News from the Loom

My boys have grown up surrounded by the accoutrements of a spinner and weaver. Our home is also my studio and when they were crawling around and toddling I used to have to cordon areas off and there was lots of 'don't touch....I need that for a job' as they reached for whatever had caught their eye. As a result, anything I work at is now called 'my job'. I've tried to teach them the name of various bits and pieces and it's slowly taking shape but now and then you hear a shout from another room as one of them informs me that the...

It's my favourite time of my year and my favourite type of scenery. The 'wide and deep prospects and rugged scenery' (Norton Anthology of English Literature) made it the perfect setting for the some of the most famous romantic literature like Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights. I saw some of the Peak District this year and found parts of it strangely familiar and utterly enchanting. The moors were so like the Bragan Bog at home (and I had my own Mr. Darcy with me of course!) When I got home I tried to find some pictures to compare and...

The summer has come and gone and thoughts gather, reflect and move on to what's ahead. The CRAFTed project I worked on with 6th Class in St. Tiarnach's School ended in June. The produced a wonderful piece called 'Woolscapes'. It's their interpretation of the landscape over the last 100 years - a response to the 1916 Centenary Year. Pictures to follow. Good luck to them all as they move on to secondary school.   My piece 'Waiting Patiently', part of the 'Thread Song' exhibition has been to Dublin an Sligo. My wedding dress was selected for exhibition in the RDS...

John William Waterhouse-Penelope and the Suitors (1912)   In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope is the intelligent and faithful wife of Odysseus. While he goes off to war (taking twenty years to return), she waits and has to plan many diversions in order to delay marrying one of the 108(!) suitors who believe she is eligible to remarry. She pretends to be weaving a burial shroud for Odysseus's elderly father Laertes, claiming that she will choose a suitor when she has finished. Every night for three years, she undoes the part of the shroud that she had woven that day. The story...

It's lovely to be able to have an uncomplicated project that you can work on in the unexpected free moments that may occur in your day - the waiting room or train journey (or the car in my case, when you're waiting for the football training to finish!) I have a drop spindle that travels with me. As I create the yarn I'll be using it in a cowl (or scarf perhaps) using an old stitch called Broomstick Lace. It will be easy to add in the new yarn as I go. Broomstick lace is like a mix of 'casting on'...