For the Love of Textiles

Today is Grey and this is not my favourite time of the year. This grey light outside (this is the view from the window in my rather messy workroom) makes everything sort of pale. So the perfect day to stay inside -well, not really: we just had a coffee in Almen which we usual do on Sundays- to write some mails and to write a post here.In a way it is the perfect day today. Lots of things had happened over the last weeks after the holiday but one of the important one is that I will work all my hours in school starting from the 1th of February. It will be very busy with teaching at Medium and High level, but hopefully it will give me a good feeling that I am back in my work environment. My colleagues from Glasgow and Puchov with a group of students will arrive on the 1th of February for a few project days in our school. We know each-other for so long already, that it feels like friends coming over and next to the work we always have a good time together. This week I will do the last thin...

As promised I should write a post about my knitting adventures which I had the last summer-holiday in Shetland. On one of the first days (maybe it was the first day)I walked into Tesco and suddenly out of the blue I got a Big Hug and a Hey Jan...and there was Connie promoting salmon at the entrance of the supermarket. Connie used to work at Jamieson & Smith (The wool-brokers) but changed job. She is a half-Kiwi and half-Shetland girl and is now living in Lerwick for the time being before going back to New Zealand with her husband (who comes from Shetland ofcourse!!) She immediately told me that Jared Flood (yes: THE Brooklyntweed!)was coming to Shetland with another bunch of knitters and the Parents of Ravelry: Jess and Casey. And the next question was: please do come on Thursday for lunch in the Shetland museum and you can meet up with them. So I went there with my dear friend Birgit (who was my girlfriend long, long ago, but we are still very good friends) and we had lunch with...

Yes, December has arrived in full swing. It is really winter with loads of snow: >Love it!! And I am enjoying my 2 weeks holiday. So, the plan was to write a blog-post over things happening over the last weeks. In the beginning of December a new school-project did start and to get inspiration my students and my colleague had to go to Museum Twentse Welle in Enschede to get an insight in the textile collection. They need to design a man or woman winter-coat for a competition. The inspiration needs to come out of traditional textiles. So on a cold and snowy winter-morning we went there. The collection is not that spectacular but worth while to see.One of the reasons is that the region Twente was a very poor region. Originally there was a lot of textile production, but most of that has left and garments are now mostly made in the much cheaper Far East. Most of the garments from the collection are worn by richer women or men and all from the workers has disappeared. So there were ...