here and there..

a rug handmade by my great-granny

 

a peerie bit of knitting here and there

again, im sorry for the big gap in posting anything.. somehow the more i think i need to do a blog post the less things i can think to blog about..

I have struggled this year to get into the groove with my knitting.. not for a lack of ideas, or plans or time but somehow it just hasnt happened.. happily i am feeling much more positive and pro active now as i had been feeling and some more commissions for cushions are coming in.

a bright and sunny day at Eashaness

This last week has been very busy, i had my cousins wedding on Friday and Saturday night (in Shetland we usually have 2 nights of a wedding) and i did the backdrop for the stage! Traditional Shetland weddings usually take place in a country hall, my mam is from Ollaberry, about an hours drive from Lerwick, and Nicola and Lees wedding took place in the lovely Ollaberry hall. Thanks to the wonder of pinterest i came up with a scallop design using circles.. now i cant draw,cut or write in a straight line, let along a circle so i bought a circle cutter !!! who knew such things exsisted.. amazing. For my letters i did a bit of freehand drawing and cutting and i was really pleased with how it came out..

Congratulations to Nicola and Lee.

nothing much

I’m sorry it’s been very quiet around here lately.. I’ve been suffering from a bit of a creative block.

I’ve not been doing no knitting… Just not enough knitting.

Hopefully I’ll be back soon with something to show.

xx

bbc, your paintings

i went with my dad on Saturday after our trip on the boat to the Shetland Museum (handily in the same harbour as aforementioned boat) to hear a talk and see a tour of some of the Museums oil paintings that they have in their collection, It is part of a nationwide programme by the BBC to photograph and make available online all the paintings in archives around the UK, You can read more about it here . Now, i am not a painter.. any of the poor people that had to try and teach me at college know that but i do love paintings and some of them in the Shetland collection were really nice. Ive gathered a few of my favourites which i find really inspiring. Even though i do knitting..Not enough of it at the moment.. but i do, its funny how i can see so many of the aspects or feelings in the paintings that go into my ideas.

Curing Station, Whalsay, Shetland
by John Quinton Pringle

A Shetland Township
by Adam Robson

Papa Stour, Wadder Head
by Lesley Burr

Untitled by Wendy Sutherland

Esplanade, Lerwick
by Dale Hudson

Aith Regatta by Paul Bloomer (one of my lecturers when i was at college)

Atween Wadders by Ann Bain

the overwhelming colour in these pictures i like the most is blue.. i really struggle to use blues together successfully in my knitting. I think its probably because i focus more on the land side of things in my cushions, however looking at the paintings makes me want to try and use it a bit more.

click here to see all the paintings in the Shetland Museum collection

two

In the month of January, i didnt have much to blog about, getting over Christmas and New Year turned into getting back into the swing of things at work which led on to looking forward to Lerwick Up Helly Aa aka one of my favorite days ever..

Up Helly Aa is a fire festival which takes place in Lerwick (and other places in Shetland) to mark the end.. of winter. You can read more about it here. Its a very difficult thing to explain when you’ve grown up with it.. But.. It has past (sadly) and we are now into February. After Up Helly Aa it is amazing how light it starts to get in Shetland. The worst thing about winter here is the dark mornings and dark nights, i hate getting up in the dark and getting home from work in the dark, you’d think id get used to it but every year winter rolls in and around here things get.. dark.

But today has been a beautiful day in Lerwick, this week has covered all aspects of weather. Snow, rain, wind and sun have all made an appearance.But this morning was lovely so i went off with my Dad and his boat The Marianniella (It was originally called the Mariella after me and my sister but when my niece was born he added her name in there too)

it was nice but blimmin cold. I think winter is still here for a while.

two thousand and thirteen

So another year begins, I’m not bothering with any resolutions , i never keep them. I do have a few aims for the year though (aims, not resolutions..) I would like to learn to drive, to be a bit more tidy and for my business to grow!

New Year in Shetland is always a bit.. crap. As youngsters (read underage drinkers) we used to always go to The Cross but these days it seems at New Year the weather is always a bit rubbish, this year there was no tree at the cross and the older i get the more these kind of things should be reserved for young people (again read underage drinkers) so for a change this year we went to Mareel for the bells.

This time last year i was struggling with my final project at college and hadn’t even started knitting yet (obviously i knew how to but hadn’t come to it as my final medium yet) i was really finding college and what i was making very difficult. After the death of my Grandmother who i loved so so much i was making very sad, very dreary work which reflected my feelings. At the end of January i did a complete turnaround of my work and began knitting.. then i realised i had found what i wanted to do.

  I would like to say thank you to anyone who bought any of my cushions this year, to have managed to make a product which people seem to not only like, but also get excited and feel a connection to is so nice. The feedback i have got from people, not just Shetlanders, is brilliant.

the one thing i will miss going into 2013 is my beloved dog who passed away this year. Max was mental and life is a lot quieter without him, which is sometimes good but often boring.

Work-wise, my small part-time job at Jamieson & Smith has developed into a full-time job and i realise how lucky i am to have found a career in Shetland (with it being such a small place) that not only is related to what i do but also is connected and intertwined. Wool Week in October was a highlight and although i was knackered it led to great things at J&S and also in my own business.

2012 was good and bad, as all years are. My life changed the most as it ever has in 2012 but i dont feel i have changed. Which is maybe a good thing.

Happy New Year!

december

So December has creeped up on us again, as it does every year. Shetland has had a small bit of snow in December but last weekend it was the wind that caused the problems. On Friday and Saturday we were battered by force 9 gales forcing the boat to cancelled. I stupidly booked an Opticians appointment which resulted in my purse being considerably ligher (in December!! im a fool) on Saturday so i thought id go along my sister since i was at the street anyway. As i walked (with difficultly) towards her house along the south end Lodberries of Lerwick i came across the waves coming over the wall

once i had ran past, clutching the wall on the other side.. i took some photos. The swell was very strong and just looking at the sea made me feel seasick.

as an islander i have a strong relationship with the sea, it encircles us and can trap us on the island whenever it wants. At this time of year, getting on and off Shetland can be a task and when the sea is as rough as it was at the weekend you feel the power and strength it has. Whenever i leave Shetland i feel very uneasy when i’m far away from the sea. Of course by Saturday night the wind had completely died away and Sunday was a beautiful and calm day…

That is Shetland weather for you!

slow weeks

so.. its been a slow couple of weeks since the Craft Fair. Ive been ill since it finished. First with the cold then with an infection, i even ended up having to have a night in hospital.. Bah! This is not helping me with getting my cushions made for people. I did managed to get two knitted yesterday and plan on doing some today now that im feeling a bit better.

there was a beautiful sunset in Shetland last week, i was lying in my sick bed feeling sorry for myself and then i looked up at my skylight and the sky was so bright, so i got up and took this picture. (then i had to lie down again but it cheered me up for a minute)

i went to my sisters the other night which involves walking along commercial street in Lerwick and i was lucky to see the new Christmas lights turned on, they were officially turned on yesterday but they tested them the other night. They are so pretty! they go the whole way along the street. The lights we’ve had in recent years were interesting.. to say the least. These are very classy, secretly i would love the lights they had when i was young, They were so 90′s with multicoloured lights and tinsel! i used to love it! i thought id look on the Shetland Museum photo archive and see if they had any pictures of them

i just loved them!! probably because i was a child and Christmas is very easy if your a child, anyway, usually im against mentioning of the C word until December.. so i don’t know how the above happened. Evidently i’ve turned crazy in my illness.

Bah Humbug..