I was in my fourth year of cancer treatment. I walked away from my teaching job and I set myself a year to work out what I wanted to be doing. I ended up spending days and days painting and painting. On these great big sheets of watercolour paper I’d use anything I had in the house – inks, salt, bleach – and layer them up. It became real colour therapy for processing everything that I had been through.
My mind wanted to be really, really active but because of the treatment my body just needed to rest. I was visiting my partner in Aberdeen and I’d bought myself these coloured wools. When I was little my nan had a proper fox stole and I decided to knit one so that I could have something similar but more ethical than going out to kill an animal.
Nicklin’s fabric designs are based on paintings of details seen in local woodlands
I used the colours of the wool the same as if I was painting. By the end of the week I ended up with this lovely, lovely great big woolly fox stole. So many of my friends were like: “Oh wow, I need one of those, why aren’t you making them, why aren’t you selling them?” It was like this creative seed that was dropped.
The attitude towards my next steps was: “You’re going to run a business and you want to avoid stress?” That’s the hilarious thing about it really. I choose what I want to do and when I want to do it. I organise my day, I take on jobs that I want to do, I love what I’m doing, I’m quite happy to work 12 hours every day of the week. The stress just hasn’t come into it.
The “fettle” in the name was a nod to my parents and my grandparents. They’ve always been the kind of people who can make something really great happen out of not much. It’s about the determination and making things happen from really basic resources.
Typically I get up, I go out with the dogs for a good hour. That’s really important to me because that’s my time to clear my head and plan my day. Often I’ll think about what I can let slide on to the next day and as soon as I get back in I’ll get whatever admin I need to do out of the way and upload any of my new designs to Instagram.
When I did my first trade show in London, I needed to have public liability of up to £5m. It made me realise there were all these other things I should be insuring my business for, such as insuring my goods in transit to get them to the show, or what if where I’m storing my fabrics gets flooded? I hadn’t even contemplated that, which is really ridiculous. I feel so much more secure now I’ve got it in place.
It’s important that I get time to be creative. I could spend some of my day making three or four little bowls for a weekend market, or meeting with someone I’m collaborating with. I’m happy working until 8-9pm at night, because it’s not onerous and I love it – it’s ideal, it’s perfect for me.
My inspiration comes mostly from nature from the walks with my dogs. There’s a lovely common nearby, where I’ll find lots of fungus and beautiful bits of rotting wood. I’ll take a photograph and I’ll start painting from that and designs develop from there.
I embrace colour, I love working with colour. My laptop has now got thousands of different colourways for the fabrics. I’ll sit for hours just changing colourways – it’s engrossing, it’s quite addictive. I can’t live in an environment that has very monochrome colours, it really drags my spirits down.
Nicklin finds it’s important for her to make time to be creative
I had six years of cancer treatment in the end, I finished in February last year. It’s time to push forward with this now. I feel like I’ve closed the door on cancer and this is the positive that’s come out of it all. I’d love to start doing wallpapers. From teaching teenagers through GCSE there’s this attitude of: “If you dream it, I’ll show you how to do it.” I’ve kind of given that mentality to myself now.
Claire Nicklin takes care of business. AXA Business Insurance takes care of Fox & Fettle. To find the insurance that’s right for your business, try AXA’s Business Insurance Wizard today
