Award-winning Scottish publishing and design
What would your ideal weekend involve? Picking and eating delicious wild strawberries? Discovering a beautiful landscape on foot? And getting to spend some quality time with its inhabitants? (The Roslagsfår sheep are so sweet . . . as are their characterful piggy neighbours!) Visiting an exceptionally well cared-for wee museum and hearing all about island…
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Hello! I’ve just returned from a fantastic week in Sweden. I was primarily there to conduct some research for my new book. This went very well indeed, and I’ll say more about it another time, but, thanks entirely to the warmth and hospitality of my new friend Kristin, the week turned out to contain so…
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It’s been an interesting (and busy) couple of weeks. Tom has been travelling around Shetland, finalising the photography for our new book, and I’ve been here, at home, working. Without Tom, I’ve a tendency to go a bit feral. I eat whatever happens to be in the cupboard, I leave things lying around with no…
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One thing we were really looking forward to on our trip was the opportunity to catch a stage of the Tour de France in person. Like many of you, the Tour has long formed the backdrop to my summer knitting and Tom, who is a keen cyclist, relishes it even more. I love the grand…
Read MoreAway . . . Home. Hello! We have been away soaking up some vitamin D, and enjoying the patterns and colours of lovely Portugal. There, everything was bright blue and red-brown. The contrast between those shades and the familiar green of home has seemed very striking to me over the past couple of days. There…
Read MoreHello! I’m just home again after a fantastic trip to London. I was there to attend the opening of the Sonia Delaunay retrospective (of which more shortly), but I also . . . . . . had a wonderfully jolly time in Fortum and Mason with top wool comrade, Felix. We drank posh tea, talked…
Read MoreI have been excited about this for weeks – and can’t quite believe that tomorrow I am going to Göteborg to meet with Kerstin Olsson. For those of you who don’t know, Olsson was one of the group of talented and accomplished women who designed for Bohus Stickning, and the Wild Apple (above) is perhaps…
Read MoreMy parents have been visiting, and I thought they might like to see The Kelpies. A few years ago we rather enjoyed visiting Jaume Plensa’s Dream, a meditative and beautiful public sculpture commemorating Lancashire’s mining past. Like Plensa’s Dream, The Kelpies celebrate industrial heritage, but are things of water rather than of light. Kelpies are…
Read More(Hélène, Hiking and Knitting between Fire and Ice, against the spectacular backdrop of Eyjafjallajökull.) When I visited Iceland I had the very great pleasure of finally meeting Hélène Magnusson, whose research and designs I have admired for many years. I visited Hélène in her lovely home in Reykjavik, where we drank tea, ate some delicious…
Read MoreIt has been an intensely busy few weeks around here, and I’m really rather looking forward to spending a few days away . . . in Iceland! I have just completed the second of two new designs for my forthcoming YOKES! book, and Mel and I are very excited to have the opportunity to photograph…
Read MoreI’m packing my bags for a trip to Shetland! Its been a while, and I’m itching to be back. I’m particularly excited this time, as I’m about to begin a new research project. Here’s a hint of the kinds of things I’ll be exploring. . . . These are details from a recent vintage find…
Read MoreI am not one for cleaning and tidying, but I rather enjoy preparing the campervan for a trip away. Probably the best part of this ritual is re-stocking the van’s small ‘library’ with appropriate maps, guides, and reading material. Here’s an interesting read . . . . . . with wonderful endpapers. Ursula Venables plays…
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