Wovember Words: Island Spinning Song

This song appears in a collection of Island and Highland tunes compiled by composer Hugh Robertson, in the 1950s. I had heard it referred to before as the Shetland Spinning Song, but that is quite incorrect as it features the kind of  beautiful non-lexical vocables (think to Hickory-dickory-dock) which are present in Gaelic purit a… Continue Reading Wovember Words: Island Spinning Song

WOVEMBER WORDS #25

Working with wool, especially breed-specific wool, gives you an incredible choice in each breed’s specific properties and qualities, as Ethel Mairet explains: Every raw material has its own definite expression, its biotechnic quality. This can even be found in the various types of fleece. Each kind of fleece has its own perfect expression – the… Continue Reading WOVEMBER WORDS #25

WOVEMBER WORDS #21

Yesterday’s Wovember Words gave us some advise from Elizabeth Zimmermann. Here she is again, and this time Zimmermann tells us about how she felt that there is a shared memory, that skills seemingly lost in history actually lingers in ‘memory in the fingers; memory undeveloped, but still alive.’ A few years ago Christmas was enriched… Continue Reading WOVEMBER WORDS #21

Working with Wool…

In a sense this is the most nebulous of our blog-post categories, because everyone from whom we’ve heard throughout WOVEMBER is in one way or another “Working with Wool”. However in another sense, we wanted to create a space for sharing the specific aspects of the various crafts and skills connected with wool – such… Continue Reading Working with Wool…