Tag Archives: photography

colour

Posted on by Kate
38

These end-of-February days are rather grey and dreich. Here is some colour to brighten them . . .

Green



Red



Blue



The yarn is my new favourite stuff to knit with. (So soft! So richly saturated! You’ll hear more about it soon!)
The swatch is one of several I’ve been making for the “Steek Sandwich” workshop I shall be leading at This is Knit in April. (That’s steek, not steak)
The daffodil bulbs are on my window sill
The bowl is from Emma Bridgewater’s new Walk in the Park range. (My favourite Bridgewater design since ‘Blue Hen.’)
The hand-coloured prints are the work of the quite brilliant Suzanne Norris. I love Suzanne’s designs – precise, evocative – and I also love the thoughtful way she writes about process. These are from her Amateur Naturalist’s Specimen Collection and you can read about the process of creating them in three parts, beginning here.

winter afternoons

Posted on by Kate
40

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons –
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes –



Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –
We can find no scar,
But internal difference –
Where the Meanings, are –



None may teach it – Any –
‘Tis the seal Despair –
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air –



When it comes, the Landscape listens –
Shadows – hold their breath –
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –



Emily Dickinson

Sunday

Posted on by Kate
25

It is a beautiful day today – bright, crisp, golden – the sort of Winter’s day I love.

While we were out for a walk, I took the opportunity to get some quick shots of my Muckle Mitts, which I realised I hadn’t shown you . . .

It is a very satisfying pattern – so quick! So nifty! Thankyou, Mary Jane. I enjoyed making them so much that I knit up a little cowl thingy to match.

It was lovely to work with the yarn, which I’d had in my stash for ages – Toft alpaca DK – a gift from Ysolda in, I think, 2009. Cheers, Ys!

The yarn is spun in a pleasingly nubbly and rustic way – it almost feels handspun – and the natural shades are very pleasing – so soft and muted. My Muckle mitts are ravelled here

The light was so nice today – good for taking photos. I’ve had my eye on the changes in the undergrowth during my daily walks, and it has been pleasing me in recent weeks. I have a bit of a thing for the humble rosebay willowherb – I love the shapes that it assumes in all seasons. At this time of year, last years stems and seeds are mere dried-out husks – but I find them incredibly beautiful.

Crazy, scribbled wisps . . .

. . . like a kid’s sparkler-writing on bonfire night . . .

. . . or fireworks themselves, thin forms, exploding with light.

It is so nice to feel the sun returning – - we made the most of the day after returning home, and have just now finished building our new log store – and loaded it up with gleanings from Edinburgh’s recent storms (many fallen trees about!)

Bruce has being doing his bit, of course, helping to fetch the kindling. . .

Hope you are enjoying your Sunday too!

September

Posted on by Kate
48

It is is a lovely time of year.

of fruits . . .

. . . seedheads . . .



. . . and turning leaves.


Jesus seems even more than ordinarily contemplative. . .

. . . and Bruce enjoys sampling the Autumnal undergrowth. . .

For academics as well as students, this is back-to-school season – the moment when one puts away one’s research (one has never done quite enough), begins to prepare new lectures (groan), and faces the busy realities of a new semester. For me, this also meant hideously long days, commuting in the dark, and rarely ever getting outside to enjoy what I like most about this time of year. But this September is different: I shall continue my research and writing (huzzah) and I shall walk with my dog in the woods every day (an even louder huzzah). I no longer have the job or the commute. . . but I do have the boxes.

Forty-nine large boxes to be exact. They contain my books, which have just been sent up from my office in Newcastle. They are currently blocking the stairwell of our building because there is no room for them in our flat (which is full to bursting with my books already). Could anybody recommend a good bookseller who might be interested in purchasing a large collection of eighteenth-century literature, history, and criticism? I am completely serious. American revolutionary history and women’s writing a speciality. Anyway, I’m going to be offline for a few days while I sort through the contents of the boxes of doom. . .

flora

Posted on by Kate
29

I am increasingly enjoying photographing wild plants and flowers – and spent quite a bit of time doing this while on holiday in Ireland. I particularly like the matt grey-green tones of coastal plants like sea holly (above) or frosted orache (below)

I also love the humble sheeps-bit, whose purplish-blues and pinks are really quite spectacular.

Perhaps the colours of Ireland’s flora will translate themselves into knitting at some point. . . .


sea bindweed


northern marsh orchid



biting stonecrop


Am I a sea carrot? Suggestions gratefully received.

1976

Posted on by Kate
23

Here are me and my Ma in 1976. This photograph probably suggests several of my mother’s more immediate qualities – her strength, capability, and beauty – but what you don’t get a sense of here is what I most admire her for – her committed social conscience, shrewd business acumen, daft wit, and deep sentiment. Happy Birthday, Ma!

weathered

Posted on by Kate
35

I am glad you enjoyed the lichen – I have also been very taken with it, and thought I’d show you a few more photos. Sumburgh Head is a place with a lot to look at: there is the focal point of the lighthouse built by Robert Louis Stevenson’s grandfather; the cliffs are alive with the sights and sounds of seabirds (just imagine it at puffin time!); to the West, there is a fine view of Jarlshof’s mysterious outline; and Fair Isle shimmers distantly on the Southern horizon.

It is a place for looking far-away, but what is near-to is just as arresting. I became interested in the foghorn . . .

. . . and the pleasing effects of the weather on its paintwork.

while I was photographing rust, Tom noticed the lichen on the foghorn wall.

These swirls could seem inscrutably runic, but as I understand it, they are just a simple radial growth pattern, that can be used to measure age in much the same manner as the rings of a tree.

I love lichen: its crazy, luminous colours; its fluttering petal-like formations; the way it stoically turns its face to the North. It flourishes in the clean air of wild, exposed places, and is one of those organisms that illustrates how things of incredible delicacy and beauty can emerge out of a landscape that might initially seem quite harsh and unforgiving.

. . . like a lot of things on Shetland, really.

at home

Posted on by Kate
56


It’s still snowing here.


Snow is one of those things about which Jesus definitely is Not Sure.

Just check out his plum tree. . .

The wee man is spending the day inside, but me and Bruce have been out with the camera. I love the transformative effects of snow, even on the greyest winter day.



It was very quiet out there.

Though Bruce tried his best to make a ruckus.

Spare a thought for poor Tom, though, who set off for Liverpool this morning and is currently stuck on a stationary train somewhere in deepest Cumbria. Familiar Words of Doom have been uttered: “Replacement Bus Service.” If he ever gets there, Tom will be spending a few days at a conference. This will be interesting for both of us, as we’ve not been apart since I came out of hospital. It feels significant. Tom is really quite amazing: as well as working extremely hard in the World of Spleens all day, he then comes home and performs far more than his fair share of household tasks so that I can save my energy for my rehab. I know I couldn’t have managed the past ten months without him, and he is top of the list of the many things I feel extremely lucky for. But it seems a good time for me to try a few days of total independence. I am doing quite well at the moment. I mean, I feel a little peculiar all of the time, but lately the little peculiar that I feel has been slightly less. My norm seems more normal, in other words. I have found myself wondering two things: 1)whether this constant-vague-peculiarity is really subsiding or my brain is just getting used to it and 2) whether people realise how generally weird things are for those who have had a stroke. (I know that brain-injury sufferers who have linguistic difficulties carry around explanatory cards to be whipped out in difficult public situations, and there have been several occasions over the past few months when I have wished I was wearing a t-shirt proclaiming “HELLO! I’VE HAD A STROKE.”)

Physically, I am definitely still getting better, though the improvements are slow and incremental and sometimes hard for me to see. In fact, other people seem to notice these improvements more than I do. On Saturday, for example, we ran into a physio friend of ours who regarded my walking as something quite incredible (which I suppose it is, considering that the part of my brain that was most damaged was the bit controlling my leg and foot, and that some of my medical team thought it was unlikely that I’d ever be able to walk without a stick, brace, and one of those electronic thingummies). Recently, when I’ve been out with Bruce, I have even tried running a few steps. This is really very difficult – there is nothing my left leg likes less than moving at speed – but over the past few weeks I have progressed from five lopsided steps to twenty five. It feels quite exhilarating.

While I am on the subject, and as much for my benefit as anything else, I want to record an experience of a couple of weeks ago, after which my gait seemed to noticeably improve. Mostly, on my daily walks, I just pootle along as best I can, but there is a nice flat stretch of about half a mile where I try to make every single component of my gait correct – this takes more effort than you would imagine, and Bruce often becomes frustrated with what he must regard as pointless dawdling when ahead lie innumerable sticks and squirrels. Anyway, I was covering this gait-focused half-mile a couple of weeks ago, and found that I was walking really well – the knee seemed to be working without locking (a recurrent issue), and my steps were smooth and even. This continued for about half a minute, and then I suddenly had a terrible attack of vertigo and nausea – I had to hold onto a tree while I waited for it to subside – and then took Bruce the shortest way home. There then followed the particularly evil bout of fatigue (mentioned in this post), but a few days afterward I found myself capable of walking six-and-a-half miles from our flat to the Modern Art Gallery and back. I have wondered since whether, at that moment, my brain finally made some sort of useful connection, and that this somehow caused the crazy nausea. In any case, since then, my leg has certainly had more strength and stamina and my knee has been acting more reliably.

Anyway, I seem to have rambled far away from the ostensible subject of this post – which was supposed to be the novel experience of doing my own washing up and cooking for a few days. On the subject of which, I better go and put my supper on. . .