I have dared to try moving my website without really knowing what I’m doing, so now it’s really out of date. Bear with me as I update things, slowly 🙃 So far I’ve updated the workshops. For recent news see my instagram feed.
I’ve been a little quiet recently. Did I mention that I started my own publishing company Quickthorn Ltd? It’s just yours truly trying to navigate the whole thing, so it would be really helpful if you followed @quickthornbooks on the various media channels. I’m committed do doing everything I can to manage our carbon footprint, from the solar panels that heat my office to printing in the UK. Did you know most books are printed in the Far East? The heaviest cost is the transportation of all those pallets around the world. Ours are printed down the road in Exeter or recently in South Wales, so not that far to come. I hope you’ll find something you are tempted by or that is useful to you.
There are some exciting books, Finding Quiet Strength: emotional intelligence, embodied awareness, is already out, published in July 22. The next book published in October is When Words are Not Enough: creative responses to grief, not a comedy but a beautiful and hopeful book.
Launching this November is Celia Pym’s first book, On Mending: Stories of damage and repair. Beautiful photography and moving tales of some of the interesting people Celia has met on her mending travels.
There are more exciting crafty titles to come so sign up to the newsletter for offers, events and updates (not too often).
Kate Jenkins, Ham and Mustard
Max Alexander, Merveille du Jour
Meet the Artists is a new series for The Knitter about knitters who venture beyond the sweater. So far I’ve written about Zandra Rhodes, Freddie Robins, Kate Jenkins in Issue 102. Max Alexander and Celia Pym are coming up, with more artists in knit to follow.
Agave plant outside Marrakech
On a recent trip to Marrakech we went out towards the Atlas Mountains and came across this cactus-like plant. It looks a bit like an aloe, but apparently its an agave plant. Each leaf contains long fibres that are used to make a local silk. Breaking down the fibre, retting or decortication, is probably done in the countryside by machines as in this image of processing sisal from Tanzania from 1906 and 1918.
In the souks in the heart of the medina, piles of this spun yarn are dyed and hung up in the sun to dry on long poles that reach across the streets below. The salesman was confused about someone wanting to buy the yarn rather than one of the woven scarves on sale. I’m sure I paid over the odds, but we did have a tour of the dyers’ quarter. Back home the task is to untangle the huge slippery skein. I can’t wait to knit some swatches and I’ll post them here when they’re done.
This is Dawn Cole at an In the Loop study day at Winchester School of Art. Her performance piece, The Silence of Knitting, is based on the life story of her Great Aunt Clarice Alberta Spratling, a volunteer nurse during WWI. Dawn showed us some slides of her solar plate etchings that make beautiful patterns out of the writing found in Nurse Spratling’s diaries and letters. Then she sat down and began to knit. The audience weren’t sure what to expect, some music perhaps or a narration, but there was only the ‘cacophony of silence’. The trouble with quiet is that you start thinking about what those women must have been going through as they made socks and clothing for the men folk at the front. All those unspoken messages and thoughts being sent to brothers, fathers and husbands, woven into every stitch. The audience felt rather awkward and there was some shuffling in seats. Dawn worked a shamrock lace pattern, and didn’t stop until she had finished a whole pattern repeat.
Men had eyes removed. Reading Between the Lines, Solar plate etching, Dawn Cole
This autumn’s Rowan magazine is out with an article about knitting in WWI by yours truly.
It has been a moving experience looking into the hardships of the period. You can recognise the same generous and stalwart spirits who inhabit the knitting world today.
“When you go home, tell them of us and say, For your tomorrows these gave their today.” John Maxwell Edmonds