I love textiles, fabrics, haberdashery. All of it. I studied Textiles & Fashion Design Management at Heriot Watt University in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders. It used to be the Scottish College of Textiles before it merged with Heriot Watt University. A lot of people still think of it as the Scottish College of Textiles, though not so much me as it was never called that while I was there.

I graduated in 2003 with First Class Honours. Then I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t want to design textiles or be a fashion buyer or at that point, even start up my own company or any of the things I was potentially qualified to do. In fact the only reason I studied Textiles in the first place is because a) I love textiles and b) I read somewhere that having expertise in a subject matter was a good way to differentiate yourself as a journalist; have a specialism; be the expert. But then to be a proper fashion journalist I thought you had to live in London, or maybe even New York…

London was definitely a possibility but when it came to the crunch, I didn’t want to leave Glasgow; the dear green place and all that. So I stayed. And when I did start my own company in 2006 selling fashion accessories et al, it was the perfect time to be a bit experimental on the textiles side. Maybe too much so, but sitting with my box of ribbons and buttons and bits and bobs, making and creating, was always where I wanted to be. So I did.

For our first wedding anniversary the husband took me to Prague. We had an amazing time, wandering the streets, cruising along the Svetlana River, dining in a devil cave and visiting a factory dedicated to chocolate. Then we happened to stroll by a rope shop. Yes. A ROPE SHOP! Wow, excitement.

I managed to bypass the language barrier in my enthusiasm for all the amazing colours and widths and types of rope. On our wedding anniversary, I bought rope. And that’s when my ‘Money for Old Rope’ idea materialised.