Strandlines by Julia Wright

I’ve just time to squeeze in one last post from the 2025 Knit and Stitch show in Harrogate before it takes place again! I’m heading back to the show on Thursday week and I’m hoping to discover as much as I did last year, but before that I’m sharing one final exhibition gallery.

This one once again shows my favourite textiles from the gallery, and once again I’m amazed at the pieces the artists have made. Each are evocative of the shorelines to me, which is reassuring as that’s the intention. The gallery showed a collaboration between three UK- based artists - Julia Wright, Beverley Caleno and Bryony Jennings, though it seems I was most taken with the pieces by Julia Wright as the majority of my photos are of her work.

Each artist works in distinct ways but they all share connections to the natural world and the shifting of the sea; these pieces use cloth, stitch and reclaimed materials and explore transformation, fragility and resilience.

DALES AERIAL, JULIA WRIGHT

CARBIS BAY, JULIA WRIGHT

I think for me it’s the colours she’s used in these pieces, the stitches and the textures that result. It’s no surprise to me that I like the deep earthy greens, but the one above has much more of a seashore feel to me - perhaps the attraction is being able to relate it to a place in nature?

CHIROPLAST, JULIA WRIGHT

I find each of them fascinating and even looking back at the pictures now my eyes are roving over the photos and the individual threads, following their journey and wondering where it goes next. I think to have pieces like this would be great to have and would be great to calm a busy mind, as you could quite literally get lost in them, couldn’t you?

JETSAM, JULIA WRIGHT

SEA LETTUCE, JULIA WRIGHT

Next time I’m at the beach, or the river edge I know I’ll be looking more closely at the textures, as with anything, the more you look, the more you see.

Trains in the Garden?

* I was invited to this year’s Gardeners’ World Live preview and provided with a pair of tickets for the show, therefore all my posts will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

Now before we start I need to be very clear, there will be no trains in my garden however keen MOH might be to replicate this, and however hard he pleads his case (he knows it’s a lost cause and we have a compromise!). But - and MOH shouldn’t see this as a softening - I loved spotting the amount of detail in this garden, even though it’s not for me.

The detail was amazing, and the enthusiasts manning the garden were clearly in their element which was great to see. The garden was designed by Andy Christie and celebrates 30 years of voluntary railway service, and with working steam trains running on the tracks it’s pretty special.

You see what I mean about the detail - with everything being on such a smaller scale there’s a lot of space for a lot of stuff. It’s definitely one of those gardens where the more you look, the more you see. And with it being at Gardeners’ World there was a good focus - and variety - of planting, clearly there’d been a lot of thought gone into this space and I’m pretty sure this was the garden designer’s first rodeo if you know what I mean.

We did spend a fair amount of time admiring the garden - I think it was part of MOH’s bid to persuade me, even though he knew it was a lost cause - and I admired the viaduct and how realistic it looked, it was very clever and very well done.

But, the bits I loved about the garden most were the three destination posters above the station and the ‘Beware of the Engines’ sign - and MOH wasn’t even shocked by that. He knows me so well!

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for once again inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was another great show! I’ll be sharing more from my visit to this year’s show throughout the year - I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

Recent wooly wonders

It’s been a while since I dedicated a blog post to  a wool related craft, and I’m doing so as I’ve really enjoyed creating with wool recently.  As you know I’ve joined a local crochet group who meet weekly on a Friday afternoon in the pub, and I go along as often as I’m able to.

As part of the village community we are dressing a tree with crochet wonderment, most of which I’ve not seen yet. Our ethos was to “throw colour at the tree” and I’ve already left some colourful, whirly garlands ready for the occasion.

Rather foolishly, and without a solid plan, I volunteered to crochet a pig garland I’m sure thinking how hard can it be! (Spoiler: it’s totally doable).  And the reason why I’m crocheting pigs to decorate a tree in the orchard of the local Hall, is because pigs used to roam freely in orchards, which is why apple sauce is served with pork. So it seemed right to recreate that in crochet.

Or mostly crochet!

I couldn’t work out how to easily crochet the ears so dug out my knitting needles, and voila! I’m really pleased with how they look, and i think everything with googly eyes is a winner.

So enamoured was I by crocheting in front of the TV, I decided to wind some skeins for a crochet project.

The plainer mustard and the multicoloured skeins I dyed myself at a workshop in Nottingham, the next is one of Vicki Brown’s make 100 skeins from 2023, and the final one is the top-up skein I bought recently at the Newark Wool Show.

It wasn’t all plain sailing, in fact a lot of those neatly wound balls were a tangled jumbled mess which needed a lot of untangling. Quite a mindful activity, but something that took several attempts to resolve completely before I started to crochet.

But start I did, and it’s looking great - the main body is completed in one piece up to the arm holes and so I’m guessing when to stop and change colour so that I can replicate the colour bands across the sleeves. Or wondering if there’s another way to make it look like I had a plan all along!

But first I need to finish the last few pigs.

I’m so glad they worked, and actually look like pigs!