some of the thinking behind the making
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All articles filed in Scotland
on not being sure
A squeaky toy? A rusty gate? How do we begin to learn about birdsong?
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Oa my!
Kate’s favourite outdoor pullover gets an Oa-verhaul
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back up conic hill
In which we are happy to get out and about in the hills again
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make / mend: Collingwood-Norris
Kate talks to Flora Collingwood-Norris about mending, Scottish islands, and how colour makes you feel
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out cold
We seem to be in the middle of a fairly sustained cold snap in our part of Scotland. Icy days have been followed by snowy ones, with bitter temperatures and freezing fog. I personally like quite chilly weather, and particularly enjoy its transformative effect on my surrounding landscape. During a cold spell, everything starts to…
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moon walk
Hello! We are currently enjoying a very quiet and relaxing winter break. In the absence of any socialising, this has largely involved good food, lots of films and books, knitting (me), creating digital soundscapes from ordinary household objects (Tom) and crisp long walks (both of us, plus dogs). After an extended period of hard work,…
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a chat with Misa Hay
There is no getting away from the fact that, whatever business you are in, this year has been a very weird one. Having to change the nature and direction of what you are doing – often very rapidly – is never an easy thing, and this year there have been so many of those changes.…
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congratulations, Megan and Nathan!
We’ve had some beautiful, golden September weather here recently, and have been making the most of it for our 10 Years in the Making photoshoots. Due to local Covid restrictions, these shoots involve just Tom and myself, but this also means we can get up and start taking photos at first light, when there’s often…
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Lunardi in Campsie
The revival of my eighteenth-century balloon-o-mania was inspired after some recent walks around Clachan of Camspie and Milton of Campsie (just north and east of where we live) during which I discovered that that balloonist, Vincent Lunardi, landed in Campsie Glen at the conclusion of his second flight from Glasgow in November 1785. After wowing…
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the pillar craig
I’ve been reading a lot of books while researching People Make Glasgow, and one of my favourite recent reads is Ian R Mitchell’s This City Now (reissued as Walking through Glasgow’s Industrial Past in 2015) which offers a brilliant walker’s guide to the city’s industrial history. The book mentions one of Mitchell’s peripatetic-literary Glasgow forbears…
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April showers
Hello! Our internet is very wonky at the moment, because our broadband is being “upgraded”. As we live in a rural area where connectivity has never been that great, the prospect of speedy wifi is really quite exciting . . . the only downside is a few days of slow internet, and some difficulty transferring…
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Crafting Futures: in the Hebrides
Today I’m sharing the first of series of images and recollections from the Applied Arts Scotland residency I was part of last September – which seems, for so many reasons, like a very long time ago. This residency was part of the British Council’s Crafting Futures programme, bringing makers from Scotland and Mexico together, to…
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Fabrication
Good morning! A poem today. Earlier this week saw the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Wordsworth – a poet who has, for the past couple of centuries, often set the ideological terms of the writing of landscape and nature. I’ve been thinking about Wordsworth’s particular “Romantic” landscapes quite a lot in recent months,…
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oatcake recipe
After we published my oatcake-inspired cardigan, Land o’ Cakes the other day, Tom reminded me of his favourite oatcake recipe that he’d included in our Buachaille book some years ago. This is a great recipe for whipping up a quick bread-replacing staple (and as long as the mill producing your oatmeal doesn’t also make wheat…
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light by the sea
“the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean’s skin” Herman Melville, Moby Dick Hello everyone, it’s Tom here. In today’s post I’m excited to tell you more about my latest body of work, which also comprises my first solo exhibition – Light by the Sea. (Otter Ferry) Like…
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