Listed

I have been having the kind of month when I am constantly running behind myself. I think this is called Modern Life, but hopefully I can retire to my Absolutely Old-Fashioned Life once Christmas preparation is well under way.

• I have been running a lot of Christmas crafts demonstrations and workshops lately. One of the least expected (and totally new favourite) outcome is my Christmas Pudding pin cushion. I shall need to show you.
• I have been busy designing a new shawl pattern. The charts kept mocking me, but I am back on track. I ran a small Twitter giveaway in which people could win my new pattern which proved to be a lot of fun.
• Meanwhile the Old Maiden Aunt knit-along is nearing the final stage and people have been posting heaps of finished Karise shawls. I get this really funny feeling in my stomach every time I see another one. I'll need to show you a selection of my favourites too.
• I have managed to injure my wrist by knitting too much, but once I recover and also find time for some personal knitting, I'm pondering knitting another Kim Hargreaves cardigan in some more Baby Alpaca DK. Because I actually love wearing my Red Cardigan of Doom. It is the warmest, cosiest thing I own. Am I totally insane?
• We have been watching plenty of films in Casa Bookish lately. They have no been particularly highbrow films, but I really enjoyed watching X-men: First Class and Centurion. On a slightly more high-brow note, I am still enthralled by Mark Cousin's The Story of Film and have just begun watching the second season of The Killing (the Danish version, natch).
• No books since my double whammy of Jane Eyre and Virginia Woolf's Flush. I have a mind to read some Djuna Barnesnext, but we shall see.
• I have been doing a lot of Christmas shopping online and hardly anything has shown up despite me ordering things ages ago. I know it is only end of November, but I am usually done with my Christmas shopping by September, so I am antsy.
• I have been listening to a lot of Nick Drake lately (because I'm that kind of aging hipster). Saturday Sun may well be my new favourite song.

I am well aware that I have not been blogging as much as I would like. Partly it is because I have been rather stressed and partly because I am hoping to unveil a new look Fourth Edition in the new year. Being a one-woman show is not all that it is cracked up to be sometimes!

Addendum

I'm going to have nightmares tonight. However. Some things are more important than lace knitting. Way, way, way more important: speak up and speak out.

The Traveller's Lament

I visited London yesterday for a work-related event. I had to get up at 4am to make it to my 10am meeting and I wasn't home until 11pm. It was a very long day - not made any easier by my sudden head-cold. I was sitting on my flight last night and seeing it was a clear night, I could follow our path moving northwards through England. After the pilot informed us we had just passed Manchester, the lights below started become more and more scarce. I leaned against the window. Some time later I saw a massive flood of light in the distance and seeing that the flight path would not have taken us towards Newcastle, there was only one city that could be that big, that lit-up: Glasgow. Home. My body and mind relaxed in that moment with that undefinable, warming sense of belonging there. I have spent so many years feeling like I did not belong somewhere that I still bask in the glory of being home.

Knitterly content: I have three Finished Objects to show off, but no photos so that'll have to wait. I only have one WIP which is completely disgusting. I do have one project in mind which I'll start later today..

I have also read several books recently. I'm in a very Victorian mode at the moment.

A few links and quotes:

The New Statesman published an excellent column recently: "You should have your tongue ripped out": the reality of sexist abuse online.

While I won't deny that almost all bloggers attract some extremely inflammatory comments -- and LGBT or non-white ones have their own special fan clubs, too -- there is something distinct, identifiable and near-universal about the misogynist hate directed at women online.

I contacted the columnist afterwards and told her briefly about my own experiences with "interesting" comments on my old literary blog. A male blog reader started stalking me in real life claiming I was "putting it out there" and I had to get the police involved (which was problematic in its own gender-political way).

Nowadays my blog is .. well, I guess this is a craft blog, of sorts, which is situated within a mostly-female space or community. There are still gender issues at play within this 'community'  - first of which is "can we even lay claim to this being a community", of course - but it is definitely a different set of issues.

Sarai Mitnick of Colette Patterns went to Quilt Market and was slightly ambivalent. However, I was struck by one thing she wrote:

My impression is that crafty women today (and I include myself) are interested in all kinds of handmade stuff, including clothes, items for their homes (like quilts), food, gardens, you name it. It’s all about bringing the magic of the homemade into every aspect of our lives, of living a life of creativity and meaning, of renewing and reinvigorating a range of traditions.

Finally, have you seen Margaret Atwood has knitted a Great Auk? She is on Ravelry too, of course..

Ghost World

With great joy comes great heartache, so my great-grandmother always said. One of the hardest things about being an expat is that I am far away from people who matter very, very much. My dearest and best friend and her boyfriend visited us last week. I was overjoyed to see them arrive and I was unsurprisingly miserable when they left again. But we did have a lovely week together.

Highlights included watching the ever-changing skies over Loch Lomond (pictured left), having an afternoon pint of local brew in The Falls of Dochart Inn (out of tourist season significantly less Brigadoon than I suspect it'll be in high season), doing the obvious Monty Python jokes at Doune Castle, buying yarn at New Lanark, playing Munchkin in the evenings, having a tremendous dinner at Fanny Trollope's and .. just hanging out with some of the best people I know.

Of course I was also working my usual hours and trying to deal with paperwork, so things were slightly less relaxing than it could have been. I also miss our guests in a raw, unsettled way. Still, I feel nourished and ready to tackle what is ahead.

What is ahead? I am heading to London for work next week, so I need to prepare myself for that. I also have a couple of patterns to write and a lot of things to finish. Somehow I have also talked myself into a rather big homemade Christmas present that needs to be finished by early December.

Ulp.

Finally, and wholly unrelated, I went down to Occupy Glasgow's camp yesterday and I had to laugh out loud when I saw a sign saying "Daily Mail, We Don't Respect You Either". How marvellous.

Survival of the Knitter

We went on a much-needed mini-break this week. (And by 'much-needed' I really mean 'if I don't get out of this place for more than one day, I will start shouting at strangers on the street and actually bitchslap them if they keep stopping right in front of me.' Have I ever mention that I am a city girl who's not a huge fan of crowds or human beings?)

Anyway. Mini-break.

I brought some knitting and made headway into a project I shouldn't really have cast on (I have too much work knitting to do, but these past few days were me-time). D. brought some books and finished two. I only checked mail twice (good girl) and I lived on a carefully balanced diet of cheese, wine, coffee, and cheesecake. It was lovely.

One afternoon we walked from one small finishing fishing village to another. A scrambling, rambling walk of some 6 miles. Fresh air, plenty of wildlife, and beautiful scenery. Another night we had dinner at Lairhillock Inn which was spectacularly charming: it is a 200-year-old coaching inn set in the countryside about 15 minutes from Aberdeen by car. The inn had a lovely, cosy feel with its dark wooden beams and log fires - and the food was surprisingly excellent in the gastro-pub vein. Locally sourced and freshly prepared food, yum. I succumbed to slow-cooked lamb shank with rosemary mash while my serving of cranachan was so generous, I had to leave half of it.

Do I feel refreshed and ready for another stab at Glasgow life? Uhmm.. er.. we have some very important visitors heading our way next week so hopefully that'll register on the internal energy & joy metre. I just wish I could have enjoyed this view a bit longer this week -->

While I have been away, the Man Booker Prize was announced which went to that jolly good egg known as Julian Barnes (also known as the man who wrote one of the most awful books I have ever read). I have not read his book but I suspect it was the least objectionable and most save-our-face book on the shortlist. I look forward to the Man Booker 2012 long list already. To celebrate I have begun re-reading the 1990 Booker winner. It'll be my .. seventh? .. time reading AS Byatt's Possession: A Romance and like all (good) books it is able to change and grow just as I am changing and growing.

Between Byatt, visitors, cranachan and The Daily Puppy, I may just yet survive.

Here, There & Everywhere

A couple of announcements: My Karise shawl has been chosen as a pattern for the next Old Maiden Aunt knitalong on Ravelry. To celebrate this, I am offering a whopping 20% discount on the pattern until November 30, 2011! Just cite OMAKAL as your discount code. More information in the Old Maiden Aunt Ravelry group.

I have been re-jigging my social media commitments, so I now have an open-to-all Twitter account that you can follow. If you used to follow me on Twitter, you may want to follow the new account instead. Knitterly stuff guaranteed, but I'll basically be tweeting about anything that takes my fancy. A condensed version of this blog, if you like.

(Speaking of which, I have managed to delete my entire folder of knitting blogs from Google Reader. I have tried to reconstruct my reading list of 300+ blogs but if I usually comment on your blog and you think I haven't been around lately, do let me know.)

This Saturday I will be teaching a lace shawl class at Wool 4 Ewe in Aberdeen. I think the class has filled up pretty well already, but any Aberdeenshire dwellers can check with Kathy whether she has had any cancellations. Hopefully I will see you there - and if not, feel free to drop in after the class to say hello!

So, yes. Busy times!

I have actually finished quite a few things, but I've not even made any Ravelry project pages for them, let alone managed any pictorial evidence.

This is a brand-new project. I'm using one ball of Rowan Kidsilk Stripe for a very straightforward triangular shawl.

Kidsilk Stripe is a new Rowan yarn: essentially 2 balls of Kidsilk Haze in one ball and combining shades of KSH to create lovely stripes. I've been pleasantly surprised by how much life the stripes have. Purple isn't just solid purple but has all sorts of subtle variegations. I hope my photo hints at that. I'm using the Twillight colourway for this shawl  (greens and purples) but I also really like the Cool colourway (teals and deep pinks).

And I have new specs! I was lucky enough to win a free pair of spectacles from Edinburgh-based Spectacles Direct via a Facebook(!) competition. I never win anything and I was in dire need of new spectacles, so I was very, very thrilled.

How do you like my "awkward MySpace photo pose? Ahhh, what you don't do to appease your mother when Official Photographer is at the other end of the city.

Finally, I finished reading Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child last night. It is exceptionally well-written (as you'd expect from Hollinghurst who is probably the finest stylist of his generation) but it is also exceptionally dull. I was going to write a full review but I would struggle to find enough interesting things to say.. ironically enough,  the exact same problem the book has.