Planet Ruby Starrs

💖 Its with massive sadness I have to post the news that at the weekend we lost a much loved person from our lives. My daughters partner died suddenly and inexplicably of some kind of seizure aged only 30, leaving my lovely girl, their two children, his immediate family, us, and many friends saddened and shocked. Those of you that know us will know that Jay and I didn't always see eye to eye.  When I first met him I thought he was gobby, challenging, and disrespectful but as I gradually got to know him I realised he was all of these things, but often in a curious, clever, funny way, but most of all I came to realise he loved my daughter massively and totally adored his two girls... hard not to like such a man. They in turn loved him very much as well.  Through the many years he spent with my daughter he really grew (up and out).  He channeled his thirst for life, his totally stupid sense of humour, his unboundless energy and motor mouth into building a life an...

My first weaving off the loom, the ends sewn in neatly and a rough fringing fashioned...  its a kind of sampler, using several different colours and 6 different simple weaving patterns used fairly randomly - in fact so randomly I'm not sure which is which - a lesson learned in future I need to write everything down so I can record which are the bits I like best so I can do them again!!! All in all I am quite thrilled about how this has turned out, the edges leave a bit to be desired but neatness will come with practice...  I spent most of the lesson tis week preparing a warp for my next project.   this is a completely new experience for me and we started by working out the size of the potentially finished piece of cloth and then having picked some vibrant blue and green yarn I wound a two metre warp onto a wooden frame.. Of course I was so excited I forgot to photograph the actual process and now have a tidy hank of yarn ready to go on the loom ne...

Snipe noises at Selset reservoir... more live posting.... 

Skylarks, curlews, lapwings, flies, phily cheese and fly sarnies, squashed fly biscuits... views... what more can a girl ask for... Dr Fred is climbing and i'm sat on top of Goldborough Carr sketching, reading, and contemplating the beauty of the world... posted live

We had a wonderful wander down Deepdale Nature Reserve today, British natural woodland at its best...- ostensibly looking for an esoteric crag - well there's a surprise.  We had a map and a guide book but managed to completely over shoot where we thought we were going and ended up sat on top of a different but still very nice rock with a rather grand almost 360 degree view of Teesdale.   It was fairly obvious why it was called Deepdale as we walked along the valley deepened into a definitive gorge and then we climbed up the path into the top of the valley for amazing views. The walk from Barnard Castle down through the nature reserve was very splendid. It was perfect weather for a stroll through the woods - the colours were amazing, bright blue skies with the odd white cloud, greenery bursting out, moss, trees, new leaves, flowers everywhere... Birds singing, a heady scent of wild garlic, swathes of bluebells, dappled sun light over the amazing verdant greenery,...

I don't often post much negative on this blog but it is a kind of life diary, and life doesn't always go according to plan.  I purposely don't name people so I'm not open to libel cases, I don't want to end up in court because I've falsely accused someone of  laughing too much, being too generous, creative or simply tossing stones into my somewhat hectic life... but every now again life isn't so pleasant and something ripples through reminding us of just how unstable the outside world can be, so here, sadly, and hopefully rare, is a cautionary tale.... I have just a had a lovely jaunt to my home town Leeds and as usual caught up with lots of people -to be honest in a minor passing kind of way it was a little bit of a life affirming process.  First of all it reminded me as to why we had moved to this part of the world, nipping down to Leeds was so easy, not much more then a planned major supermarket expedition used to be, even in the evening rush hour traff...

I've been weaving again.  Now progressed to two colours, and even mastered various patterns and today started playing with merging patterns as well as colour!! This is the tranquil and easy bit part- next week we tackle warping up the loom - a daunting task!!   Its an incredibly soothing task, weaving, quiet, slow, methodical yet inventive, contemporary and creative.  I'm excited about taking this off the loom to see what it really looks like and how it feels and looking forward to the next lesson learning the warp process.  Maybe wont feel so soothed next week but will defo be learning a new skill.

I had my interview for THE northern College Of Art - formerly known as Cleveland College of Art and Design.  It went really well, they offered me a direct entry place to continue with my Textiles degree in September.  I had to showcase my portfolio from the two years I did at Newcastle, and it seemed to go down really well and then we had a tour of the facilities, brand new purpose built, and it all looks great - I bumped into three of my previous student cohort who were encouraging and enthusiastic about the studies they were involved in.  The standard of work was excellent, there was a real diversity of style and media it looked so brilliant- so I'm very excited that I'm going to be part of that come the end of the year.  We came home and sat in the garden being grown up and drinking G&T's to celebrate.  we hung out at home all weekend enjoying this completely unprecedented glorious sunshine on a bank holiday!!, We only left the house for a couple of aft...