Sycamore Hollow is On the Move

Sycamore Hollow back in the day

It's a new year...well, it has been a new year for quite some time now, but as far as Sycamore Hollow is concerned, the new year began in late February with some big news (for us anyway).

Here's what's happening: Sycamore Hollow is morphing into The Roving Home.

The Roving Home seems like a more fitting name in our present incarnation as a business that is on the move. The online store can be found under our new name at www.therovinghome.com.

The new name speaks to the fact that our items will pop up here and there - sometimes in a booth at a show, sometimes in our own pop-up store, the first of which will take place in the Fall. We are refining our online store, and still need to load lots of photos of our inventory, but in the meantime you can check it out to see if anything vintage, new or handmade piques your interest.

Our blog has moved to: www.therovinghome.wordpress.com. The blog is at the heart of what we're doing, with regular posts that deal with design, both in terms of product updates from our online store and dispatches from the larger world, whether it be a feature on interiors or an essay about a particular artist. I post updates to the new blog regularly, so if you'd like to know when & where The Roving Home will be setting up shop next, you can subscribe to our blog.

Thanks so much for your interest and support of Sycamore Hollow these last several years. I'm excited about what the future holds and look forward to seeing many of you at a show or connecting with you online in 2010!

- Sarah

Out with the Fall, In with the Chaos...

This past weekend proved to be a last gasp of Autumn, first gasp of the holidays for me. I was in a Holiday Show on Friday & Saturday, and watched Santa jingle his way through the show floor while a choir sang "Winter Wonderland". It was surreal in more ways than one. However, I am resigned to the fact that the holidays begin in November now, and am determined that I won't complain about this every year ad nauseam, even though my own preference would be to decorate the house not a minute sooner than Christmas Eve. Just like Laura Ingalls. That is, if the Ingalls even were able to scrape enough together to decorate the claim shanty or sod house at all. Now onto the relevant stuff: what's new in the store? As of November 15th, a whole bunch of Christmas cheer, with a good dose of poor overlooked Thanksgiving thrown in. I'll have handmade cards and ornaments both cool and goofy, and a few stocking stuffers too, along with, of course, the usual mix of vintage lamps and accessories. Stay tuned...

Well, Dear Reader, it has been a long while since last we connected through this new-fangled medium. You haven't missed much, let me assure you. The shop has settled into its post-Autumn low-fi hum. You can hardly hear the sound of it running at all. Which poses a question much like the old tree falling in a forest conundrum. If a shop is open, but there is no one in town to come in the shop, is the shop actually in business? Rockport gets so quiet at this time of year, I sometimes feel as though I'm sitting in my living room instead of my store (a living room overflowing with lamps and pillows - much like a crazy grandmother's...)

The holidays will provide some excitement, and, as we are always reminded, they are just around the corner. Hopefully the economic doldrums won't keep people from running around and at least feeling festive, even if they are unable to open their wallets and pour credit cards on the counter. ("I'll take two of everything!") The retail party is definitely over, but my shop is small enough and eccentric enough that I was never an attendee at the party anyway.

I've been busy with Autumn-related activities, one of which was to go to my family's farm to pick up some home-grown gourds to sell at Rockport's Harvest Festival a few weeks ago. I feel as proud as if I had planted them myself - oh wait! I did! (along with many other people in my family.) The gourds now grace the shop and it is fun to see them piled high in the manner of a Martha Stewart magazine spread. Not that I'm comparing our modest harvest to what goes on over at her amazing farm, Chanticleer Corners. (I don't think Chanticleer Corners is actually the farm's name, but it is close enough.)

Upcoming events include our annual Fall Sale & Amazing Bake Sale (to benefit the Cape Ann Food Pantry), held in conjunction with a few other Rockport shops on November 1st. And to make the transition into the holiday season, on November 7th (!) I'm a part of the Holiday Gift Show held here on Cape Ann. Hope to see you at these events!