Postcard from... Scotland

This guest post is part of the 2017 Makers Postcard series - find other posts here, and the 2016 series here.

All images © Kat Goldin

I consider myself as having two great loves of my life, the first, a freckled South African with dark hair and blue eyes that I knew I would spend the rest of my life with the moment I met him and the second, the ragged, cold, wet country of Scotland.

I am not from here, but I belong here. I spent the first 17 years of my life in the rolling hills of Iowa, with soya and corn farms stretching as far as the eye could see, which was far, because Iowa was never known for its hills. The hot, hot summers were spent catching bullfrogs, fish and crawdads in the pond and the freezing cold winters were spent pulling my brother behind the tractor on the sled (because of the aforementioned lack of hills). It was idyllic, but it wasn’t home.

I fell in love with Scotland in a shopping mall of all places. We’d visited a few times and I was interviewing for a job near Stirling, hoping to escape the South East of England for somewhere with more green and fewer people. As I killed time waiting for my train, I wandered into the shopping centre. A two story window met me at the top of the escalator, framing the view of the Ochil hills as the jutted out majestically from the drained carse around it. Anywhere that could have views like that in the most mundane places as a shopping mall, was somewhere I knew I’d found home.

Twelve years on, and I still get goosebumps when I see those hills. Though my view is a bit different now, having moved out of town and to a small farm at the edge of the highlands, most days I find that I can’t believe my luck having landed in this amazing place.

 

  

This love flows into most of my designs as well. I see myself endlessly re-interpreting the hills and the sky and the sea and lochs that surround me with my hook or needles and yarn. The blues and greys or the sky and water feature heavily, as do ripples, all reminiscent of my surroundings.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever get tired of this place or if I will stop appreciating the landscape, but then the sun sets behind the mountains at the end of my cow field and I fall in love all over again.

Kat Goldin is designer, photographer and co-founder of The Crochet Project. She lives on a smallholding at the edge of the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park in Central Scotland where she also runs workshops and retreats. Her website is slugsontherefrigerator.com and she can be frequently found on instagram at @katgoldin.

If you are taking inspiration from your location this summer, share your photos on Instagram using the hashtag #makerspostcards and tag me @craftsfromthecwtch.