The silly season is almost upon us and the next few weeks is going to be a tad bonkers!

This weekend sees the Coburg House Art Studio's having their second and final open studio event of 2012, of which I am participating in - you can read more about this event at the following link on the STV website in an interview I gave a few days ago.

Monday sees me teaching up in Ullapool for three days, with a variety of workshops at this independent college, before heading back to my regular teaching stint at Dundee College on Thursday.

There may be also be news of a fairly substantial order with a leading retail space ... more of that later as you never know if these things will come to fruition, but all the leg work has been done and now its a waiting game - so fingers crossed! More news of this if and if it comes off.

In the mean time it would be great to see as many of you and your friends as possible over the weekend at Coburg - please see previous postings on this blog about what I will be demonstrating and selling from my studio.

New Work available to purchase exclusively at Concrete Wardrobe, Edinburgh.

I will be demonstrating some double cloth weaving over this weekend on my 32 shaft computerised loom, as well as selling off sample pieces from previous collections, which will included pieces from my digital collections. So come on down and grab a Christmas bargain or two. 

Pieces from current double cloth collections will also be available to purchase, as well as my boxed whisky glasses and shot/nip glasses.

Information will also be available for collection on future classes as well as my week long summer school in 2013. 

Please feel free to share this information!

 Hebridean Green

Hebridean Sunset 

Hebridean Gold
























Above are images of the three collections that are finished, pressed and labeled all ready for my stint as Maker of the Month at Concrete Wardrobe, which kicks off from the 1st of November 2012. 

Each double cloth scarf is in excess of 2.00m in length with an average of 2.30m, depending on repeat length before finishing and felting.

I am really looking forward to launching these collections and other collections at Concrete Wardrobe from the 1st of November as well as being in Concrete Wardrobe as part of the "Meeting and Greeting the Maker" scheme from 12.00 till 14.00 on Saturday the 3rd of November. 

As part of this event I have set up a 4 shaft loom for visitors to have a go at weaving simple weave structures for the duration of that day to which you and all your friends are invited to!  

Threaded heddles.

View from the back of the loom looking through to the front from the back beam. The threading has been complete.

Pulling the individual threads through the front beam, two ends per dent with a fish eye hook.

Once the all the threads have been drawn through the dents attached to the front beam they are then tied onto the front stick in bundles of 10 or so. Weaving can now begin. 

This is a couple of shots of the beginning of the cloth collection that has a working title of "Hebridean Shore" ... well for the time being anyway. It's always tricky giving your products a name, I usually come up with a name fairly early on but they do tend to go through various incarnations before I settle on something that I either like or is fitting to the piece.

Like the other double cloth collections "Hebridean Green, Gold and Sunset" wefts are limited to the warps and I am really linking the contrast of the mercerised cotton with the lambs wool, which all hark back to my original drawings made whilst out in Shetlands and the Outer Hebrides - hence the names!

Complicated!

Is it me or did Blogger just get really complicated?

Missing out

Lordy lordy lord! Blogger has changed it's format(s) and it has taken me an age to figure it all out, what with it's new templates and gadgets etc ... Just when I figured it all out I realise I have left all my connecting cables at home ( I am currently stopping off at my parents place in the North East of Scotland due to teaching commitments in Dundee) so can't up load additional pics of my developing weave structures I am working on for my next stint as Maker Of The Month at Concrete Wardrobe, which begins 01.11.12 ...

Also gutted to report that I am missing out on what would have been a great exhibition opening tonight at the Dovecot in Edinburgh for the Nuno exhibition opening, which I am sure I will see anyway, but the main reason for being so not chuffed was that the brilliant Reiko Sudo is in attendance. I know several folk  were able to say hello on my behalf, which is great, but I also know that Reiko so rarely travels these days and I am unsure when I will be swinging by her Roppongi Tokyo store in the near future to share a bowl or two of miso soup.

It is also happened the other way round when I missed out on attending an exhibition opening by Judy Scott at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee ... when I was in Edinburgh, working at Concrete Wardrobe.

Tis the trouble of splitting my time between Dundee and Edinburgh in a week - I physically can't do everything and be everywhere at once - finances and energy levels do unfortunately come into play. Shame.

I will however be taking a group of students along to see this show, thats the plan and failing that I will ship up and show up myself.



Till next time ...