The story of my Little Handbook

If you had asked me what my goals were five years ago, I promise you that selling a book on Amazon was not one of them!

Well, to tell you the truth, I would never have started a fabric and wallpaper line if my sister Julia hadn’t dropped the idea into my brain when we were traveling in India together, it must be about 12 years ago……

I bought that yellow kurta earlier in the morning in a gas station shop on our way to the Amber Palace, turned out it was pure polyester and so sweaty, I had to dump it, but the sales lady was so sweet so…..

Actually, I’m not a very easily influenced person, so I guess my brain was swirling around waiting for the suggestion to drop in, and we do — well my generation of women certainly tend to do – ‘self limit’ – See page 99 of my Little Handbook! LOL Thanks Adam Japko for seeing me!!

So the book’s inception had a number of ingredients that all came together nicely: Probably the main ingredient for the book was my darling departed mother. A force of a human being! She believed in making the simplest of occasions into mini celebrations, the tea tray had a tray cloth, usually of the offcut of one of my fabrics, or the rest of the fabric from a dress she once made. She loved flowers and birds, and there was often a little sprig of something on the tray, and always on a gift or a casserole wrapped in brown paper. But this all happened without with any fuss. When there was no money for curtains, (my dad died most unexpectedly when she was only 32 with 4 little children), she took sewing lessons. Her dinner parties in Johannesburg were legendary, we were the little helper fairies, always in our clean dressing gown and slippers, or a nice frock when we were older, always there saying hello to her fragrant guests, looking them in the eye and chatting – my mum believed conversation should not have generational barriers. Her friends ranged from our friends, especially our boyfriends who adored her, to the society grande dame’s who invited her because they could put her next the most boring man in the room and make him laugh – she always complained about it, but she knew it was her super power!! Just one other thing, she NEVER remembered exactly how many people she had invited, there we were my sister and I, tearing up the smoked salmon – an expensive luxury in South Africa in those days, to make two more nicely put together plates for the first course!! Always a lovely table cloth, the most gorgeous center arrangement of flowers, candles glowing, she taught me so much…..

The next and very vital ingredient is these people!! This gorgeous young man was sent to me on a blind date by Adam Japko – according to Adam ‘You have something to say, but no one will listen because you don’t do it properly for yourself, you are too demure, have someone do it for you’ Ok! More advice I listened too, it’s becoming a pattern! Enter Austin Mill. A team player, a believer, a listener, basically a sweetheart! I think I was his first client…

And the rest of that people part of the recipe is my darling family- duh! and Kristen Irby, office manager extraordinaire, thrower of surprise parties (very delicately because she knows I hate surprises), orderer of special cakes, my all-time defender, my left brain, my encourager, and on my left, the incredible, newly anointed illustrator, Sally Murphy, who the Instagram fairies sent to me and who illustrated my book so thoughtfully, and made it what it is!!

The final ingredient, and probably the thread that runs right through the book is our beach house in West Falmouth.

I had the extreme pleasure of designing the house with an amazing architect Sally Weston! I had admired her designs for a while. She got me. We wanted a new and functioning house that was actually an old house. I wanted nooks and crannies, I wanted doors that opened out onto a wide porch we could live on all summer, I wanted an old fashioned kitchen that worked, I wanted to look at the ocean from my sink, my hubbie wanted a tub that looked down on Buzzards Bay and an office with good light, I wanted places for my stuff, and guest bedrooms that make our friends feel special! She gave us all of that and more!

West Falmouth is a wonderfully undiscovered part of the Cape, though I fear the secret may be leaking out. It’s a much better commute than getting to the islands, but just as picturesque. My friends love to visit. The walks are so beautiful. It has a marvelous bike path that goes all the way to Woods Hole, and a perfect little harbour.

When I’m there in the summer, my brain slows down, I love cooking, it doesn’t feel like such a chore, and entertaining, every table is a new adventure, and I love doing huge jugs of flowers from the garden. I paint, I spend hours with my daughter Gaby or my partner in crime Kathryn Pearce, digging through junk stores.

I test out new fabrics on my kitchen cabinets per Peter Fasano, my friend and mentor!

So …. When Austin Mill came to stay a couple of summers ago, he came down to my nicely layed out breakfast of fresh fruit and granola, and Greek yoghurt and coffee on the ready, and he said – Sigh – ‘Mally, please write this down. Please write a little book about all of this and how you do it, and how it’s so nice and comfortable staying with you.’ And I said, ‘why not?’

The next morning – I am up with the birds, it’s my super power! – I sat down with my coffee, right here – and did a giant brain release into my computer. I could not believe how easily it flowed ….

Kristen and Austin loved it!! We started looking for an illustrator, for someone to publish it, I knew I didn’t want it to be a fancy designer book, just a little friendly chat! Then boom, the dreaded Covid hit, David and I hid in the Cape to stay away from the girls in my office. We all needed to stay safe, we didn’t now what was going to happen…

I was so fortunate to be in a lovely place, with a nice husband, – we kept ourselves busy – I planted a vegetable garden, just like a whole bunch of other people!!

I picked flowers..

I designed and painted and painted.

We made mad groups for online things like inventing new cocktails with your buddies.

Yum!

The book went on the back burner. It stayed there. Then one day Austin calls me – ‘I found us a publisher, in Virginia. I promise you they love it, it needs to be edited but they swear they will keep your voice and won’t override you….’ Me – very dubious…’But everything had changed, no one can have a dinner party, or go to antique stores, or have friends to stay….’

Kristen said the world needs this now! We talked it through, change it? No, how do you unravel something like that??

So we left it as it is, with a little forward explaining that we aren’t being insensitive, that it was written in a different time….a time we all hope to return to one day!!

Thank you Chris and Judy for the fun battles, it’s perfect, just the way I wanted it to be!! Excuse the golf clothes!! It arrived in Montana and this is my first moment holding it.

And of course, thank you to this one, that lets me fly!