I visited the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh yesterday.
It’s a lovely space and they have an excellent exhibition on just now called Follow the Thread. Part of this exhibition looks at the making of a beautiful big tapestry. It showed all the stages of making a piece of art from wool and showcased all the different types of wool they had used. It was undyed, so they used wool from all different breeds of sheep to match the colours in the Victoria Crowe painting they were reproducing.

The Dovecot is a working artists’ studio and there’s a gallery that overlooks the space where the weaving takes place – it’s an old swimming pool and the studio space is where the pool used to be. You’re not allowed to take photos so I had to be a wee bit sneaky. Weaving is a fascinating process to watch (actually I think the process of making any art is incredible to watch) and it’s lovely to stand on the balcony and see all the threads slowly coming together.

Even the ‘behind the scenes’ bits are lovely.
Of course, then there are the yarns that they’re working from too, in all their colourful, ordered beauty. Island Mouse, you’d have loved it.

Even the staircase has a fabulous fishing net in it!

Well, after all the art, I went and ate oysters with these guys. It was a good day.