About Mhairi Connor Designs

Meet Mhairi

Hello, I’m Mhairi — designer, maker and the person behind Mhairi Connor Designs.

Creativity has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I was sewing at home from a young age, loved art at school and, while on holiday in the Highlands of Scotland when I was eight, had my first go on a pottery wheel at ANTA Pottery. I loved it. I don’t think eight-year-old me imagined that one day I’d have a pottery wheel and kiln of my own, but perhaps the signs were there.

My route to becoming a full-time maker wasn’t a particularly straight one.

Swimming was another huge part of my life and led to teaching and coaching. I then went in a completely different direction professionally, building a career in finance, including investment management and accountancy.

And then came family life.

My husband and I have been married for 18 years and we have four children. Motherhood gave me the opportunity — and perhaps the push — to create a working life for myself that fitted around our family and brought me back to something I’d always loved: making things.

From making at home to my own studio

I started my creative business in 2019, initially working as Maisie Gray. What began relatively small, from our garage, grew over the years into a busy creative business and, eventually, my studio here in Linlithgow.

In 2026 I decided it was time for the business to evolve again and put my own name above the door.

Mhairi Connor Designs is really a coming together of all the things I’ve loved and learned along the way.

I sew and dressmake. I work with clay and ceramics. I design and make jewellery in porcelain, silver and gold. And I teach many of those skills through workshops and creative experiences in the studio.

I’m still learning too. That’s an important part of being a maker for me — experimenting with materials, developing new techniques, occasionally opening the kiln and discovering that something hasn’t behaved remotely as expected, and then working out why.

A studio for people who think they’re “not creative”

One of my favourite parts of running the studio is helping other people make something themselves.

You absolutely don’t need to arrive believing you’re artistic. Some people come with years of experience; others tell me they haven’t made anything since school.

Both are welcome.

I want the studio to be somewhere you can learn properly without feeling intimidated, try something new, enjoy being creative and leave genuinely proud of what you’ve made.

And if you’re buying something I’ve made rather than making it yourself, I want you to know that there is a real person — and usually a slightly chaotic workbench — behind it.

Handmade in Linlithgow

Today I work from my studio in Linlithgow, West Lothian, where you’ll usually find me somewhere between the pottery wheel, kiln, jewellery bench and sewing machines.

The studio is around a 10-minute walk from Linlithgow railway station, making it easy to visit from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling, Falkirk and across Central Scotland.

After quite a few different chapters — swimmer, coach, finance professional, accountant, mum and business owner — it feels rather lovely to have come full circle and be making things again.

Welcome to Mhairi Connor Designs.

Mhairi x