A little festive fun. Red winter berries seem more vibrant this year. Green leaves quiver in the wind. We walk amongst the spruce and pine, sighing with their creaky bough songs, listening to green needles tingle. There may be snow for Christmas. Candles bright in windows. The sky darkens quickly in the afternoon. Stars visit …
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Winter: woolly berry, spruce and ice festive holidays
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Inspiration: running with the deer
Deer rush down from the mountains of Harris and the broad swathes of moorland drawn by the fresh, new growth of grass to soar over fences. And so it is with us humans. Deep inside we run with the deer; we too feel the machair sap rising and in the rhythm of the tide, the …
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Spring: awakening with nature
Rejoicing in the colours of Spring, brown grasses turning golden and lining the corncrake’s new nest. Rudely fresh green grass takes over slopes and flat meadows. Robust leaves of Angelica poke from bare earth and make olive feather shapes. Bright pink buds of crab apple trees burst open with pale pink white flowers. Homemade Harris …
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Winter: quiet contemplation
Quiet contemplation and contentment. Short days and frosty nights. A coolness of light. The quietness of time spent observing, being aware, noticing the beauty in every tiny moment. I am knitting a sock on tiny needles with rustic 4 ply wool rough against my finger tips. Ice crystals slide down the window glass. Letting all …
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Inspiration: rough fibres and smooth bone
As the wind rises and the summer sunlight begins to fade my fingers are enjoying the rustic textures of Hebridean wool and minimally-processed Shetland wool pressed against deer antler bone and ram horn toggles and buttons. “The tactile delight of rough, rustic wool and smooth bone.” The flowing shapes of found deer antler tips, always …
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Inspiration: being Hebridean
Tha an fhuil làidir. The blood is strong. Harris Tweed and Shetland wool. Hebridean wool from our native sheep. Harris wool tagged by weavers captured for knitting.
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Spring: quickening creativity
As we are all part of nature we feel the quickening in early Spring, a tingling of life force awakening inside us, a desire to rampage into newness. I wonder if like the sap in plant stems that is suddenly rising and full of vigour, we too have this response in our bodies. All things …
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Winter: potent hibernation
Short days, wild winds, stormy seas. The glory of winter darkness hibernation, wrapping ourselves in cosy woollens, swaddling our spirits in the gestation time, quietening our minds, listening with stillness to the sounds of nature. Here we are in the deep mid-Winter with arrows pointing back to Autumn and forwards to Spring in the eternal …
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As familiar as skin: Harris Tweed
When you grow up in the Hebrides among your tough Harris Tweed-clad menfolk and the smell of wet tweed and feel of rough wool is as familiar to you as your own skin you have permission to mess with it. The ancient coming together of our island sheep wool in woven and knitted form is …
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