A Summer in socks

Rebecca Osborn’s bluestocking summer

Read More

the breaking up of the bluestocking club

the club is over, but there’s the book to come!

Read More

Oxford Bluestockings

contemporary bluestockings sharing their knitting, their learning and their feminism

Read More

Mariam Syed

Introducing talented Scottish-Pakistani weaver, Mariam Syed

Read More

two new projects

News about Inkling, and The Bluestocking Club

Read More

Float in the wind, flicker in the breeze

Hello! It’s Michelle here. Today I’d like to share some words and images about suffrage spectacle and visual identity, a topic that recently came back to my mind through Kate’s writing in her Wheesht essay ‘Elevate’ on Ann Macbeth’s collaborative suffrage quilt. Anne Macbeth’s suffrage quilt as a suffrage banner. © Museum of London The…

Read More

In search of Miss Lenton

(1. Suffragette, chained to railings.) What a feast of images and words today! As you know, I’m a writer with a background in archival research and women’s history, and today I’ve persuaded fellow writer, and friend of KDD, Michelle Payne, to share some of her own historical research about the British women’s suffrage movement. I’m…

Read More

Square Share

A little over a year ago I travelled to Reading for a confab with my friend Felix. We’d had an idea to work on a project together with our mutual friend and colleague, Mel, and wanted to thrash things out. By the time I was heading north again, we’d come up with a plan: to…

Read More

Soul Food Sisters

Hello again, it’s Tom here with my latest update on the People Make Glasgow photo-documentary project. In today’s post it is my huge pleasure to introduce to you the Soul Food Sisters. The Soul Food Sisters are an all-female, multicultural, not-for-profit food collective. Established in 2013, this group of women are chefs on a social…

Read More

grey: not pregnant

Hello, here is my new hair, and my new cardigan. For quite a while it has been obvious (to me at least) that my hair was no longer naturally brown, but grey. I got to a point a few months ago when I was just tired of the continual touching up. What might my hair…

Read More

Handywoman – preorder!

We are now preparing for the publication of my new book, Handywoman! I’ve been working on this book (in between my other projects) for a couple of years now. I am more proud of, and happy about, completing this book than any other I’ve ever written. Probably the best way to understand what Handywoman is…

Read More

Ottar

Working on a book can be full of surprises. I did not think, when I set out to write a chapter about tools and objects and the way my attitude to the material world changed after my stroke, that I would end up being inspired by an amazing feminist anarcho-syndicalist . . . but weirdly…

Read More

return to the water

Prior to my stroke, I was an enthusiastic swimmer. I found swimming both invigorating and relaxing: a great form of exercise and a useful way to wind down when I was busy and stressed out at work. My body and balance changed radically following my stroke, but I’ve attempted (and enjoyed) the occasional swim, mostly…

Read More

Great Tapestry of Scotland 93-123

Panel 94: Hill and Adamson The silver herrings and striped petticoats of the Newhaven fisherwoman. In the comments on yesterday’s post, Heather linked to an interesting take on the “when is a tapestry not a tapestry” question from a tapestry weaver who strongly objects to the misappropriation of the term in reference to non-woven textiles.…

Read More

Images of knitting – 2

Here are a couple more postcards from my collection. Strictly speaking, these are reproductions of advertisments, but I am particularly fond of the Sunlight Soap image which, as you can see, has been pinned on my board for some time. I find it interesting for the way it represents knitting as a leisure activity, rather…

Read More