Atlantic Thread

  I'd researched the shops in Belfast, but hadn't contacted anyone before...which is what I did on the first Atlantic Thread, but it was better in the spring when I had, and had planned all journeys etc. So I'd been thinking I wouldn't make all the ones here. I managed 9/10...all the sugar last night didn't make the timings match up, but I had been strongly recommended by Nikki of Secret Stash to make it to the furthest one, Lighthouse Yarns, and am so glad I did. I haven't had nearly enough sleep in weeks, and it is really comfy here. I don't owe anyone this time...I could just sit here just doing nothing 'But , nah, that ain't the life for me...I gotta do things...' so I put on my pink and black onesie, and call for my helicopter. Six wool shops today- this is a lot socially and geographically. The first reward is the train journey to Whitehead, on the Larne Line, going north east along the beautiful estuary. I didn't see seals, but apparen...

It's not news that Belfast is cool. I'm in the big city- the biggest on this island I've been to. It's younger than a lot of North European cities, and there is a lot of evidence of fun. Even on a Monday. I like it. It is a drizzly day and I drop off bag and go for a Guiness and Irish stew in a pub, with my embroidery. I used my headtorch cos of the Irish-pub-mood lighting. I'm feeling the intrepid/ridiculous combo. It suits me. I am in shorts and fewer layers than most. It's only October- what are they going to do in January?? Straight to the lovely Crúca Crafts round the corner. It's fairly new, and run by a gorgeous couple Alia and Dáithí. But really the utterly adorable bosses are doggies Bron and Beag. It's a really joyous place to start, going northwest from the city centre. I got some beautiful wool dyed locally by The Spinning Webb, but it was hard to choose because choice was plentiful. The Patchwork Goose was about a mile north west. Shelves an...

  Here I am at Heathrow, en route (well, hopefully) to Belfast. When I decided to continue my Atlantic Thread journey, I envisaged short stages in breaks from a settled existence in London. But in fact, the Explorer in me took action. I had started a journey, because I must have needed a journey, and I haven't stopped moving since I left for Knock at the end of May. I didn't go back to stay at the place I left from, or to the person I've lived with for 2 years. This is not a wholly unexpected turn of events. It's been a lot. But also, a lot of adventures. The searing summer of 26... One of my fave Roll Deep tracks, Celebrate, begins with a list of postcodes. It sounds like my routine. If I didn't do stitches and constantly listen to music on the bus and train- I'm often carrying more baggage than I've brought with me today on a 5 day trip, so I can't ride my clockwork horse all the time- I might find it exhausting. Sometimes it's been a pain, but mos...

  I'm writing this in London Fields, or as the Republicans call it, Fields. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Members of my family are often accused of diffusing tensions/avoiding issues by using humour. We're usually guilty!  I'm not feeling tense, but a little contrite at having left this entry so long. Life's been very chaotic in a hither thither of commitments and movements, but I'm just hoping I haven't missed anyone or anything out, because it's 5 weeks since I returned. There may (ok, will) be edits. I'm staying here looking after the most adorable enormous puppy called Lulu. She loves going to Fields and playing with her friends- it's a joy to watch. Today she is coming with me to meet lots of my family- we are gathering as it was my brother's anniversary on Thursday. A year. You know how it is. Dominic didn't travel all that much, but he loved Northern Ireland. This did spur me on to continue Atlantic Thread. That was the obvious next st...

Derry didn't feel like anywhere else. It felt  Derry and I bloody loved it. And that's how I knew I was properly on the Thread. I had the space in my head for the new. I couldn't remember what country I was in though. Invisible borders. As inspirational as Steak and Guiness Pie. I had walked around the city walls three times...I don't know if that's a superstition, it just felt like the right thing to do- reassured me like making the same rhythms with each hand does, but I also got amazing views as a bonus.  I popped into the Donegal Shop. And met the wonderful Eileen. Revenge time- she took a pjcture of me in her shop. She thought my sausage hot dog shirt was hilarious and had to send it to her niece immediately. Lovely knitwear there. The next morning, the lovelt Martin (oops Michael?) at the bnb I stayed in was so excited I'd met Eileen. She used to look after him a bit as a kid. He turned out well. He only wears black. He works between a gallery and an arts ...

  On the express bus northward. I could have stayed in Donegal a lot longer. It's been magical, and I felt at ease. If Ballina reminded me of Denmark, and Sligo Australia, Donegal felt like...Wales. it was soft- if you fell over you'd be cushioned.  There was a real magic there. Wales for me is full of kind women who've seen beyond the sometimes odd way I present, and go straight into real talk. Maybe it isn't like that in general...but that's who I've met there. And so it was in Donegal. I went straight on the bus to Kilcar, to do a real proper pilgtimage. The wonderful Maureen had agreed to give me a tour of the factory at Donegal Yarns- the second of the three large woollen mills still left on the island. The sounds! The machinery! The colours! The way everyone looked up and beamed when they saw it was Maureen going past. That was really special to see, and to feel. I met Nora, the woman behind the fantastic colours they use here. I've used their yarn in ...

  The Craft and Sewing Basket was a delight, I went there straight off the bus, and met the lovely Mary and Gabriela. They do classes, repairs, and groups and it felt really happy there, the infectious kind. And welcoming. Of course you would come here for yarn and fabrics over the glitziest of websites. Talked with the twinkle eyed Mary about the world of wool- thrown away some places and then imported from others. It's not rational, let alone sustainable. I got some delicious green marl spun in Donegal yarns, for Wild Atlantic yarns. I had a strange time in Sligo. It's very pretty. The Polish shop is the best I've seen outside of Poland. I found some sweets I had forgotten how good they taste. It was my day between two nights at the same place, and I changed my accommodation to in the town, cos I found the suburb a bit eerie. This was the day I couldn't really be fully on the Atlantic Thread. It was Sunday, and no shops to visit...I had work work I needed to do and li...

  I'm on the 458 bus between Ballina and Sligo, immersed in the next level Green all around me. The skies have been moody, and every so often, the view opens out onto the ocean and the cliffs. It's really complementing the Wu Tang coming through my headphones (NYC connection? New York, after all, is part of Ireland in a way, and vice versa). I find their music often complements crochet, and I have just started on the first scarf of this journey- cerulean alpaca which I got yesterday from the first shop of this visit, in Ballyvary. I'm starting to see patches of that very same colour appear in the sky. It's nearly 8 years ago that I embarked on the first yarn pilgrimage, from the Connemara through west and south Ireland, Brittany, Cantabria, Asturias, Galicia, Portugal and Morocco...connecting 42 independent yarn sellers who all face the Atlantic winds- and the challenges of facing this neoliberal system (the Empire), which will never really understand the nature of a pl...

Good morning all, I hope this finds you well. It's wild and windy outdoors- great weather to be by the ocean perhaps, for all its rejuvenating qualities of blowing the cobwebs away, but also the weather that exposes the dangerous power of the ocean too, picturing people literally battening down their hatches...but I'm in London, so it's a more prosaic case of putting on a coat and a scarf. And if you are in London too, please come along and see my exhibition 'Atlantic Thread and Other Stories' The opening will be on Tuesday 9th April, 5.30-9, at the lovely Apple Tree pub in Clerkenwell. This is when I'll unveil the blanket, to show with the map, photographs, and some other pieces of textile art. I will also bring along my Twelve Steps sculpture for the opening, and all the rest will be up for 2 months, during which I'll do two or three crochet workshops. I chose this place because it's been fairly recently taken over, with a view to make a true communi...

Good afternoon all, hope this finds you well and happy! I left you last week on a happy bus journey to Sines, and it was happy too to arrive. It's the first place I had ever wandered around in Portugal, and I did just that on this day, with a pilgrimage to say thank you to the town beach where the idea came of doing this project. This is an Atlantic town, and stays in touch with the rest of the world through being a port, and its World Music Festival every summer.  I end up wandering quite a lot backwards and forwards throughout the whole town, eventually finding the lovely Fernanda at the yarn shop. Someone recently, on seeing the pictures, asked me for directions to the shop, as she was from Sines and wanted to visit next time she saw her folks. I couldn't tell her, and I couldn't tell you either, but if you go around on a spiral from the art gallery in the middle, you will eventually come across it. Probably. And then followed an even happier bus journey to Cercal, ...

Good afternoon all, Hope this finds you well- and warm, it's cold outside, but I do love a bit of winter sunshine, and I have Grace Jones in the background, which always makes things feel quite sunny anyway. I've just posted off the last of the scarves, so work on the blanket is well underway, and am starting to look for an exhibition space, and aiming for April/May. I have found a couple of possibilities, both local, but if you have other ideas, please feel free to suggest! I'm now casting my mind back three months...three rather difficult months in my life...but I won't go into that here. I left you in Porto, just after my birthday, when I had a teeny weeny meltdown, but also a speedy recovery. I'm pretty introverted in general, and having three days in the same place, being able to stay in, away from too many people a bit, with time to reflect is pretty essential; and quite hard to get while travelling sometimes. The brightness and energy of Porto definitely ...

Good afternoon all, I hope this finds you well and happy. Please excuse the title if you're a bit fed up with people larking about with the names of the months. Movember was always particularly annoying when I already had a moustache anyway, and Sobertober isn't very inspiring either...but gloan is the Breton for wool, and it's nice to think of what's glowing amidst these dark months, so Gloanuary is my choice over Lainvier, Lenero, Olannair or Laneiro. I know I broke off from blogs mid-journey, so three or four more diary entries to add soon, but wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year, and to celebrate that the Atlantic Thread journey has finished, the final scarf is on the hook, the blanket is well underway and have just started compiling all the photos; have posted on facebook (billyblacklondon) those of the yarn shops and their inhabitants; here is Mohamed at my final stop in Essaouira. It's been a very tough time emotionally, and I'm grief-stricke...

Good morning all! Please excuse my silence,  am a little behind on blogging, thank goodness I have a lovely notebook, so I know what I'm writing about...this will be the first of three entries about wonderful Portugal, and though I'm in the south now, am casting my mind back a week or so to when I was in the north, where I was in three towns/cities, which although close together seemed to be startlingly different from each other... I didn't actually get to see much of my first stop here, Viana do Castelo; it seemed a little austere, perhaps just the contrast from Spain. We arrived very late, with rather frazzled nerves after the very long wait in Vigo...it's a funny thing about travelling, and have been able to see the difference as most of it has been alone....when you travel with somebody, the good bits are better, having someone to share it with, but the bad bits are worse, for the same reason. It's also a little hard when you are on a particular per...

Good evening all, I hope this finds you well. Am writing today from Vigo station, nearing the end of a 6 hour wait and a confounding morning at the bus station, served by a dozen different bus companies, where each person gave different information...it was just easier to wait all day and get the evening train...it is surprisingly hard to travel the 35 miles to Viana do Castelo from here...but it is across a border...and I cannot complain as the time in beautiful Galicia has been like a dream. My first impression was how similar to Brittany it looked, in terms of the houses and the landscape...it is another nation of sailors, worldwide emigration, a huge coastline of inlets and outlets, and its own language, much as it is seen as part of a larger neighbour. Apparently the Galician kings of old found it better to align themselves with nearby Castile rather than with Portugal, since the language being so similar, a union with Portugal would have meant absorption, rather than being p...

Good morning all! I hope this finds you well and happy. I'm writing from the beautiful little fishing port of Tapia de Casariego- it turns out it was well worth embroidering such a long name after all! This is just at the edge of Asturias, before the border with Galicia. I arrived in Spain at the huge port of Santander...a very impressive variety of architecture with a backdrop of enormous mountains. It's perhaps not super friendly...but it's easy to see why that might be...I couldn't say many good things about my fellow passengers....I felt for the French staff, who were clearly apprehensive about whether someone was going to kick off....a huge party of 500 people; loud, pissed and entitled, wearing the fancy dress of those who rarely wear fancy dress (nuff said), and a few fairly obvious drug/tobacco/money smugglers. If I lived in Santander and I heard an English accent, I doubt I'd be inclined to greet them with that much warmth either. Many people come on a ...