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One of the thrills of learning tapestry weaving has been the organic movement from working with straight lines to attempting shapes. These started as slopes and squares, progressed to triangles and ‘circles’ (the speech marks are to be clear that although I might describe a particular woven shape as a circle, it bears no resemblance to something you might draw with a compass or even sketch with a pencil. It is just a square with attitude). I will now attempt most shapes de

Right at the beginning of my tapestry weaving life, I decided to weave a terraced house. I can’t quite remember how or why I decided that it was a good idea, but I’ve always loved vernacular architecture of all types, and the Victorian terrace is a definite favourite[1]. I seem to remember that I thought that it would be a handy way to consolidate my learning around soumak, half passes, sewing slits, that type of thing. So I planned a Victorian terrace, possibly a row. Th

A portrait of the artist as a young midwife Once upon a time I was immersed in the world of birth, babies and midwifery. I first became pregnant in the winter of 1991 and the pregnancy marched alongside the MA in Local History that I was undertaking at the time. The bump and I researched the isolation of Cumberland, the evocation of place in Greenwood’s Love on the Dole, church architecture, village morphology, how to read secretary hand and how to decipher probate inventor

I jotted this title in my diary last week when I was feeling fed up. Maybe I should give it a positive twist and call it, ‘not succeeding is an option’, but failure is very much what I thought and felt at that moment, so let’s go with that. Things I think (in no particular order): 1. This is rubbish – the weaving is too tight, too wonky, too difficult to ‘read’, too simple, too messy… 2. The plan I had in my head and the plan I drew don’t match each other – and nei

For most of my life I have pursued creative activities in solitude and often in silence. Not a heavy oppressive type of solitude and silence but rather the sort that makes you feel untethered, ready to float away on any passing flight of fancy. I suppose this made sense when my main creative outlets were writing of one sort of another. It is possible, but not easy, to write well on a crowded and noisy train. To write well whilst actively having an interesting conversation

I knew exactly what I wanted to say in this blog but have struggled for about five minutes to frame it with a sensible title. I still don’t think I’ve got it right, but it will do unless I think of something snappy and amazing before I get to the end of this piece. So, what do I want to say? Let’s set the scene. It’s another hot summers day – too hot for me to sit comfortably in the studio even with the fan on. There is a patch of shade in the garden and a nice breeze. I

It’s been a week of landscapes and of contrasts. Proper landscapes with bleak Lancashire moorland, pasture, shallow stony streams and solid stone-built farms and outbuildings. As you might imagine the countryside of Lancashire if you were pondering it. Or maybe not – in the valleys and occasionally straggling up the hillsides are the industrial towns; Accrington, Blackburn, Burnley, Nelson. And the over-grown townlets of places like Clayton-le-Moors or Great Harwood. And

I can’t really explain how to do it – there are lots of books out there which can help with that. I was lucky enough to be taught in real life, on an adult education course no less (rare as hen’s teeth) and I think it made a real impact on how I felt. I was learning the rules (there are a lot in tapestry weaving – but as I have discovered, most of them can be bent or broken. If you make something and it doesn’t fall apart instantly then you are winning). But I was also le

As part of my OCA course I undertook a virtual ‘drift’, led by maps. My first thought was to take one of the areas in Lancashire that I want to explore but don’t know well. I considered Bury and wondered if it would be interesting to “walk” the area in the shape of a letter; maybe even “B” for Bury. I had a desultory play around, but it just wasn’t grabbing me. I then decided that Google maps felt too constrained – their style of mapping, which we use every day, is about d