大象传媒

So this is us. Our mini mansion upon the isle of Fair Isle. We moved here last August amidst a barrage of press interest, eventually were allowed to settle in & love where we are.

My studio has 2 rooms, one for storage, the other , the huge well lit one, combines the wet area for dyeing etc and the sewing/assembly area, no lack of space in this house.

This is what I was up to today, I felt a bit of a pinky/purple thang come upon me, but I wanted to be slightly more than just a plain ole piece of quilting. So, out came the acrylic paints & the bondaweb. Mixed up a good few pots of pinks - lilacs - purples & semi slaphappy gave the bondaweb a good ole coating.

There was still a good bit of thinned down acrylic left, so I took a piece of hand dyed fabric & gave it a good splatter of paint as well.

By the time I had painted those two pieces, the table had a good coating of paint itself, so yet another piece of cloth, placed onto the table, went over it with a clean decorating roller & got a nice bit of printing thrown in with my afternoons work. I am now semi impatiently waiting for the bondaweb piece to dry so I can start working some free motion embroidery on it.


So whats it like living in Fair Isle.

Bliss ! We raise pigs, sheep, pedigree aberdeen angus cattle, lavender turkeys, aylesburry ducks, rare breed chickensn & shetland geese, you just cant beat a few hundred yards for food miles ! We did our first crop of bere this summer & I am mid thrashing it all out & look forward to having some for milling, bread baked with 50/50 wheat flour/bere meal is amazing !

It was a complete shock to us when we began to see just how busy the island becomes once the tourist season starts, bird watchers, day trippers, cruise boats doing day stops, at times the pace of life during summer can be really hectic & very demanding, the fact that the island works really hard as a community is the secret behind its success.

It can also be a very hard place to live, living & working on the island means that the other half & I are always in eachothers pockets so to speak and we do get times when we really hanker for a bit of space of our own. I miss the city at times, esp having fabric stores on my doorstep & like minded creative folks arround me, I really miss having someone who shares the same hobbies & being able to bounce idea's around over a sketchbook & a glass of wine... or 3. In that respects, for me its a lonesome place, but I do my best to make sure I can get off the island for a few days at least twice a year, have a run to a fabric shop & catch up on new materials, techniques etc, even if it is only a 2 day stop in lerwick, a change is as good as a rest.

Next year I am crossing my fingers I can do a few extended away trips down to one or 2 of the big quilt shows, as, fingers crossed & I get them finished on time, I will be back to entering quilts & my mum & I can restart our annual *its my birthday* trip down to the scottish quilt championships at the royal highland in october, I really miss the inspiration being totally surrounded in quilts & fabrics & embroidery threads gives me.

Today is a very special day here, not only is it the end of the tattie holidays, it is our 5yr olds first full day at school ! Suffice to say she was seriously excited about the fact this morning.

Weather is being a bit of everything here this am, in the space of 3hrs (i got up at 5.30) we've had gales, rain, sunshine & snow, one can only hope the wind dies down real soon enough to allow the 2 morning planes to come in so that A/ the mail can get in & B/ the high school kids can get off out to school, eldest DD has her first prelim exam this afternoon.

I have been playing with Kozo Bark this morning, steeped for 2hrs in warm water these hard strips of peeled bark transform into softness which when gently teased opens out into a fantastic lacy sheet, they dye up brilliantly & make wonderfull textural additions to mixed media pieces.

Some Angelica that caught my eye yesterday, I am trying to cram a folder full of images of inspiring textures.

The only thing about living up here is the lack of flora to help gauge the seasons with, there are no stunning views of autumn leaves gilded in coppers & golds, no conkers to spend hours trying to knock down for the kids, only winters sudden sharp slap of cold & angry weather dictates her arrival, suddenly your mind puts the hail and snow showers together with the fact that it is verging on November & mentally shoves the summer T shirts to the back of the drawer in favour of a thermal simmit.


Already I am armed with the dreaded 2008 diary trying hard to figure out my life for the next year, as part of my city & guild course I must attend at least a few of the uk quilt shows, the hard part is trying to figure out which ones, obviously it makes better sense to try & get down to some of the bigger ones, quilts uk perhaps, a few days & a sketch book should surely allow me to return home with a salad box of inspiration & information. Edinburgh for the spring & autumn are perhaps the easiest of the bunch for me to reach, not to mention the one being held in shetland this year which I am waiting for information about.

Kids are *crossing fingers*, we hope, getting out to school today, the intrepid but stranded twitchers hired a helicopter and conducted a mass evac, offering refuge to some islanders stuck on mainland shetland on route.