It has been a busy start to November. We’ve been working really hard finishing our new Milarrochy Heids book, and I have been preparing for a special event taking place later this week. It is a huge honour to be invited to speak at this event by the Federation of Small Business (from whom we…
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Hi everyone just wanted to say a massive THANKYOU to those of you who got in touch regarding swimming and wetsuits. Thanks to all of you, I am now a successful wetsuit wearer, and am looking forward to continuing to enjoy open water swimming in Scotland’s more usual cooler weather. I didn’t mention in my…
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There was a really magnificent aurora here last night – I thought you might like to see it. Tom took this time lapse out by Loch Lomond – there’s 78 minutes compressed into 13 seconds. Thanks so much for your responses to my last post, especially the reading suggestions, which have been very helpful. A…
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Hello! It’s a beautiful day here today – fog has been hanging thickly since dawn at low levels, but in places where the sun burns through there is the most incredible golden light. It is also unusually still and crisp. We took Bruce out for one of our favourite walks, and Tom shot some photographs…
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Lochs — and the opportunities they provide for walking through all seasons of the year — are certainly one of the best things about living here in the west of Scotland. We have recently been exploring more of our local lochs due in part to a on-off obsession of mine with tracing the provenance and…
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There is a definite change of season in the air. There have been days of rainbows . . . . . . and days of freezing fog . . . and nights when the northern lights shimmered and shifted above the west highland way. This particular wintery spell has brought sub-zero temperatures and fine dry…
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As discussed in the previous post, this design is inspired by an early nineteenth-century shawl, collected by Rachel Kay Shuttleworth, and now part of Gawthorpe Textile Collection. The colourful, ribbon-like bands of the shawl immediately reminded me of one of my favourite colourwork motifs, a small, simple pattern which resembles an interlocking vine. The pattern…
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Hello again! I really didn’t mean to disappear there . . . I’ve been rather unwell, and these days if I get any sort of infection I always seem to end up with the dreaded tonsillitis, which can really take the wind out of my sails. Happily, I am now rattling with penicillin and have…
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It has been one of those really difficult weeks. A good friend of Tom’s has just died (an expected death, but very sad circumstances); I have been laid low with labyrinthitis (truly terrifying) and even poor Bruce is suffering (he’s been in the cone for four weeks now due to a horrible infection on his…
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Oftentimes, in the wake of finishing a large project, I am gripped with the urge to knit a hat. While I was waiting for my copies of Colours of Shetland to appear from the printer, I worked away on Snawheid, and similarly last year, in the hiatus between going to print and shipping Yokes, I…
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We have been out walking along the West Highland Way near Inversnaid today, and I was put in mind of this landscape’s many famous visitors. Because of its fine views and beautiful surroundings, this was a spot much beloved of the Victorians, and particularly of literary travellers to Scotland. William Wordsworth wrote “to a Highland…
Read MoreFinally! A break in the weather. It is beginning to feel vaguely Spring-like at last. Primroses! Things in bloom on my doorstep again! Bruce and I have been making the most of the weather on our daily walks. You can see the water levels of Loch Lomond are rather high – a result of the…
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KDD & Co 