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One of my favourite trees is the Scots pine, botanically known as Pinus sylvestris. This native conifer can be found across Scotland, and in particular throughout Glen Affric to the west of Loch Ness in the Highlands. The photos below were taken over Easter 2013, on our last family holiday to Glen Affric. Our first family visit was in 1999, and we've returned on more than seven occasions!        When I came to design a new pattern for my bag fabric, the Scots pine immediately came to mind. Once I had drawn up a design using my knitter's graph paper...

I have always loved flowers.  When I was training to be a herbalist, I was delighted to be told to compile a herbarium for a Botany module; although it was tricky to find flowering plants in Scotland in October and November!        When walking in Scotland, I always take my camera along in case I spot any interesting flowering plants. One of my favourite places for wildflower spotting is the isle of Ulva off the west coast of Mull.  These photos were taken in the summer of 2009, and show devil's-bit scabious (Succisa pratensis) and ragged robin (Lychnis flow-cuculi).    ...

In February, I went on a wonderful course run by McAree Brothers knitting shop and taught by Carol Meldrum, known as Beatknit. The course was on hand knitter's tuck stitch also known as brioche.  It was amazing, and a great start to learning this technique. I next encountered brioche knitting at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March when I attended a workshop run by Westknits.  His shawls, his enthusiasm for brioche, and his amazing sense of colour were all so inspiring! So, I started thinking about a new design for my machine knitted fabric.  Colour choices in brioche are so important. After a number of...