20. I'm allergic to pistachio nuts if I eat more than a pound in less than 30 minutes.
That fact and twenty-four other exciting and essential factoids about your bloggerista (i.e. me) can be found here. I was tagged to do it on a certain social networking site and thought I'd share the pain.
The Aye Write literary festival lineup is pretty good - and for the first time since I moved to "Glasga", I can actually go! I have booked tickets to see Jonathan Coe and Andrew Crumey in conversations with Rodge Glass and I'm rather excited. You must understand that I've been used to the Copenhagen Book Fair where we got celebrity chefs and D-list reality stars flogging their books (with the occasional AS Byatt thrown in for good measure). Aye Write! is considerably more my thing. Coe is one of my favourite contemporary authors and I'm in the process of becoming a Crumey convert.
Also, a big thank you to some of my Glasgow friends who floored me the other day with their kindness, thoughtfulness and generosity. You guys rock. You really do.
Yes, I know I said stuff about knitting with grey wool. The phrases "never again", "not in the winter months" and "I need colour!!!!!" may have passed my lips.
But I've changed my mind.
The pattern is Norwegian Woods by Sivia Harding. Earlier this year I knitted a few repeats of it in the gawjuss Old Maiden Aunt silk/merino yarn I have stashed away. I was flippant, made a few too many mistakes and ripped it all out. Now I'm knitting the shawl in Snældan's 1-ply wool (Faroese wool mixed with a touch of Falkland Islands wool - and spun on the Faroe Islands!). I'll blog more about the shawl as it progresses.
As you can see from the photo, it is snowing in Glasgow today. South-east England has had a couple of inches of snow and they are panicking. Silly people (sayeth this Scandinavian gal) For once I don't mind the snow so much and it made for a great photo opportunity this morning. Right now I'm still seeing ginormous snowflakes hurling towards the ground.
A couple of links (because my links folder is bursting at its seams). + I really want this t-shirt. + Is there anything Barack Obama cannot do? Well, I'm not too hot on his poetry. Dare I say it? I write better poetry than him? I do. + Great photos of London from above (thanks, Molly) + A bit more heavy-going than I usually get here: We Who Are Left Behind: Poetry as Testimony in Derrida and Celan. + Amazing Flickr photo-stream: Lars Daniel. He makes me miss Copenhagen even more. + Type as Image. It does wot it sez on teh tin.
Have a lovely day - with or without snow.
Lady on the left? My great-grandmother. She would have been ninety-three today.
The photo was taken in the early 1950s outside her cottage and she is with two of her sons, K and T.
I have several photos of her; my other favourite is from the 1930s when she was approached by a travelling salesman who wanted her to become a hair model. I presume she shot him one of her withering glances. The photo shows her with long, gorgeous hair. I was told it was chestnut-coloured.
I was lucky enough to grow up around her. She minded me when I was pre-kindergarten and I spent most of my school holidays in her cottage. Her cottage did not have running water until I was maybe seven or eight and never got central heating. I can still envision her sitting in her chair in front of the kerosene-fuelled stove. She'd knit long garter stitch strips from yarn scraps and sew them into blankets. I think she was the one who taught me to knit. She was certainly the one who taught me how to skip rope.
Happy birthday, momse. We may not always have seen eye to eye, but we loved and understood each other. And I still miss you.
Title comes from this beautiful farewell song (youtube link).
I'm baking a chocolate and beetroot cake; David's reading an advance copy of Mr Toppit. Later I will rip out the neckline of my now finished-but-unfinished grey jumper (the wool is tickling the upper part of my neck/chin). I feel so middle-class.
It snowed this afternoon and we are said to get heavy snowfall tomorrow. I have been curled up inside finishing my first project in 2009 and also doing a stash-busting exercise with plenty of colours. Colours warm my soul - especially with snow outside.
The first finished project in 2009 is this little cardigan which I've dubbed Presto Chango Monsta (literally "Quick Change Monster"). I have a nephew due in March and I thought he might like to snuggle up in a soft little top.
The Presto Chango pattern was an utter delight whilst my chosen yarn, Washed Haze, was splitty and showed up every tiny flaw (plus I'll never be a fan of cotton or cotton-blends). I chose to embroider a little monster rather than knit a lacy front.
The end result is rather nice even if my freehand embroidery is wonky.
I suspect that Presto Chango will become my go-to pattern for baby gifts. It's very easy to customise and is a joy to knit. I just need to find a less irritating yarn (still washable and still soft).
My stash-busting project is this shawl. I began it whilst watching In Bruges and it has grown enormously since then. It's a bog-standard triangular shawl (I have posted brief pattern notes on the Ravelry project page) knitted in Wendy Fusion with an edging done in Rowan Kidsilk Haze. It makes me smile, it's easy TV knitting and it uses up all those stray balls of wool I have lying about.
A non-knitting observation, finally.
I do not have many kind words to say about Facebook and privacy settings. However, I just found out that you can actually block specific people from finding you on Facebook (let alone try to friend you or view photos posted of you). I have now blocked my old stalker* from viewing anything related to me which gives me a nice, fuzzy feeling. Thank you, Facebook. It's a nice feature.
(* stalker in the "oh god, now the police is involved, I have to hand over evidence and I cannot sleep in my own home" sense, alas.)
PS. Our Christmas tree has been recycled and its removal from our home now means I have free access to my yarn stash again, oh happy days.