A very quick post to say that I'm still here, still blogging, and still knitting. It has been a very busy time at home and work since August and surprisingly painful without dear Solomon, still very sorely missed. Touchingly, a sweet little cat from two doors down has decided to adopt us from time to time and her owner is happily willing to share. The possibility of a visit from Dora has been a great help over the past few weeks - long may it continue!
On the knitting front there is some really exciting news. I'm going to tutor a course at the Oxford Summer School in 2010. It's called New Directions in Knitting and will explore the boundaries between knitting as art and craft. We'll be doing lots of exciting things with different fibres and other materials, so do think about signing up for this. The date for your diary is the week beginning Monday 26 July, probably from Wednesday to Saturday. I will post more information about this over the coming weeks. I'm also arranging to take a group of Jam Factory knitters to Shetland and Fair Isle in late May/early June, something I've wanted to do for a long time.
Yesterday I started a ten week course on Asian Textiles at the V&A in London. It's quite hard to manage logistically around my work but I think it will prove really interesting. I've also written an article about my trip to Xinjiang and Kyrgyzstan for the next issue of Asian Textiles, the magazine of the Oxford Asian Textiles Group. Look out for this on the OATG's website - http://www.oatg.org.uk/index.html
I've been working on my own designing, too, like the butterfly in the picture. I'm even beginning to enjoy the dreaded Intarsia! At the moment I'm working on Fair Isle swatches for Module 4 of the City and Guilds course. Good for the long bus journey back from the V&A on Tuesday evenings...
And finally, I am off to Andalucia this weekend, for a bit of autumn sun and hopefully some knitting inspiration. I've bought a swanky new camera (Canon IXUS 100IS) so there should be some nice pictures for you to look at in a week or two.
