Article in Living Woods Magazine

Living Woods magazine published an article of mine back in January. Mr Kite lent my copy out to his friend and I have only just got it back now. So here's a scanned copy of the article. Enjoy!

I recommend Chantry Cottage courses. They've all been excellent so far.

Now I'm off to sow more seeds. Yin/ Yang beans, Cardoon, Clove Pinks, Mallow, Sage and Dianthus; all beautiful and edible!

Basket and Book Fair

In May I made another willow basket, this time using a different weave that I forgot the name of already. It came out better and larger than my first basket and now stores my knitting. The first basket has become a rollag container. (Wool spinners will know what I'm talking about.)

I've recently attended a third basket making course, this time making a frame basket. That was a lot harder and the willow dried out in the hot sun by the end of the day, loosing pliability. I managed to finish it and will post photos up as soon as I take some.

Today I cycled to Stourhead because there was an antiquarian book fair on there. I bought three books:


Man and the Land. Part of the New Natrualist series. #31


I just bought a rug loom from a local old lady. I have no idea how to use it. Perhaps this book will tell me how.


Hopefully this will help in the coming months!

Article in Living Woods Magazine: Basket Weaving

Ages ago I attended a basket weaving workshop in my local town. I wrote about it in my blog: here
I sent an article about the workshop off to the excellent Living Woods Magazine. Now, 6 months or so later, it appears in the latest issue. You can subscribe to the magazine by going here or call 01285 850481. They cost something like £3.50 an issue or something and you can only buy them via a subscription.

Here is a scan of my article if you are not interested in subscribing:


Click on the picture and you should get a larger version to read.

In other news: I have started to write fiction for a prompt group over at Deviantart. The prompts are really great, but sometimes I wonder if I should really do this kind of stuff. I am so busy with real writing work, and then I go and distract myself with stuff I can't really send off to get published anywhere. Part of the problem with places like deviantart is that all the readers there are pretty much (young) writers. Writers read with an editing cap on, so you rarely get feedback from a real reader, from someone who wants to enjoy a story and is not looking out solely for a misplaced comma or a typo here and there. But feedback in any form is good and I don't get enough of it, which makes improving harder.
To read one such story go here

The Klandestines is happening, slowly. Keep your specs peeled.

Rural Living Update!

I meant to write about this about two months ago. My boyfriend, Mr Kite (who is thinking of changing the spelling to Kyte), lives in a small cabin in his parents’ garden. There are two large vegetable patches that he and I are in charge of. This year we did very well, and managed to feed ourselves on home grown peas, broad and runner beans, chard, spinach, onions, potatoes, cabbage, salad, strawberries, courgettes, butternut squash, brussell sprouts, leeks, parsnips and carrots, plus the existing perennials such as apples, raspberries, herbs etc. We managed to harvest things from June onwards, and we’ve still got leeks, parsnips, spinach, and a carrot (plus the harvested stored veg.) I spent much of October preserving all of it. I made countless jars of chutney, jelly, jam and syrup; not just from our produce, but from the wild also. Here is a bad photograph of a tiny amount of our produce:



Now that the annual veg season is closing we’re focusing more on craft. I am learning to spin wool using a spinning wheel that belongs to my grandmother. I learnt what I know about it from my grandmother, which is the way it should be. I am half way through knitting my first scarf. I dabbled with knitting last year, but never got beyond a small square of material. Finally I have got the hang of it. I hope to be wearing my scarf before not too long. Mr Kite is setting up an indoor ‘pole’ lathe, but instead of a pole he is using bungee rope.
We’ve also finally got some chickens, who live in a large patch of garden under some trees. They are very happy in their new home, it seems. I like the sound they make. It’s so soft and gentle.

Mary and I learnt to weave a basket in October, which I might talk about another time. Here is a photo of our baskets anyhow:



Mine is the wonky, taller one. Mary has made a basket before, so she’s better at it than me. I store all of my wool and knitting needles in mine. I like it very much. Perhaps later this month, or next year, I will weave another.