Meet the Maker: SquiffyDesigns

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently bought a beautiful dress for Chloe from Ulrika and Hugh of SquiffyDesigns. This husband and wife team sell original Scandinavian vintage items and also make beautiful children’s clothes and homewares from their vintage fabric stash. Having been inspired by their endeavours since I met them in Scotland last year, I am thrilled to introduce them to you in this Meet the Maker interview:

Can you tell me a little about yourselves and your backgrounds?

We live together in Glasgow, Scotland with our three year old daughter Astrid, and two cats.

Ulrika is predominantly Swedish but is becoming more British every day (i.e. she is getting worse at plumbing and doesn’t bother taking her shoes off in the house so much). She is from the northern part of Sweden (Norrland) and is therefore quite hard. She has an interest in politics, and has previously worked and studied in this field.

Hugh was brought up in Scotland but also lived in Cornwall and Somerset as a child. His background involves lots of stuff but he recently settled in medical imaging, and is currently working as a radiographer and sonographer.

When we met, around eight years ago, we discovered a shared interest in handcraft, which has turned into a love. Hugh has nurtured an interest in stenciling and printing, and has recently started practising some cutting and sewing. Ulrika has mastered many skills and enjoys cutting and sewing patterns, crocheting clothes and objects, and many other crafts.

We hope one day to work more closely together: designing and printing our own fabric, probably vintage inspired, and making finished items from the cloth we produce.

Have you always made things?

Ulrika: No. I come from a family who were very creative – but in a very unassuming way. My mother sewed, knitted and painted both as a hobby and as a necessity. She was also very good with coming up with unconventional solutions to problems, mainly because we couldn’t always afford the conventional solution. As I remember, it was very much in a “make do and mend” spirit.

My father would also probably not call himself creative – he first worked as a mechanic and then as a farmer. However, in both those lines of work I saw him using his hands and trying to come up with solutions, again mainly using the means he had at hand. Looking back at it now I think it instilled a thought that things don’t have to be the way they are, you can look for other ways of doing them – which is what creativeness is to me really.

I, on the other hand, had one of my worst grades at school when it came to sewing/handcrafts (in Sweden you did both textiles and woodwork as part of the ordinary curriculum) and barely scraped by! I felt as if I was rebelling against old traditions and what women were supposed to be and know. But then I had friends who were doing all sort of crazy things (in my eyes), like knitting their own sweaters even though they weren’t grannies! And I thought, “That is cool, I want to do that too!” So I made a pair of pea green trousers out of an old curtain and they turned out okay. I even wore them out!

Now I would like to say that after that there was nothing stopping me and I just started making things all the time, but no. I dipped in and out of it for many years, and tried quite a lot of crafts but none really seriously.

It wasn’t until I stumbled upon the rising DIY movement on the internet and saw all the wonderful creations that people were making that I really got inspired and wanted to do something similar. Funnily enough it was seeing a picture of some Amigurumi that triggered me. I remember thinking, “That is so cool, I want to do that too! Hey, I’ve crocheted before, I CAN do it!” And after that I’ve been doing it more and more seriously; reading craft books, craft blogs, tutorials, and of course experimenting with my own things.

Hugh: A bit like Ulrika, I grew up with a mother who was able to make clothes and items as a matter of course but I perhaps didn’t appreciate how cool this stuff was until more recently. Although I do remember being especially proud of a green corduroy school bag which I was furnished with on my first day of junior school.

I have made things since I was a teenager, but my efforts mainly concentrated on music and pieces of stone, as an amateur sound engineer and a stonemason, until about 10 years ago. I went to a Aphex Twin concert and was disappointed not to be able to buy a t-shirt with the infamous logo on it, so I decided to make my own. So, with a basic understanding of stencilling I embarked on my craft career, making an Aphex Twin logo t-shirt which I wore proudly from then on. I have since honed my art and can make basic screen prints from most art/photography.

How did SquiffyDesigns come about?

Our daughter made us do it! When we were expecting her, both Hugh and I were working jobs that we enjoyed but we weren’t as creative as we would want to be. Having a child coming along, we felt an urgency to set as good an example for her as possible, so we had a discussion about what we would really like to do if we had all the possibilities in the world. We had talked about wanting to make things with our hands for a living before, but we’d always “seen sense” and stuck to the safe option i.e. our day jobs. But thinking of our wee one, we both felt that we wouldn’t like her to take the safe option in life; we wanted her to go for what she really wanted and to be happy. So we felt we needed to be good role models for her and took the leap (a small one but a leap nevertheless) and decided to start up a business. Our daughter’s nickname when she was in my tummy was Squiffy, so we named the business SquiffyDesigns in her honour.

You use predominantly Scandinavian vintage fabrics – what do you look for when choosing fabric for your designs?

Fabrics that I grew up with, the things that I remember from my grandparents house etc. It can be a pattern, or a colour. Or something from a Carl Larsson painting.

We always go to second-hand and vintage shops when we are in Sweden; you can find so many beautiful things.

Where do you make your creations?

All of our stuff is made in our house, mostly in our second bedroom which is pretty much a full-time craft room, but doubles as a guest bedroom. No cats allowed.

I know that you both have day jobs and are also parents. How do you balance work, parenting, creating things, and running a business?

With some difficulty, as you may appreciate. The hardest thing is making sure Astrid gets enough attention. She doesn’t understand that it’s not safe/practical for her to be involved in every stage of the creative process, so making sure she doesn’t feel neglected takes priority. I (Hugh) am also studying for a Postgraduate Diploma, so I have taken a bit of a step back from crafting for while. I’ll be finished soon though, so I hope to be properly back in business in the near future.

What do you love most about being designer/makers?

Holding something beautiful in my hand and knowing that it was made by me!

Who or what inspires you?

Our main inspiration is our daughter. A lot of the stuff we make is inspired by the stages she is going through as she grows up. Again, Scandinavian textile design hugely influences the designs we make: clean and simple. We also love Japanese design, which always seems to surprise and delight us.

Where do you see SquiffyDesigns in 5 years time?

Bigger and bolder and rougher and tougher. No, but seriously, we would like to invest in learning more skills, and getting a proper studio space with access to equipment which would allow us to complete the process of making our own fabric. In five years hopefully we will be doing that.

Have you any tips for people who want to follow in your footsteps?

Ars longa, vita brevis. Don’t hang around. The Crafts Council reckons it takes 10,000 hours to learn a craft, so start now. I’m pretty sure you don’t need 10,000 hours to do the stuff we do, but if you enjoy what you’re doing, get stuck in!

Are there any other designer/makers that you recommend I check out?

I find so many beautiful, smart, funny things being made by other people almost on a daily basis, but three of my favourite craft related bloggers are:

Posie Gets Cozy: She makes the most beautiful things and seems to be a dab hand at anything she tries, be it sewing, embroidery, or knitting. She also writes in a fantastically beautiful way that is just so inspiring!

Bookhou: She makes very minimal, very aesthetically pleasing items that I would just love to fill my home with.

Aunty Cookie: Her art/craft aside, she is the funniest writer on the block. Sharp and cynical. A delight to read.

Big thanks to Ulrika and Hugh for sharing their story with me!

To find out more, you can find SquiffyDesigns in the following places:

Etsy shop

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