News

I’m delighted to be vending at the Perth Festival of Yarn on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th September at the Dewars Centre in Perth. I’ll be bringing a range of my Woolly project and notions bags, plus Woolly badges. I’ll also be launching my new design Save the Alpine Thistle, part of my Climate Change series. Thank you to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for helping me research this design which will hopefully highlight the important conservation work they do to save Scottish alpine plants at risk due to climate change. If you’re coming to Perth, please pop by the...

Mercury 13 was a privately-sponsored programme to assess and train women pilots to become astronauts in the 1960s. Thirteen women passed the tests which their male counterparts in Mercury 7 also underwent. In many cases, the women performed better than the men. Wally Funk was one of those women. Her story has been told in the book, Wally Funk's Race for Space. However, when NASA realised that this programme existed, it was abruptly halted. A government hearing was held.  Evidence was given. The training programme was cancelled and these amazing women never realised their dream for which they had worked...

Taigh-dubh is the Gaelic word for blackhouse, the crofter's traditional stone cottage. The name, blackhouse derived from the soot-lined walls caused by the open peat fire.  On a recent trip to Harris and North Uist in the outer Herbides, we were captivated by the beautiful walls of our cottage, a recently built blackhouse. We also came across a semi-derelict blackhouse on North Uist, after we had visited the Uist Mill. Beautiful rounded slabs of rock created the walls. These are some of the oldest rocks in the world: Precambrian banded Lewisian gneisses; metamorphic gabbros of the Scourie Dykes; and metamorphic sedimentary schists. Having...