I have begun stalking people's knitwear on Ravelry. I see a piece of handknit, recognise the pattern and search the Ravelry database until I find the actual piece of knitwear and the knitter. Today I saw a pair of really, really cute handknitted gloves. I asked the girl about the pattern and the yarn, and I found the actual gloves on Ravelry some five minutes ago. I love Ravelry - even if I have become a demented stalker determined to track down handknitted items so I can mark them as a favourite.
Notable knitting blog post about knitting terminology and differences in language. I do so love when people get really passionate about words. English is my second language and my knitting terminology is a sad mixture of British English and American English. I say "yarn" most of the time and "yarn over" ALL of the time, but I do try to say "tension square" and "double knitting". Funnily enough I have English words in my knitting vocabulary for which I have no Danish equivalent. "Skein"? "Lace knitting"? It took me a long time to figure out that "a ball winder" is a "krydsnøgleapparat" (and then took my mum some dedicated googling to find out where she could get me one for Christmas). I'm still not sure, though, how to translate "hønsestrik" into English - it was this funky 1970s political knitting phenomenon in Denmark which was sort of fair isle goes Peruvian folklore with added Marxism and second-wave feminism. You can see some modern day hønsestrik here although it seems pretty relaxed (and is knitted to a pattern unlike the original hønsestrik) compared to some of the stuff I remember from my childhood.
Tonight I booked a flight to London for a work-related event. It still feels very strange just to pop in and out of London in one day. Sometimes I forget that I live just a few hundred miles from all these mythical places - York, Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton and London - which possessed such magic to a little girl in rural Denmark who read way too many books. I lived in London some sixteen years ago and have been a frequent visitor, but I have not visited since 2004. It'll feel peculiar to land at the airport, get the train and step out in the middle of the city. How my life has changed.
(Addendum: David bought me a cherry/geranium cupcake today to celebrate a new beginning to my life. He is the best.)