I like to mix weaves and styles - here are 3 styles and 2 weaves
Biog
My mother and grandmother taught me to knit and sew, and shared their skill and their love of things beautifully handmade. These things were always practical - to be worn or used in some way. I continued this family tradition in my spare time while pursuing a career in management and social care. I discovered hand-weaving through a wonderful evening class while I was still working and determined that weaving and making would become part of my life. Becoming freelance helped this process, as did spending more time in Waternish, a peninsula in the northwest of the beautiful island of Skye.
True to the family tradition of making things that can be used, my main focus at the moment is making handbags, crafted from handwoven fabric instilled with all the lovely colours and textures of Skye - each of my bags is named after a place near our cottage.
Weaving is an intense process needing planning, concentration and patience - attributes that I seem to have most of the time! The rewards are slow but well worth the wait – even now, the stunning interplay of colour and texture often takes me by surprise. For me, weaving is bound up in a sense of place and time: my palette mirrors the seasonal dramas that play outside my loomshed in Skye; my designs combine age-old weaves with metropolitan style. That's the buzz - trying to make every piece a distinctive blend of traditional craft and contemporary design.
I work on a beautiful old 8-shaft Harris table loom - a gift from my husband one memorable birthday. I use natural fibres mainly wool, and occasionally linen and silk - plant-dyed wherever possible. I source most yarns in the UK, and largely from Scotland. But no trip abroad is complete without something new that has caught my eye – recent examples include linen and wool from Latvia.
60 second interview
Q: What is your favourite colour?A: PurpleQ: Who first inspired you to start making/ creating and what words of advice did they give you?A: My Mum - I was making things with her help from a young age. She always encouraged me but also said 'Go back and do it again' if it wasn't as good as it could be.Q: Where and when do you most like to work?A: Bright, sunny mornings in my loomshed in Skye. The light and the view over the Minch to the Outer Hebrides - enough said.Q: Which season of the year most inspires you?A: SpringQ: What can't you work without?A: The radio - the human voice or some music. Post-it notes. My daylight lamp. Encouragement!Q: Whose work do you most admire?A: I change my mind all the time, but often come back to the needlewomen who made the 15th century tapestries 'La dame a la licorne' in the Cluny Museum in Paris - they are just extraordinary. Q: What is your favourite piece of fiction and why?A: Anything by Barbara Kingsolver or Jim Crace. Because they make prose sound like poetry.Q: What do you do to relax?A: Walk in the hills or work in the garden. Q: Describe your artistic style in 3 words. A: Colour, texture, structure
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