Sunday Round-Up

"Is Toíbín's Brooklyn a chick-lit novel?" ponders the Anti-Room. Oh, but I have Opinions with a capital O. The commentators at The Anti Room mainly regard the novel as being a relationship novel, a novel about families. "An old-school Maeve Binchy novel", remarks one commentator. I am wondering whether the commentator has read any Maeve Binchy novels or, indeed, if any of the commentators have read Toíbín's book. Brooklyn is not a sentimental book about family and settling down - it is an uncomfortable book about being an emigrée, about the loss of personal identity, and about cultural identity. I wonder if the chick-lit question would have been asked if the protagonist had been male?

Self-Stitched September is bringing out some old knits (as is the crispy weather). I uncovered the very first project I completed after getting back into crocheting/knitting. I am not sure I ever blogged about it at the time (and my current readership would certainly appreciate a refresher, I am sure).

The pattern is Jennifer Appleby's Hot Cross Slouch Beret from Interweave Crochet Winter 2007. I modified the pattern slightly - on purpose! - as the hat was coming out rather dreadlock-sized. I used around 1.2 balls of Twilley's Freedom Spirit - a middling yarn I  use for crocheting rather than knitting - and originally I had added some ceramic buttons from Injabulo but they have since been re-purposed for another project (which I'm tragically still to do). It's a cosy little hat. I just feel very Bohemian every time I wear it.

I also need to do something about those layers my hairdresser put in against my will.

Full SSS update: Serenity (Thursday), Haematite (Friday and Saturday) and Green Crosses/Millbrook (Sunday)

We went bramble-picking yet again today. Last week D put together a bramble crumble which turned out too dry. We'll have a second go (top tip: always use more fruit than you think you need) tonight. My fingers are stained with berry-juices, my stomach is full of lemon drizzle cake from Auntie M's Cake Lounge and I think I'm going to try out for world domination once more.

Momse's Sewing Box

The parcel man brought me my great-grandmother's sewing box yesterday.

It contains buttons of varying sizes and colours.

And things that may look like buttons but have clearly been put there by one of my prankster uncles (yes, that's sweets wrapping paper).

And "Chinese thread" (I presume it is linen thread - do any Danes know?)

And a beautiful little container of French linen thread. I dare not break this open. So pretty.

And old coinage. 1960, 1969 and 1985, respectively.

And this is my favourite: a button from one of Momse's dresses. The colours & design are so her. I miss her.

Bricolage

The internet does weird things to how we are perceived and how we interact socially. Two recent examples:

1. A New Zealander living in Scotland has contacted me through YouTube (where I have added a few Kiwi music videos to a personal playlist) hoping to meet a fellow Kiwi expat: "i'm from xx, north island, where r u from?" .. Denmark? Maybe I should start adding a couple of Danish tracks to that playlist of mine .. nah.
2. Facebook sent me a message the other day. "Suggest friends for XYZ!" Today the site sent me another message: "Keep in touch with your friends! Leave a wall message for XYZ!" XYZ, a distant member of my extended family, passed away from cancer a month ago. Needless to say, the messages made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I can only imagine what it must feel like for her close relatives to be sent these messages and pushy 'reminders'.

Following on from that, I have been following a message board thread about personal identity with some interest. The thread started with a newspaper article talking about "late-blooming lesbians". The thread meandered through discussions on bisexuality, marriage and queer politics - but the one post which made me stop in my tracks asked about the idea of "always having known myself". Can we really, really lay claim to having a stable identity throughout our lives? One of my all-time favourite quotes is from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Ulysses:

I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move.

I like to think that our identity is an amalgam of our experiences and a select number of personal traits. I cannot lay claim to "always having known" something about myself, because "always" is a really complicated word. My three-year-old self had a radically different way of perceiving and naming things than my twenty-five year-old self or even thirty-four year old self. I feel at peace with that idea of a fluid sense of Self, a bricolage-like identity, which keeps shifting and moving towards untravelled worlds. I feel significantly less at ease with always having been the same person.

Getting all this from a thread which was basically "u all suck an i'm rite" isn't bad.

While I remember, I'm tentatively planning an escape a holiday to Denmark. I need to recharge my batteries and I miss people. I don't know any dates yet (although it'll probably be late October/early November), but I just thought I'd give a bit of advance notice !

Journeys

Yesterday my colleague and good friend LH took me to the wonderful The Royal Edinburgh Repository and Self Aid Society on Castle Street. Kate Davies has written a whole post on it (and weaves in a bit of Jane Austen too), but nothing prepared me for the actual shop. It reminded me of those summers when I would pretend to be Anglican for one day. I helped out in the home produce stall at the annual summer feté at the Anglican Church in Copenhagen - mostly as a favour to friends, but also because I could grab some really tasty homemade jam and sneak off with awesome homemade cakes (and cheap books). The shop was filled with all sorts of homemade goodies: jams, cakes, fudge .. oh, and knitting.

Oh, but the knitting. I had several moments of weak knees and uncontrollable knitterly glee. Plenty of pretty baby garments, practical gloves and neat scarves .. and then you would uncover one Shetland shawl after another. One-ply Shetland shawls - yes, cobweb Shetland shawls. The most beautiful, astounding things you could ever want to see in your entire life.

LH is holding one in the photo. I think at this point the two shop assistants had decided that we were bonkers, but harmless.

They pulled out more things for us to marvel at: fair-isle gloves and delicate lace scarves. I looked at prices and my heart nearly broke: for a full-size cobweb Shetland shawl (similar to the bottom shawl) the shop asked £75 (a quick price comparison). It is heart-breaking to see people of exquisite skill selling their handiwork at such a price - it is devaluating their work, their skill and their time - and I wonder why a centrally-placed Edinburgh shop is selling the shawls at such a low price? Does this reflect the market for such shawls or does it reflect that they are unsure about how to price the items?

LH said something profound about knitting journeys yesterday and I have been thinking about her words. Whilst I was physically taking my knitting on a journey yesterday, I began thinking about how knitting is also taking me for a journey.I am somewhere very different to where I am just a few years ago when I got back into knitting and that journey has only just begun.

In my head I'm playing around with a complex set of 'identity markers' and I am trying to work them out through knitting. I am getting increasingly interested in my knitting heritage (primary Danish and Faroese, of course, but with several detours because I am essentially a flâneur) as well as British textile history. I like to think of knitting as something intensely personal - the yarn runs through our hands and we touch every millimetre of the material we are creating - and I want my knitting to reflect me whoever I am becoming.

And to keep me warm and cosy so I will not die during the forthcoming Scottish winter. My cardigan's coming on nicely, non?

Sunday Sunday

Sunday, Sunday here again a walk in the park.. The day started with me drinking my morning tea whilst listening to BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour where I was informed that knitting was a "post-modern, ultra-chic habit adopted by the very, very cool." So now we know.

Then I began preparing for the Barcelona skirt sewing demonstration I'm doing Wednesday. I cut out the pattern pieces, read the instructions, and then laughed with relief. The skirt is very easy - just three pieces plus zipper and lining - and although I've not done much dress-making in the last fifteen years, I am confident I am not going to mess this up. Famous last words, of course.

The afternoon was spent in the communal garden. We live in a Victorian tenement flat and we share our garden with four other blocks. The plan is to make our communal garden sustainable and organic - today we attended a workshop on turning a tenement garden into a place to grow food (alongside all the other needs it has to fulfil: drying space, bicycle sheds, bin sheds, recreational space etc). A lot of the residents realised that edible plants were already growing in the garden - some planned (like potatoes, various herbs and strawberries) and some rather unplanned (St. John's Wort, barley and gentian). We discussed getting some fruit trees whilst having herbal tea and cake under the existing Cypress trees.

At this point I felt very middle-class.

Then D & I meant to go blackberry picking. Well, bramble picking since they call blackberries brambles here in Scotland. As you can see, though, the berries are not quite ripe yet (neither are the elderberries). So I went for a little walk through our neighbourhood instead.

The North Kelvin Meadow is just around the corner from our flat. There is a short video posted on its site which lets you see the beautiful space for itself - it is basically a waste ground between tenements which has been "adopted" by local people. There are tiny allotments on the site now but mostly it functions as breathing space for local wildlife and as a "wild" natural habitat in the middle of a busy city. I like looking at the ex-whiskey barrels that have become micro-allotments. Actually, I like spending time there, full stop. The Meadow is very peaceful.

(As you can imagine, though, developers are quite keen on getting their hands on the Meadow (it is right in Glasgow's prime property area), so there is an ongoing campaign to let the Meadow remain a meadow.)

On a personal note, I went for a walk (and a good cry) because I had some very sad news from Denmark. Sometimes I feel very far away from family & friends, and I am unable to travel back right now (for various reasons). It makes me feel powerless and downright awful. I love Glasgow - it feels more like home than anywhere else I have ever lived - but sometimes I do wish I still lived in Denmark. It would make moments like this one a bit easier to handle.

Thank Yous Are Long Overdue

I'm having a pretty awesome week for various reasons and as a result I have not had much time to 'grap a cuppa' (as they say here in Blighty), sit down and think about what's going on. I am not complaining about awesome things happening, but I do appreciate having time to breathe and having time to reflect. First, though, a big thank-you to some very generous people.

Roobeedoo and I had a quick conversation whilst at Knit Camp and it went pretty much like this:

Me: You look like you! R: You look like you too! Me: I have some vintage sewing patterns. You rock vintage sewing patterns. You want them? R: OK! Me: Cool! R: I'll take a photo of you first before I go look at Knit Camp vendors! Me: Ughdfsagr..

And so vintage patterns were sent north-wise and in return I received a very chic 1960s sewing pattern. Oh, and some yarn which was totally not part of the deal but who am I to complain when it's two balls of Drops Alpaca in a very fetching coral-pink-red shade. Funnily enough I have some grey Drops Alpaca in my stash and I'm sensing stripes + wristwarmers + hat ..

Earlier this year my friend Paula ran The Race For Life and I had chipped in as part of her sponsor deal. As a thank-you, Paula made me a personalised scissor fob in my favourite colours and I received my gift this week. I'm using the fob as my keyring (alongside a felted sheep - don't ask) because that way I'll get to see my gift every single day. I'm a huge fan of handmade presents.

And finally Ms Old Maiden Aunt handed me a Knit Nation goodie bag, a Sanquhar gloves kit (because I'm a big sucker for local history & knitting traditions) and her Tangled Yoke Cardigan. When I protested about the amount of gifts, she told me that she was bribing me into knitting her a Laminaria shawl. Hmm.. cunning plan, Lilith!

Now, I'm off to sit down with my new autumnal knitting project and hopefully having time to ponder various going-ons. It's been a mad week so far and it's not over yet.