Germination
It's the depths of winter in the North East Atlantic. After the midwinter reflections, thoughts are turning forward to the coming year. Where are we going to spend our time, where will we travel to? Who are we going to share parts of our journey with? How are we going to spend our time in positive ways, look after the aspects of our lives that we cherish and let go of the thoughts and behaviours we wish to change? It's daunting, and it's dead exciting...planting seeds and ideas that we hope to tend until they grow and flourish. I wish you all a wonderful garden this year.
Atlantic Thread is the project I want to germinate this year. Between September and November, I am going to make a journey along the Atlantic Coast from the West of Ireland to the South of Morocco. I will be following that end of summer cusp as it travels south, taking with it our leaves and the warmth of the sun on our skin, but leaving us with all the potential for new growth that winter gives us. Everyone who has lived in this part of the world knows the feeling of that summer cusp; a bit like this time of year, there is both nostalgia and hope- two feelings which hit us all when we travel anyway. I am going to travel alone, but it is to be a journey of both interaction and creation, along a coastline which for many thousands of years has been a road along which people have exchanged ideas, skills, stories, music and love- not just the bloodshed and invasions which history documents. Right now, if we look at a map of this part of our spherical home, we see labels and we hear about differences- languages, administrations, cultures; all of which have changed, are changing and will change again. But along this Atlantic thread, we have, and always have had so much in common- we all know the sunset on the ocean, the sound of those crashing waves, the knowledge and feeling that we are on the edge, and we all know, maybe most of all, about that wind which, it must be said, requires a little bit of protecting from.
That protection and those connections are what my project is all about. Every morning on my journey, I am going to visit a yarn shop, and every afternoon I am going to make two things with the yarn I buy; a scarf, being a piece of protection against that wind, and a small shape. At the end of my trip, I will sew all those pieces together, connecting the yarns, the places I visit, the people I meet and the thoughts and things I learn along my way. My journey is going to be simple, travelling by bus or by ferry, staying in campsites, taking time to look at the landscapes/seascapes and to listen to people I meet. As I have to travel light, all the work will be crochet, as my roll of hooks takes up little space, and is much more resilient than a roll of knitting needles- and even on a crowded bus, there is always room to crochet. Every day, I will be sending away a completed scarf before heading to the next yarn shop, and I will be keeping a diary- taking photos of the ocean, the land around it, the yarn shops and their people; writing down things I learn and thoughts that come to me along the way.
Anyway, that is enough for now, thank you for reading about the germination of this project, keep following if it interests you. I'll be blogging once a week now- so it won't be clogging your inboxes (ooh-er!) too much. Love and light to you, Billy xxxx
Atlantic Thread is the project I want to germinate this year. Between September and November, I am going to make a journey along the Atlantic Coast from the West of Ireland to the South of Morocco. I will be following that end of summer cusp as it travels south, taking with it our leaves and the warmth of the sun on our skin, but leaving us with all the potential for new growth that winter gives us. Everyone who has lived in this part of the world knows the feeling of that summer cusp; a bit like this time of year, there is both nostalgia and hope- two feelings which hit us all when we travel anyway. I am going to travel alone, but it is to be a journey of both interaction and creation, along a coastline which for many thousands of years has been a road along which people have exchanged ideas, skills, stories, music and love- not just the bloodshed and invasions which history documents. Right now, if we look at a map of this part of our spherical home, we see labels and we hear about differences- languages, administrations, cultures; all of which have changed, are changing and will change again. But along this Atlantic thread, we have, and always have had so much in common- we all know the sunset on the ocean, the sound of those crashing waves, the knowledge and feeling that we are on the edge, and we all know, maybe most of all, about that wind which, it must be said, requires a little bit of protecting from.
That protection and those connections are what my project is all about. Every morning on my journey, I am going to visit a yarn shop, and every afternoon I am going to make two things with the yarn I buy; a scarf, being a piece of protection against that wind, and a small shape. At the end of my trip, I will sew all those pieces together, connecting the yarns, the places I visit, the people I meet and the thoughts and things I learn along my way. My journey is going to be simple, travelling by bus or by ferry, staying in campsites, taking time to look at the landscapes/seascapes and to listen to people I meet. As I have to travel light, all the work will be crochet, as my roll of hooks takes up little space, and is much more resilient than a roll of knitting needles- and even on a crowded bus, there is always room to crochet. Every day, I will be sending away a completed scarf before heading to the next yarn shop, and I will be keeping a diary- taking photos of the ocean, the land around it, the yarn shops and their people; writing down things I learn and thoughts that come to me along the way.
Anyway, that is enough for now, thank you for reading about the germination of this project, keep following if it interests you. I'll be blogging once a week now- so it won't be clogging your inboxes (ooh-er!) too much. Love and light to you, Billy xxxx
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