Hey there, I'm Courtney, a mother of five residing in the picturesque town of Bangalow, nestled in the hinterland of Byron Bay, Australia, having moved from London 7 years ago. Our family journey has evolved over the years; our eldest recently graduated high school (which feels impossible!), while our youngest, Wilkie, is just six years old. Work-wise, I do a lot of different things, but mostly I create and run online courses for parents, and I also have a monthly membership program, where I share helpful and inspiring content, videos, and interviews to help enrich motherhood. My husband, Michael, and I both work from home, and we do the work/family juggle in equal measure. It’s a real team effort between us.
I have loved MamaOwl since the very beginning when Anna launched the shop! I ran Babyccino Kids at the time, and we represented a curated selection of online shops on our website. I also got to know Anna personally and got a personal glimpse at her products when we hosted our live ShopUp events in London. It remains one of my favourite online shops to visit whenever I need to buy wool for my kids or a gift for a new baby.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, winters are extremely cold and snowy. We skied a lot in the winter and spent a lot of time out in nature. I grew up wearing wool jumpers, wool socks and lots of wool long johns layered under our clothing. Also, I grew up knitting with wool. My mum taught me and my four siblings how to knit when we were all young, and we used to knit our own slippers each winter. I have lots of memories of my mum, sitting on the sofa with a pile of wool yarn on her lap!
Because I have five kids, I have always prioritised quality and durability. I really want things to last and be passed down from one child to the next. I get a lot of joy seeing my youngest, Wilkie, wearing or playing with something I bought for our eldest. (And my sister recently had a baby, and so many items have now been passed over to her too, which I love!) I tend to choose gender-neutral colours for that reason too, and I always opt for organic cotton or natural fibres whenever possible. And of course I really love supporting independent brands and shops who are thoughtful in the way they run their business.
I don’t know if I have any life-changing tips, but if I’m wearing a big, cosy wool jumper, I like to keep the bottoms quite basic — like a pair of vintage jeans or simple trousers. For extra warmth, I always layer a Siskin base layer under my jumpers. We don’t tend to wear wool in the summer here, as it’s so, so hot and humid and you really don’t want to wear anything at all! But the winter here is the perfect climate for wool, as it gets cool enough for wool layers and jumpers, but not cold enough for jackets. I always buy my kids the Siskin merino wool singlets and base layers to wear under their clothing in the winter. I also always wear my Siskin base layers under my jumpers. (Last year I went to my brother’s wedding, which was in the snowy mountains of Oregon in the USA, and I wore my Siskin merino base layers under my fancy dress to keep warm!)
The beauty of wool is that it is self-cleaning, so you don’t have to wash it as often as other materials. If a wool jumper needs to be washed, I usually hand wash it and then hang to dry. (We have a dehumidifier — a staple here in humid Byron Bay, so we can put that on and it helps the wool to dry more quickly.) With merino wool and long johns, I wash those on a cold, gentle cycle in the machine and then hang to dry. I never ever put any wool in the tumble dryer! We don’t have such a problem with moths here, but when we lived in London, we always put our wool jumpers into the freezer for a day to ensure there were no moths and then we stored them in plastic bins during the summer.
There are many brands at MamaOwl that have become our go-to over the years. I love Siskin for base layers, Collégien socks and tights are staples for the kids and I have been a longtime fan of Misha & Puff since their very first collection! When my kids were babies, they all wore the Engel bodysuits, bonnets, wool suits and dungarees and I love everything that Mabo does - from their organic cotton basics to their adorable rompers and pinafore dresses! On a personal level, I don’t know what I’d do without my merino wool & silk basics from Siskin. As I said -many that have become our go-to. And those are just the clothing brands… I love all the toy brands too!
It’s difficult to recall a singular favourite MamaOwl purchase, but I guess if I had to choose, I'd probably say the Disana little boiled wool overall suit that I bought for Marlow when she was a baby. Wilkie wore it too when he was a baby, and then I passed it on to my sister when her baby was born last year. I can remember the feeling of a snug little baby in a cosy wool suit asleep in the Ergo carrier, as I walked up to Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath on a wintery day in London. It feels both like a lifetime ago, and also like yesterday.
