Award-winning Scottish publishing and design
Good morning, all. If you’ve not read the comments on yesterday’s post, might I suggest you do so? From Parisian ducks and the red-legged partridges of Portpatrick, to the sometimes-silent parrots of Buenos Aires, Australian pelicans, the egrets of North California, and the hummingbirds of Tennesee, Arizona or Texas, it was wonderful to read your…
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This is a very cheerful sweater And to accompany it, I’m wearing the most cheering pair of shoes I own. . . Yes, even someone with a dropped foot and appalling balance can gad about in these ridiculous ruby slippers! Back to the sweater, whose name is Coofle: an old Scots word for a puzzle,…
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Good morning! Time for a weaving post! I’ve been enjoying making plain weave belts (like the one which accompanies my Land o’Cakes cardigan) and narrow pick-up bands (like my phone lanyard or mitten strap) and wondered if I might bring the two techniques together. It’s the difference in thread thickness that makes the motifs on…
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Morning, everyone. Hope you are all very well and looking after each other. The whole team here is fine, and we feel extremely grateful for our internet connections and well-established methods of remote working. Sam is at the warehouse, in happy solitude, and will continue shipping anything you order, both locally and internationally, as long…
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When you were a kid, did you wear your mittens and gloves on bands or strings threaded through your coat sleeves to keep them safe? I did, and have very vivid recollections of disliking the practice as I grew older, for seeming childish. My grandma knitted all my gloves and mittens, and if keeping them…
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I really enjoyed reading your comments on my last weaving post – especially hearing about the impressively wide range of new skills you are all currently picking up! I’m continuing to enjoy my weaving, and am finding it very inspiring. It really interests me that one of the first things many people think of when…
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A little over a month ago, I wrote this post about learning how to weave with Belinda Rose, and beginning to weave bands on my new inkle loom. Since then I’ve been really enjoying playing and experimenting with weaving narrow bands – particularly using pick up techniques. As is my usual tendency, I began by…
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Shetland abounds with wonderful creative spaces, but surely one of the most inspiring has to be the charity that Andy Ross has established, nurtured, and developed in Yell. From its beginnings as an organisation focused on music and music teaching, GlobalYell expanded its focus a decade ago to textiles, and to weaving in particular. Over…
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Good morning, everyone! It is Friday, which means its time for another pattern for Seven Skeins club members. This week I’ve created another wee project which is brilliant for using up scraps of yarn – its name is Cairngorm. Strictly speaking, a cairngorm is a piece of smoky quartz from the famous mountain region that…
Read MoreI am designing a few things at the moment with a yarn that is new to me. I really like this yarn – and surely the best way to find out some more about it was to visit the place where it is made? So, on Friday, Mel and I took a trip to Donegal.…
Read MoreQuite a few of you have been asking to see close-ups of the Boreal colourwork from the wrong side, so here we are: While the front of the sweater does not really give an indication of the effect of the colourwork on the thickness of the fabric, I think you can really get a sense…
Read More(Mid- eighteenth-century glazed Norwich worsted wools: Bruxelles, Belles Illes, Martiniques, Blondines.) As we’ve seen throughout WOVEMBER, the way that textiles are named and sold can be misleading and difficult to understand. In a rush to make a chemical innovations integral to a brand, or to lay corporate claim to a particular spinning or weaving process,…
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