fourth edition

Wall behind the Hunterian Art Gallery and most likely part of the Glasgow University Campus
I have a real weakness for old bricks. They come in all sorts of colours depending upon where they were made; they can be handmade or marked with the manufacturer’s insignia; and they tell stories. We have too many brick photos [...]

I was rummaging around various knitting sites for an unrelated reason, when I came across the story of the Queen Susan Shawl.
The Queen Susan Shawl is a collaborative project on the Heirloom Knitting forum on Ravelry. Several knitters had noted an old photo of a lace shawl in the Shetland Museum photo archives and [...]

A few brief links:

Why not visit Pompeii from the comfort of your own home? The ruins of Pompeii are now available on Google Street View.
This is absolutely lovely: Flare, a wind-sensitive electronic dress. “As the wind gently caresses the dress or if you “blow” on the dandelions themselves, a pattern of lights will twinkle across [...]

Twenty years ago today my mother woke me up early. She was crying. Last time she woke me up crying, Olof Palme had just been assassinated. This time, though, my mother’s tears were not angry, horrified and sad tears. She was crying with joy. The Berlin Wall had fallen.
I went to school that day. My [...]

“This is going to alter our perceptions of Anglo-Saxon England… as radically, if not more so, as the Sutton Hoo discoveries. Absolutely the equivalent of finding a new Lindisfarne Gospels or Book of Kells.” – Leslie Webster, Former Keeper, Department of Prehistory and Europe, British Museum
The UK’s largest haul of Anglo-Saxon treasure has been discovered [...]

First of all, it is time to announce the winners of my little blog giveaway. Thank you so much to everybody who left me a comment. I really enjoyed looking at everyone’s favourites – some very familiar and some very unfamiliar projects among all your suggestions!
The skein of Old Maiden Aunt DK yarn [...]

Yesterday I found a new favourite place in Glasgow. Walking into Tam Shepard’s Trick Shop is like walking into another world, another era. The shop could have been straight out of the 1930s – except for the Obama masks and the nu-rave-esque wigs. It is a place where the owner will start a Victor Borge [...]

A few weeks ago my partner, David, came down with the flu and I succumbed a day later. I suspect it was the dreaded H1N1 flu, although we cannot be sure. I was cooped up in bed for a few days which obviously led to me devouring one book after another. That is, one Georgette [...]

My parents are currently visiting these shores and today we treated them to a visit to New Lanark,  a former cotton mill village and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, about an hour from Glasgow. I have long wanted to visit New Lanark although prior to my permanent relocation to Great Britain the words “industrial revolution” [...]

Robert Cornelius.
This photo was taken in 1839 making it one of the earliest known self-portraits in the history of photography. I have looked at it often. He feels so alive, so human. It is a far cry from the stilted portraits which were to follow in the decades to come.
I was reminded of this [...]