Harbingers of Spring
Hurrah! Spring is on the way!! Truly!! I promise!! Especially to our friends currently immersed in piles of snow in the mid-west of America! You may only see white out of your windows - if you can see out of your windows at all!! - but I can assure you that...
Feeding Our Minds
Birmingham's Museum & Art Gallery is thriving! Each time I visit, I am amazed at the sheer amount and diversity of people who are strolling through its galleries, stopping at this painting, or that piece of glass, reading the info boards and generally really...
Are men who do textile art superheros or spoilt?
Did that get your attention? I thought it might. What I'm talking about this week is something that raises temperatures, emotions and voices. Why is it that the small proportion of men in textiles seem to get lots of attention and publicly lauded? This question was...
Method in the muddle
A while ago, I wrote a post saying about how my brain lags about 3 weeks behind everyone else when I'm doing a course or a workshop or something similar, and that I'm usually in a total fuddle and have to let my brain just filter it through in its own sweet time. ...
Government approval for craft!
Wow! I nearly fell off my chair when I picked up the latest edition of Crafts magazine from the Crafts Council. There was a 4 page excerpt from the coalition government's minister of state for further education, skills and lifelong learning, John Hayes, extolling...
New Year, New Challenges
I'm very excited about 2011. Not about the financial and political situation we find ourselves in - we don't have much control over the bigger picture there - but about things that we do have control over - our choices and how we choose to react to life's challenges....
After Christmas
OK. So how many of us woke up this morning wondering why we ate so much yesterday and promising ourselves that we will get back to our pre-Christmas weight in January? And how many of us woke up wishing we hadn't drunk quite so much Christmas tipple, promising...
Flu, ice sculptures and playing for pleasure!
Like so many people I know, I've spent a large part of the last week in bed with proper flu. It's left a lingering chesty cough and I was a little concerned about how I would cope with playing tenor sax for the Trent River Big Band who were performing at a Golden...
Complex Weavers’ study day
It's always fun to stay with friends. It's even more fun to meet up with like-minded individuals from all over the country who get together for a learning experience. This week some of the UK Complex Weavers met up at Handweavers' Studio for a study day with Marg...
Snow days – an inconvenience, or an excuse?
Our recent snow days have given quite a few people a few moral dilemmas to work through... I'm lucky - I don't have far to go to get to work (and I love my work!!), only having a few steps from my house to my studio - so I don't have the dilemma many face, but it's...
Snow and Steam
This morning we awoke to the most snow anyone in this area can remember for around 20 years! It is sooo beautiful! I am so lucky that I work from a studio next to the house, so I only had a short passage to clear to the workshop door, and the woodburning stove had...
Hidden Talents
I was watching Sweeney Todd, the film version, starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter (with Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall) last night, and I was amazed at the musical talent these normally drama-oriented actors showed. I know from playing the show that the...