Wednesday 16 October 2013

Maple Village Christmas Fayre, 24 November



Will be selling my Opera Shawls here!! Look forward to seeing you......

Tuesday 15 October 2013

Opera Shawl FREIA

My latest design is an Opera Shawl for FREIA.
Apple Green for Freia's apples!! (OK, GOLDEN apples if you're being strictly literal, but this is such a beautiful shade of green!) It is hand-knitted in Kidsilk, and hand-beaded.






Here she is as portrayed by Arthur Rackham  in his illustrations of Wagner's RING.


Monday 14 October 2013

Shetland Textiles: 800 BC to the Present

Just bought this beautiful book : SHETLAND TEXTILES, 800 BC to the present. Edited by Sarah Laurenson.
I love this because I make Shetland Lace shawls, and it's wonderful to have such a  comprehensive  history of Shetland textiles.



It 'does what it says on the tin' - a comprehensive history of textiles in Shetland from the earliest times to the present day. There are chapters dealing with Shetland Sheep and Wool, with Fair Isle Knitting  and Shetland Lace. I am reproducing here some images from the book - (I don't THINK I am breaching any copyright laws here, since they are mainly images in the public domain that I have seen before).






This is a well-known image of Shetland knitters - I don't have a date for this, but it must  be early in the 20th century, perhaps before the First World War. I have made shawls similar to the one being knitted by the woman in the foreground.


Shetland Lace Shawls drying.



Finally, some Shetland sheep.