering your Christmas loot seems like a pretty good idea. Over the next few weeks, I will be creating some mini directories of my favourite small businesses. If you have any suggestions, it would be lovely if you could add them to the comments below.

Happy November

Sophie

Quilt in Liberty Fabric ‘Ciara’

Duvet Cover in Liberty fabric ‘Poppy Forest’