Links
|
|
|
Links
|
||||||
|
|||||||
|
|||||||
|
Music
Controller:
|
Mearnscraft's Links Page
Listed below are a number of sites that we've found interesting, whether to do with stitching, Scotland, researching our maps, the area in which we live, or whatever.
|
TOP
LINK
|
|
 |
Top quality soaps handmade in rural Angus by our sister company, Thistle Soaps. We make these soaps with ingredients that are as natural and pure as we can get and are of the finest quality. Sometimes the herbs we use will be from our own garden. There are no synthetic ingredients in our soaps, all of which are handmade in small batches. No animal fats, no animal testing. |
|
STITCHING
|
|
| The Yarn Tree. | U.S. site with a host of information. Links to lots of other stitching sites, very good stitchers message board, useful DMC/Anchor conversion charts, and lots more. |
| About.com | Another very comprehensive U.S. stitching site. Lots of links, articles, chat room. |
| Kathy Dyer's site. | Kathy Dyer runs the Web's most popular stitching newsgroup, rec.crafts.textiles.needlework. As might be expected, her site is very comprehensive and as well as lots of links includes Needlework FAQs and an on-line fabric calculator. |
|
SCOTTISH
INTEREST
|
|
|
|
International Scottish community site with an on-line magazine and plenty of information about clans and families, tourism, history, and numerous other Scottish topics. |
|
|
Excellent site incorporating over 6000 Scottish related links, regularly updated. We've used this site quite a lot for our research, particularly as there's lots of information on Scottish castles. You'll also find links to lots of Clan Sites here. |
 |
There's even more castle information on this site, with over 1200 castles listed and links to over 240 of them. |
|
|
Caledonian MacBrayne run the vast majority of Scotland's Hebridean and West coast ferries. The site has loads of information about the islands, the ferries, and west coast tourism - and it's fun to use! |
 |
Scotland.org - the nearest thing Scotland has to a search engine. |
 |
Scottish Product Distributors Organisation - Gateway site giving access to hundreds of retailers specialising in Scottish and Celtic Products. |
| ScotFind.com | Scottish Search Engine & Directory. |
|
|
The Border Reivers - The story of the reiving families lasted some four hundred years and resulted in a catalogue of events and a host of memorable characters that is unique, and can be directly related to all those with Border surnames now scattered throughout the world. |
 |
This web site is dedicated to exposing the myth, the magic, the beliefs and the baloney, the history, mystery and blistery feet that make up every walk of Scottish life. From Hogmanay to Holyrood, from the Tartan Army to the downright barmy, from whisky to risky, nothing and nobody is safe from the size 13's of First Foot putting the boot in or stepping in where others fear to tread. Scots Wahheyyy!! |
|
|
Largely based on Joanne Mackenzie-Winters' personal travels, this 80,000-word guide contains details on transport, sightseeing, activities and accommodation throughout Scotland with particular emphasis on the Highlands and Islands. I particularly liked her Island Hopscotch, a detailed journal of her travels through the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in 1993. |
| Gateway to Scotland | This definitive and authorative source of information about Scotland comes from the Department of Geography at the University of Edinburgh. |
| Isle of Tiree Online News | Tiree is one of our favourite Hebridean islands and this site, designed, written and and run by an islander, gives an excellent insight into life on Tiree today as well as genealogical and historical links, tourist information, and loads of photographs. |
 |
Sigurd Towrie's beautifully designed site packs in a wealth of information about Orkney and its heritage - History, Tradition, and Folklore as well as information about the Orkney people and their dialect, travelling to Orkney, Orkney placenames and lots more. He also has some really nice photos, one of which he kindly allowed us to use on our Orkney map page. |
 |
McPhee's was established in 1946 in Wellington, New Zealand. Owners Elaine Rowse and Alan Cassidy offer a wide range of Bagpipes, Kilts, Tartan, Celtic Heritage Treasures & Celtic Jewellery, as well as Ceud Maile Faille (a hundred thousand greetings) to all those with an interest in Scottish history and heritage. |
 |
ScotClans - A guide to the Clans and Tartans of Scotland: From Scottish Clan Information to Clan Merchandise, Handmade Kilts and Highland Outfits. |
 |
Lots of quality Scottish shopping! Scotweb, an independent family-owned company situated in a beautiful leafy street near the centre of Edinburgh, claims to be the world's largest Scottish store. |
|
|
The Scottish Shop is owned and operated by Erin Hogan. With a hands-on, personal approach Erin and her friendly staff are dedicated to excellent customer service for those who love all things Scottish and Celtic. |
|
WHERE
WE LIVE
|
|
 |
Angus is about half way up the east (right hand) side of Scotland. It's an attractive county with sandy beaches on the east and quite spectacular glens to the north. In the middle there's some of the best farming land in Scotland. We like it a lot. |
|
PUBLICATIONS
|
|
| Scots. | Published four times a year in Australia, Scots (full title: Scots Celebrating our Scottish Heritage) claims to be the finest Scottish heritage magazine in the world. We've read it and we wouldn't disagree. Its colour photos in particular are out of this world. |
 |
There are several fine Scottish newspapers. The Herald, a quality broadsheet published daily in Glasgow, happens to be our favourite. This is an ideal site if you want to keep up with current Scottish news. |
|
|
The Guardian is almost certainly the UK's best newspaper, and its website is the UK's most popular newspaper website. Utterly comprehensive, it contains sections on Media, Society, Politics, Film, Books, Money, Football, Education, Shopping, Jobs, Work, Travel and Sport as well as providing excellent (and unbiased!) UK, international, and business news. There are even Quizzes and Crosswords. |
|
|
Classic Stitches is not just the only Scottish stitching magazine (it's published in Dundee, just down the road from us) but we also think that it's one of the best. |
|
MUSIC Music
is pretty important to us and there's usually a CD playing in the computer
while we design our kits. Favourites include:
|
|
|
|
Possibly still Scotland's most popular live band, Runrig began life in the Isle of Skye over 25 years ago as the Runrig Dance Band. More recently they've become unfashionable with Scotland's smart music set who mutter about teuchters playing plodrock, but they retain great popular appeal not only in Scotland, but also in Scandinavia and Germany. Many people felt that the band would not survive the recent loss of their charismatic vocalist Donnie Munro to politics, but Canadian Bruce Guthro has proved to be an inspired replacement. |
|
|
From rural Ireland, The Saw Doctors are another incredibly popular live band who generate a quite unbelievable atmosphere at their concerts. If they're playing near you, go and see them! The very definition of a peoples' band, their music is unsophisticated and something of a cross between the Waterboys, the Pogues and Duane Eddy and is sometimes described as bogrock by the Dublin sophisticates who don't really care for them too much. Happily, the people of Ireland do - their classic "I Useta Love Her" was Ireland's best selling single of all time. |
| Taylor's Traditional Songbook: | All the books we read when we designed this site strongly advised against including any background music, the main theory being that potential customers would more often than not be irritated by it rather than encouraged. Not for the first time we ignored perfectly well intentioned advice and we have been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiastic feedback we've had, while there have been only a handful of negative responses (and people who don't like it can always turn it off). The music is all traditionally Scottish and is almost all sequenced by Barry Taylor. You can download lots of it from this site. |
|
MISCELLANEOUS
|
|
|
|
Berkeley University in California is trying to analyse radio emissions from outer space in an attempt to find traces of intelligent life somewhere out there, but there's far too much information even for its extensive computer set-up. So if you download their Seti programme, they'll give you a chunk of information gathered by a radio telescope, and when your computer's otherwise idle the programme will analyse the data, sending the results back to Berkeley when it's finished. There's a small but captivating possibility that your computer will be the one that first detects the murmurs of a civilization beyond the solar system....... |
 |
Test your vocabulary! For every word you get right, the site's sponsors will donate 20 grains of rice throught the United Nations to help end world hunger. |
|
The Hunger Site (www.thehungersite.com) is the world's first "click-to-donate" site where more than 65 million visitors have donated more than 7,700 metric tons of free food to help feed the hungry. This is how it works. You simply visit www.thehungersite.com once a day and click on the button ordering the donation of a free serving of rice, wheat, maize or other staple food to the hungry. The daily corporate sponsor agrees to pay for all the donations ordered. No money comes out of your pocket. While at the site, it is sobering to watch the hunger map, which shows a globe on which a country goes briefly dark every 3.6 seconds: it happens every time a person somewhere dies of malnutrition. It’s like watching Death on his tireless rounds, from India to China, then Indonesia, before hurrying across to Africa and South America. “Do your part to end hunger. All it takes is one click.”
|
|
Please
let us know if you find any broken or defunct links.
Mearnscraft
87 Charleston Village, Forfar, Angus, Scotland.
Tel./Fax. +44 (0)1307 840645
