Do you dream of textiles? Clothes, in particular, form a routine focus of my dreams. In a dream, I might find myself wandering through the streets of an unknown city, and, arrested by a window display, be drawn inside to browse a whole collection of imaginary garments in an imaginary store. Dreams also frequently involve…
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A few of you asked about the changes KDD has made to the way we use big tech and social media – and about where to begin when considering making similar changes. As a starting point, I would suggest reading Shoshana Zuboff’s The Rise of Surveillance Capitalism, which I read back in the middle of…
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As the first copies of our 10 Years in the Making book arrived in the KDD warehouse yesterday, I thought (not for the first time) about what a very weird year it has been. We published four brand new titles . . . . . .and created 23 new patterns – the majority of which…
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It is that time of year in Scotland when the clocks are about to “go back” (when our time reverts to GMT, rather than BST). My bipolar has always had seasonal triggers (generally in very early spring, and then following the autumn equinox) and for me, as for so many other people, this time of…
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Today I thought I’d share with you the introductory words I wrote for People MAKE Glasgow . For me – a former eighteenth-century specialist – the connections between Glasgow’s eighteenth-century past and its twenty-first century present have always been apparent, and I really enjoyed having the opportunity to write about those connections here. People MAKE…
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I’m in full-on, heads down, focused writing mode right now, completing our People Make Glasgow book. Someone sent me an email a couple of days ago asking about my approach to writing, and it occurred to me just how much I love to write, and that my approach to it was probably pretty simple –…
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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been really struck by how colourful the oak trees I see on my morning walks are at this time of year, with their wild orangey-red foliage so different to the surrounding trees heavy green. So here’s a poem I wrote in my head about those oaks this morning. The…
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I’ve been suffering with a migraine, and am still feeling very ropey, so thought I’d just follow on from yesterday’s post about masks and performance, with a few images (and words) about my childhood – in which costume and dressing up played a significant role – and which Pilar is now drawing on in the…
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When do you read something over again? There are crime novels to which I frequently return (those of Josephine Tey and Marjorie Allingham are particular favourites) and, when I’m ill or low, I often pick up books enjoyed in childhood (Paul Gallico, Giovanni Guareschi). My main reading for pleasure now tends to be non-fiction, and…
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Eric Ravilious, Cuckmere Haven (1939) Thinking about what I might write about here yesterday, it occurred to me that, despite the fact that reading takes up a fairly large proportion of my time, I’d never used this space all that much to talk about the different books that I enjoy. I think that part of…
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(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…
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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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Good morning! Over the past few days, the air has really come alive with warblers, as more and more migrant birds reach our part of Scotland, and yesterday morning, skylarks began adding their voices to the chorus – always a happy sound. I’m now awaiting the return of our housemartins and, as we’ve seen the…
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Good morning, everyone. Today I thought I’d share with you one of the poems I recently read at Write by the Sea. I’m someone who loves walking, and since my stroke in 2010, I’m also someone who has a disabled body. If you’ve read Handywoman, you might remember that a really formative moment in my…
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Wheesht is published! You can now buy the book in the KDD shop, find out more about it at its dedicated website and we’ve even produced a set of 12 jolly postcards featuring the wonderful illustrations that Tom created for each chapter of the book. If you were part of our club earlier this year,…
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As we approach the start of Knitting Season, I thought I’d write a few posts about how I use (and have used) journals. I imagine many of us think about journals as deeply personal spaces, and yet my most formative experience of journal keeping was collective and not individual. (Because this story belongs to others…
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