Yes! It’s Sunday links time – your weekly round up of some of the lovely creative stuff I’ve been enjoying recently. First up, Neil Watson Slorance. Neil’s a super-talented local illustrator who you may remember from our People MAKE Glasgow book, and I’m a huge fan. I find Neil’s illustration really encapsulates what contemporary parlance often describes as pure: there’s just something very human, and very emotive about the way his work celebrates the things in his life that mean a lot to him. That’s certainly the case with his latest comic, Plant Daddy, which explores how gardening helped him through a difficult period of bereavement.
Neil began gardening after the sad loss of his mum, learning about seeds and plants from a book she’d left him.
Celebrating the restorative joy of simply making things grow, Neil’s book suggests how small actions in difficult times can really help you to keep going.
Plant Daddy is a wee book with a very big heart and I heartily recommend it. Only £6 from Neil’s Etsy store!
Next, if you’ve not already seen it, you’ll all enjoy this fantastic video from Carol Feller about the Cape Clear Gansey / An Geanseaí Chléire : a century-old gansey recently discovered in Cape Clear island, off the south-west coast of county Cork, and a local project to recreate it.
What I love is how joined up everything is here – from local wool growing to the island’s history and heritage, you really get a sense of how knitting has long been part of this landscape – and how vernacular artworks – like this gansey – articulate Cape Clear’s distinctive place in an interconnected, maritime landscape. Thanks, Carol, for this great series of interviews, and thanks to long time friend of KDD, Eimear Earley, for alerting us to this project.
Finally, the Listening Service is one of my favourite things on BBC radio, and last week’s episode about the Well Tempered Clavier was a real treat. Join the always engaging Tom Service for 30 minutes of contrapuntal inspiration!
Enjoy your sunday!
Colour Compass subscribers: are you all set to open the first package in your advent calendar on December 1st? More about that next week!
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In the Netherlands we have this book about Fisherman sweaters and their history. Visserstruien of Stella Ruhe.
Thanks for the link to the Bach too – I miss that sort of thing from the BBC
This video was a delight! Thank you for sharing it with us , Kate.
Oh no!! I’m back to linking to a completely blank page after enjoying the last couple of posts. Please help – Theodosia Ewers
Very interesting !
It makes me feel like I will search for the history of knitting in my own country (Normandy and Brittany).
Thank you for this lovely post, Kate. I expect that everyone here will be familiar – I know that Kate certainly will be : ) – with Guernsey and Jersey Patterns, by Gladys Thompson, written in the 1950s, If not, it is a wonderful book not just for the patterns but also for the anecdotes that accompany them. There are some close parallels with the ganseys shown in the YouTube video, which refers to the NE England gansey-making traditions. It is still possible to get original copies of Gladys Thompson’s book, although they seem to be quite expensive now. Dover published a revised edition in the 1970s.
I am a HUGE fan of Gladys Thompson – that book is completely brilliant!
It is! I’m about halfway through making a copy of Mr Verrill’s guernsey for my husband :)
ooh – fantastic!