Placements and Volunteers Blog

A pink sleeveless jumper in the main library. It has a band of multicoloured venus symbols around the middle.

Knitting the Woman’s Woolly: Part 3 – Ribbed for My Pleasure

After making a jumper for the GWL archive, this next jumper explores modern ideas in feminism and knitting.

Spare Rib jumper in the main library

Knitting the Woman’s Woolly: Part 2 – P1R1 (Progress 1, Regress 1)

Details of how the Spare Rib jumper was made and exploring where it pushes boundaries and where it conforms.

Spare Rib jumper in the main library

Knitting the Woman’s Woolly: Part 1 – Purls of Feminist History

Feminist magazine Spare Rib published a pattern for a handknitted jumper in 1982. As volunteer Becky knitted one up for our collection, the more there was to learn about the jumper and its position in the history of knitting and feminism.

New Books

Yellowface – Rebecca F. Kuang Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody. When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her manuscript and publishes […]

December Book Picnic Recommendations

On the first Wednesday of every month, GWL team members and volunteers share what we’ve read recently at our Book Picnic: Last Seen in Lhasa by Claire Scobie In this […]

Book Picnic- What we read last Summer (Part 2)

Our regular Book Picnic note taker and blogger Jenna was away this summer, so I took some notes which our volunteer Aileen has kindly typed up. So, better late than […]

Story Cafe round up: from historical fiction to eco-poetry

Pauline reflects on some thought-provoking Story Cafe Specials….both of which include writers who are part of the GWL staff team… Donna Moore: Book Launch: The Unpicking This was a special […]

Book Picnic- What we read last summer (Part 1)

Our regular Book Picnic note taker and blogger Jenna was away this summer, so I took notes which our volunteer Aileen has kindly typed up. So, better late than never, here are our reading recommendations from the summer of 2023.

November Book Picnic Recommendations

On the first Wednesday of every month, GWL team members and volunteers share what we’ve read recently at our Book Picnic: There are More Things by Yara Rodrigues Fowler   […]

Volunteer Story-Anabel

Inspired by the “Volunteer Profiles” which featured in the GWL newsletters published in the 1990’s and 2000’s, we’re introducing some of our current volunteers, to highlight how they support our work […]