We’ve just returned from a very relaxing break in Berneray and North Uist, staying in lamraig cottage – a beautiful Hebridean blackhouse: carefully restored, formerly occupied, and now run as a holiday rental by our friend Meg (of Birlinn Yarn fame). If you’ve read the Shieling section of my West Highland Way book, you’ll know… Read More
Making Latitude Hello again, it’s Tom here with my third, and final, instalment about making my new book, Latitude. In my previous two posts I’ve spoken about the craft of bookbinding and the importance of the choice of materials to the finished book object. Today I’d like to tell you more about the concepts and… Read More
Have you ever visited Cowal? Bound by Loch Fyne on the west and the Firth of Clyde to the east, this peninsula extends, through a rolling landscape of hilly peaks, forestry, and sheltered coves, down to the Kyles of Bute. The minute you turn south of the A83, you realise why the area is often… Read More
Hello – this is Tom today rather than Kate – I’m here to tell you about Ootlier 2, which has just been published today. I enjoy many different kinds of photography, and my Ootlier zines give me the opportunity to explore my ideas and practice in different ways. Last year you may remember that I… Read More
One of the many things I really like about the communities and cultures of crofting is their distinctive effect on the way people work. What I mean is this: in towns and cities, jobs tend to become more and more specialised, people do what they do within smaller and smaller categories, individual work occurs in… Read More
This week’s West Highland Way club design is Stronachlachar – a loose-fitting tee, with, sinuous twisted stitches. The simple cables which twist over the surface of this design have a very direct inspiration in my local built environment, specifically the pipelines and waterworks of the Loch Katrine scheme, which runs from Stronachlachar all the way… Read More
For the past six months I’ve been designing a collection. I have developed the ideas for six garments and six accessories, made swatches, knit prototypes, re-knit prototypes, re-knit again; drawn charts, produced grading spreadsheets, written patterns, re-written patterns, written patterns once again; edited the patterns, styled the designs, and, finally, modelled them myself. I’ve by… Read More
Hiya! It is I, Bruce! As we all know, one of the most confusing things about living with humans is that the sounds they make (which they call words) can sometimes have several meanings. Today I am here to help you, my dog friends, by clarifying the double-meaning of one of these confusing sounds –… Read More
I’m particularly excited about this year’s club and design collection. This is because it takes its inspiration from my home landscape and daily stomping ground: the West Highland Way. The West Highland Way is a long distance walking route of just under a hundred miles that travels from Milngavie in the south to Fort William… Read More
I’ve probably said this a few times, but it often strikes me as curious how, in the past few years I’ve been transformed from someone for whom Autumn was her most detested season to genuine enjoyment of this time of year. As a city-dwelling lecturer whose mood disorder had developed seasonal associations, I utterly loathed… Read More
Yesterday Tom produced a short time lapse of a short walk to and from the apple tree, and I thought you might like to see it. The walk takes you from where the top of our garden meets the west Highland way, and up the hill, to the edge of the Auchengillan estate. On the… Read More
A week or so ago, I was thinking about colour (as one does when one is developing a new palette), and had a sudden yen to look at Cicely Mary Barker’s Flower Fairies. When I was very young, I had a cased set of Barker’s eight small volumes, and looking back, I really think that… Read More
