Breathing

The past few weeks have been really stressful for a number of reasons, but I'm feeling like I'm into the homestretch now. Hopefully this means I can muster the mental energy to start writing regular blog entries once more. I have been at this blogging lark for nearly a decade, you know, and I loathe whenever more than a few days pass between posts. I'm writing this blog for me, essentially, and I don't like when my writing dries up. It is usually a sign that I am too busy or that major upheaval is happening in my life. This time around I have simply been too busy to do much else besides working, earing and sleeping. Not a good place to be, I'm sure you will agree.

I am really looking forwards to my little Denmark trip, in other words.

I shall be spending a huge chunk of it in rural Denmark - this always fills me with a strange sense of unease. I have unhappy memories of growing up in rural Denmark and feeling hugely out of place. All the things I was supposed to love and 'be into' (handball, horses, and country fairs) just filled me with dread whilst all the things I did love (books, art, and history) were considered 'weird'. I was always the quirky outsider and yet even today I'm expected to miss and long for those small towns that I fled as quickly as I could.

Anyway.

I shall also be spending some quality time in Copenhagen - a place I actually do miss and long for - with some of the best people I know. I have also being doing a bit of prep for this part of the trip: I shall be visiting my favourite LYS (Jorun is Faroese and specialises in North Atlantic wool) as well as a few other places. I am keeping an eye out for Christmas wish list candidates and Danish knitters have pointed me towards some books that look really interesting (I particularly like Hvirvelstrøm from the last book). I'm also going to look out for some special Danish wools and I'm trying desperately not to go for rustic laceweights from the North Atlantic because, well, my stash already harbours quite a few and it is not really what I'm knitting with these days..

Also, this autumn is shaping up to be absolutely cracking. Some really exciting new projects are in the pipeline and I have to pinch myself sometimes. Even though I am busy (and just on the wrong side of being stressed), I count myself lucky. Life is very good to me right now. I just need a bit of breathing space to appreciate it fully.

Deep Breath.

A Bit About Knitting

Have you checked out the latest issue of The Knitter? It features an article about making a living from knitting and I had to smile at the number of familiar faces popping up: the indomitable Kate Davies talks about combining academia with knitting, the extremely lovely Emma King talks about being a workshop tutor, and the ever fabulous Ms Old Maiden Aunt talks about being an indie yarn dyer. A cornucopia of friends and acquaintances - and it leaves me wondering just how big the UK knitting world really is. On the subject of knitting, everybody and their aunt have aired their views on the Deep Fall issue of Knitty. My considered view is be summarised thus: Sorry, But Not For Me. Do not get me wrong, I like some of the patterns but none of them strike me as a Must Knit. Beatnik stands out with its vintage feel and lovely cabling - it is a Norah Gaughan design, after all - but most of the other patterns just feel anonymous (or in one pattern's case, downright unflattering). Maybe it is the styling? Maybe I have become jaded? Maybe most of the really cool designs get submitted to Twist Collective or are self-published?

I'm still working on my baby alpaca cardigan - things have been a bit too hectic for my liking lately and my knitting has taken a back seat. I'm pondering my next big knit, though. I have some ideas swirling round my head, but many of these ideas have been thwarted by the Self-Stitched September project. Like so many other SSS participants I have realised I have actual wardrobe gaps and that I have FOs I hardly ever wear. Roobeedoo sums it up quite nicely:

Identifying my palette will undoubtedly help: if all my new items fit the colour-scheme, it should be easier to put together a coherent outfit in the morning. And that's quite exciting! In the past, I have been guilty of making ever-shifting plans, which got conveniently "forgotten" when the next shiny project caught my eye... and ended up with a great big heap of mismatched summer quirkiness. With a clear practical objective and a colour frame of reference, there will still be room for a dash of quirk, but it will "work".

I have recently been looking at my clothes and I'm very far from a capsule wardrobe. What does help is that I tend to gravitate towards the same colours (peridot green, deep purple, dark lipstick red, deep fuschia, rich teals) again and again. Now I just need to gravitate towards neutrals too and I can build upon that. I think. I also think I'm starting to gravitate towards a more minimalist style (I'm DEEPLY in love with this outfit, for instance) which may muddy the waters a bit.

A lovely weekend lies ahead. We are having overseas visitors and I'm really looking forward to showing them fair (and rainy) Glasgow.

Points

1. I overheard a conversation today between a little girl - maybe six years old? - and a woman who was clearly the au-pair. The little girl was a nightmare and the au-pair tried to calm her. The little girl turned to the woman: "You need to get yourself a PROPER job. Oh wait - you CAN'T which is why you are minding me." Ouch.

As a friend of mine pointed out when I posted about this overheard conversation on Facebook: "Well, if she's that precocious she can probably deal with being told all the horror stories about graduate unemployment these days. And that maybe she can use insults like that when she's old enough to have a proper job herself. After her parents have paid for her to have a gap year so she can find herself."

Zing.

2. This past week has been full of I Am Officially Getting On In Years moments. The other day I realised that Freddie Mercury has been dead for almost twenty years. Then I saw a young teenage boy sauntering down Byres Road looking like a young Brett Anderson circa 1992 (and then it hit me that the first Suede tracks are also almost twenty years old). And I learned that one of my erstwhile hang-out spots in Copenhagen has closed down. I'm facing my own mortality and it feels really weird.

3. A couple of crafty projects have been finished with much success. My Idunn hat is splendid and I'm rather pleased with an Amy Butler skirt I made too. I have failed miserably at keeping track of my Self-Stitched September, but I have been wearing something self-made every single day. I have been having a hard time understanding the instructions for a particular decrease section for my current Big Project, but I have cracked the code (sleep helps) and Progress Has Been Made.

4. Work is swamping me, so non-work things have suffered a lot these past few weeks. That means the house is a tip, I'm 75 pages into a library book due next week, very little blogging/commentating, and crap food. I hope to catch up with myself (and the housework) before too long as we're having Very Important People visiting us from the States very, very soon.

5. Finally, I was very pleased to see this news story about ABBA and Scandinavian politics as the top BBC Entertainment news story the other day. One day I need to write about the other reasons why I left Denmark and why I'm so ambivalent about my country of origin.

So, how are you?

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 !