Blue Hands are Cool

...they mean lots of indigo dyeing is happening. 

Major stockpiling is going on here in preparation for the next great event which is YARNDALE in Skipton next Saturday and Sunday 27/28th. The great busy yarn fair got off to a fine start last year and looks to be surpassing itself this time, with 180 stalls of textile loveliness. The Border Tart is nice and easy to find, at No 65, close to the Wharfedale entrance...just so you all know! 
A little slice of woolly paradise, say the organisers, and who am I to argue?

As well as indigo yarns, I will have one-off handspun skeins, lots of luscious wool/silk fibre blends for spinners and felters, oodles of buttons including unique glass ones made by Laughinglass near Kelso, wonderful Indian block print and woven stripe fat quarters, and as much else as I can cram onto my stall. It's going to be a wild weekend :)

Cakes and Sales

What a fine weekend we had! It was grand to welcome friends old and new to Chesters as part of the Art Trail. I had fun encouraging visitors to pick up a pencil or two and design a blue sheep. The flock is substantial now, and I have plans for their reproduction...

 a sample of the indigo flock

Our Macmillan pop-up coffee shop raised nearly £300. Big thanks are due to my generous helpers who baked and poured and washed and stayed cheerful throughout.

A display of books I have made over the last few years

The lovely little knitting book I have for sale

One of my unique handmade paper lampshades

Sun shining on the (b)righteous!

Art Trail Eve

I've had a busy time arranging, and rearranging, and fussing about to get my new workspace sorted for the next three days' public viewing.

The cottage living room has tables and chairs and sofas at the ready for coffee shop business, and there have certainly been a few cakes baked. You can enjoy your refreshments surrounded by large canvases painted by Hugh, and smaller stitched silk and paper by me. All lit by a lovely wooden table lamp or two or three with handmade shades.

I called this one Titanic because it lists to port (or starboard, if you prefer)

So I should show you images, but I got too carried away taking photographs of shelves and tools and stuff instead, including my lovely Mark Hearld paper bird perched on the desk light.

 So really, if you want to see more, just mosey along. Hugh will be in his cabin, showing new work and some daft bargains, I'll be in my workspace and you'll surely smell the coffee. If in doubt follow the arrows!

Exhibitionists

Yesterday I travelled to Edinburgh and mingled briefly with Festival crowds as I visited various excellent exhibitions - 

India Street was my main reason for travel, and a date with Lokesh Ghai, assistant curator of The Bombay Sample Book. This exhibition examines the book held in the National Museum of Scotland containing designs printed in Turkey Red. (India Street in the Vale of Leven, backed onto the factory that was the world's biggest producer of Turkey Red fabrics). Lokesh is one of seven designers, from India and Scotland, who were invited to explore the archive, consider the historical and political impacts of the industry and produce contemporary work. It's on until 11th September at Gayfield Creative Spaces

Lokesh at the exhibition's chai stall

Monkey Business by Raw Mango  www.rawmango.in

Chilli Bean Flowers by Lokesh Ghai

A few steps from Gayfield is McNaughtan's Bookshop at the top of Leith Walk. In their lovely little gallery space is beautiful paper work by tapestry artist Jo McDonald
This image does not do the scale or delicacy, or constructive challenge of her work justice. Go see!

 

Dodging torrential showers and dazzling sunlight, I strode off along George Street to catch the Craft Scotland Summer Show too. Here there are mini displays by lots of Scotland's finest, including local jeweller Fiona Luing (who could resist silver ear studs listed as 'teeny', 'tiny' and 'small'?) and silk weaver Dorothy Stewart, based in Lockerbie, whose work is understated and elegant.

Finally, this was a thought-provoking reminder of the price paid in so many ways by our predecessors, and that being paid this minute in war-torn communities.

Art and Tart Time Again!

The annual Crossing Borders art trail takes place at the end of this month.

Hugh and I would be delighted to see you here at Chesters - there are new paintings in Hugh's cabin, a whole new room for me and my textiles and a pop-up coffee shop full of craftwork and cake!

Each day from 10 am until 5pm - look out for the wooden sheep signs

 
You can pick up an Art Trail booklet at venues around the Borders, or download one here

Frustration

..brought about by deathly slow broadband in Chesters. We are struggling with download speeds of about 1MB and uploads generously displaying as 0MB which is deeply frustrating. Complaints lodged with BT. Answers awaited. Sigh. 

Meanwhile, in other news, it was a gloriously sunny couple of days at the Border Union Show where the Tart was happily ensconced in the Wool & Water Tent with great textiley friends. The crowds were sometimes a little less than impressed at the humidity levels in said tent but Saturday was more comfortable than Friday for us and wool-related sales did still happen.

And my workspace is filling up. Here (with gracious broadband acquiesance) are some highly selective arty shots while it still looks half empty and tidy.

Good intentions

Ooops, where's this month disappearing to?
I nearly have an operational new workspace. This will be really exciting and uplifting and generally A GOOD THING. At the moment, though, there are too many tasks preventing me getting in there and enjoying it.
 

Posh Dublin breakfast

For example - housing everything. The simple fact is that I have too much stuff. I am trying to be realistic but sentiment gets in the way of quick decisions, and good intentions slow things further (I could use all that salvaged junk to make a really cool something or other, couldn't I?)
However, the recyling wheelie bin is full to bursting and Selkirk's Scrap Store will become a major beneficiary next week. 

So, when it all looks lovely and before I start to make a creative mess in it, I will post some images up here. Meanwhile, here are some images from Ireland!

And do come and visit at the end of August during the Art Trail, and see for yourself

Perfect welcome for visiting tarts

Stephen Pearce, potter to the stars - his empire is rather larger than the shopfront suggests

Ballymaloe Cookery School's garden

Breakwater beach art

 

Overseas

Just back from an all-too-brief trip across the Irish Sea. 
Blessed with pretty fine weather, we drove from Belfast right down to Co Cork and stayed a few days in a perfect little converted barn. These images are just a taster of the many I snapped as we walked and drove around.

nearest neighbours

can you smell them?

no wonder we were loathe to leave

waiting at Ballymaloe Gardens

Kilkenny Castle, where we stopped en route north

Ballycotton Bay

There's so much to see even in the one county that we will definitely be going back for major explorations.

Glorious June

How easily we all slip into summer mode - expecting to wake each morning to warm dry days. I think we are well practised in the art of relishing every minute, knowing only too well the huge variety of alternative climates we will wake to the rest of the year...

 Hedgerow and home

I was in Peebles for a few hours on Thursday, meeting my Working Perspectives hosts. Hugh grabbed a lift and went cycling off along the quieter roads for a while.
Peebles – Creative Place is a year-long programme of events which aims to bring creative work into public spaces, work places and private houses so that everyone living in, working in, or visiting Peebles in 2014 has unexpected chances to experience the arts.

Working Perspectives is a project that takes individual artists into all sorts of businesses and workplaces in the town. I have been paired with the Castle Warehouse and I love it! On Thursday I met lots of the staff and saw behind the scenes. Everything from attic offices to cellar storerooms, and even a secret painted vennel. So much scope for inspiration. 
Over the next few months I will travel up and down to the town as I work on the pieces I want to create. I may give you sneak peeks if I am brave enough.
 

Home again and Hugh has set to work to create a doorway into what will be my new workshop. This is hugely exciting for me. Tart HQ has been quirky and fun to work in but this space will suit me better. The caravan will be up for grabs in another month or two (ideal playroom/hideaway/spare accommodation - wired and with working gas fire and hob...)

Off out tomorrow. A long long awaited trip to Bridge of Allan to the one day wonder that is World Textile Day - Scotland. A handful of highly regarded traders and a couple of talks which promise to intrigue and inspire. My pal and I are heading off early to ensure we get seats for the first talk!

Cut and punched

.. and folded and assembled. All in a day's (entertaining) work at Roberton on Saturday. 

I led a thoroughly enjoyable workshop at the Forman Hall. It was a claggy rainy day - no fun for gardening, or sheep clipping, or much else outside so we were all pleased to spend our time creating masterpieces from salvaged papers.

We started with simple notebooks punched and bound with bamboo skewers and elastic bands, and proceeded to fold-out books with covers and ties, and folded album pages which linked together, ready to display photographs. The most popular were the zigzag constructions; the inventive group were soon adapting them to all sorts of purposes and conjuring up new ideas.

As the afternoon progressed everyone seemed to work faster and faster - such industry! Maybe it was the chocolate digestives. 
Normally I am pleased when participants go away with one finished object and another in progress but this gathering produced stacks of impressive designs between them.

Elsewhere, spinning continues and button packaging, and decorating of the cottage. None of the latter is very photogenic but I will being showing it off as and when rooms merit it. After all, you may want to stay there some time and enjoy a wee break in this lovely part of the world.

Here's another yarn-in-progress to be going on with.

Textiles Rock!

So much good stuff happens round textiles, it's uplifting. Maybe it's a very basic human need for warmth and reassurance; sometimes it's an equally powerful need to make, to be creative, to conjure something beautiful from the mundane. 
Whatever, it's there in abundance when you look closely.

Back of the sample hat I have knitted in indigo dyed chunky merino

At Dingwall's Highland Wool Festival I had a great time yarning with all sorts of happy people who flocked to the event. My handspun sold, my buttons sold, but what I particularly loved was that my indigo yarn was so popular. I foresee much dyeing in the next few months as well as planning of the online shop for my website.

Recently I had an e-mail from B, a lady more normally creative in other fields. She had seen my Indian block print packs and kits and wondered if I would sell bigger pieces. She went on to order enough to make herself a quilt, to fulfil a long-held dream to recreate a quilt she remembered from childhood.

The multi-talented Pat Douglas attended a Warped Workshop run by Ali at the weekend, where she learned to block print on fabrics. Before you could blink she was home and stitching into her newly created linen fabric, and loving it!

This weekend too, I had an e-mail from a Finnish lady enquiring about my handspun yarn - so pictures will be wending their way to her tonight.

 

 

Yesterday I spent a happy afternoon in the garden with two dogs for company, spinning yarn. 
Simple pleasures...