“The thing about a croft is that it’s a life-long tenancy. You don’t own the land. You’re just custodians of it for your lifetime… There’s a mindset where you realise that you’re part of a long tradition that started in the mid to late 1800s and you’re just continuing that legacy“. Meg Rodger’s croft is on the Hebridean island of… Read more →
It was clear as soon as we began unpacking the Harvest Hues skeins from the latest John Arbon delivery that we were in the company of a whole load more than the 400 meters on the 100g skein band. There’s a totally unexpected toothiness to the yarn which is concealed by its lustre – a characteristic more common in drapier… Read more →
Anna Husemann sits in the centre of a striped Louis XVI sofa, her face framed by long golden curls and a perfectly straight-cut fringe. Behind her is a studio pinboard of colour swatches, mini skeins, stencil cutouts and magazine clippings. There is an orderliness to the whole arrangement – Anna, the sofa and the items of the board – which… Read more →
“It was when I’d finished knitting the viruses. I started working on a death mask and I looked at it and thought, No. It’s got to be a vulture.“ Harry’s vulture, named Vern, has been stopping passers-by in their tracks, ever since he took up residence in the shop window a couple of weeks ago. Standing about a meter tall,… Read more →
Julius is a cavernous minimalist restaurant that has the look of a place which other people eat at. But when I go in and take a seat there’s a comforting background hubub of indistinct voices that somehow disarms all the high ceilinged, mid-century blah blah. I’m in the Wedding district of Berlin, sitting at a large round table next to… Read more →
“Now I have to find more wool. There are many flocks, but they don’t all have the right wool. Some are more like goats with their long hair.” Elena Solier has sold out of her last batch of Xolla Wool and is uncompromising in selecting fleeces for the next spin. She lives in Catalonia, making wool from the entrefina fleece… Read more →
“They are the most beautiful sheep you’ve ever seen. Both the ewes and the rams have amazing horns – a sort of swept-back affair.” Jenn Monohan is talking to me from her home in Elsing, a small village in Norfolk where she runs her yarn business, Fibreworkshop. She’s telling me about the Norfolk Horn sheep whose fleece she uses for… Read more →
“I sometimes think it would be nice to tell my grandma about everything I do now with the foraging and the dyeing. It comes from what she and my grandad taught me.“ Emma Kylmala, also known as The Town Dyer, is a Finnish plant dyer who has made her home in west London. She’s talking to me about the origins… Read more →
“I’d see her through the window when I came home from school. She’d sit by the window where there was good light, with a big basket full of mending” Judit Gummlich describes how it was when her beloved grandmother came to stay, to help with taking care of her and her siblings while her mother was working. “She embroidered little… Read more →
‘When he saw I knew what I was talking about as a knitter, it helped me to create a bond.‘ Irene Waggener is an anthropologist, textile conservator and a knitter. She’s talking to me over Zoom from her home in Yerevan about her book, Keepers of the Sheep, an account of her time learning from the knitters in the High… Read more →
