Making, Mending, and Doing

February has been a good month so far. With several deadlines met, I now have a bit more time on my hands and this has resulted in a lot of crafting time which I have used well. Making: I have finished writing a brand-new shawl pattern which I hope you'll love as much as me! I have also finished knitting the sample shawl which has lived around my shoulders ever since. I'm yet to shoot the pattern photos as my model is currently overseas, but it won't be long until the pattern's released.

I have begun a lovely crocheted shrug in a new Rowan yarn, Creative Linen, in a gorgeous apple green. So far I am zipping through the shrug as the pattern's an easy two-row repeat. It'll be ace for wearing this summer. And I have a baby project lined up as my friend Katherine is expecting a boy very soon.

Mending: I finally took pity on my winter coat.

The coat is clearly on its last legs - in fact, it has been on its last legs the past three years - and I probably shouldn't even be seen wearing it in public. Unfortunately I have been unable to find its replacement (why is a classic pea-coat in warm navy or black wool that hard to find?) and so I keep dragging it out of retirement.

Anyway, I sat down to repair the holes in it - I crocheted some small, decorative (and practical!) patches which I sewed on. Inspired by Kate I then replaced the dull black buttons with some lovely red vintage buttons. The coat is still on its last legs, but at least I don't feel totally embarrassed to be seen wearing it in public.

I have more mending to do: David's jumper has been worn non-stop for two years and the bottom rib is now in tatters and will need to be reknitted. Any tips on reinforcing ribbing?

Doing: I turned thirty-mumble-mumble yesterday and we went to Edinburgh for the day. We caught the FCB Cadell exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art before heading down to the refurbished National Portrait Gallery.

Cadell was one of the Scottish Colourists - a loosely bound group of painters working in the 1920s and 1930s. I'm easily excited by anything early 20th century (particularly 1914 to 1925-ish), so Cadell and his cohorts should be right up my street. The Colourists are a touch too post-impressionist for my taste, though, and although Cadell edged close to a sort of Matisse-esque Art Deco by the mid-20s, his work proved too polite and too safe for me. I left the exhibition feeling a bit grumpy because I have always admired Cadell's paintings in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery and suddenly faced with a whole exhibition he felt wanting and limited. Maybe the curating was at fault - the transitions and contrasts in Cadell's style were never really explained and the obvious queer aspect to his art was not even mentioned.

The national Portrait Gallery has recently reopened and as a result the place was heaving. We only had time to peruse a couple of the galleries - predictably enough I swooned over The Modern Scot (where I discovered William McCance - a painter and book designer clearly in artistic thrall to Wyndham Lewis) whilst David enthused over Romantic Scotland, a photography exhibition.

I could write an entire blog post on the political implications felt throughout the Portrait Gallery - but I'm possibly too influenced by the novel I am currently reading - the very excellent And the Land Lay Still by James Robertson.

And so it goes.

In Her Soft Wind I Will Whisper

Lady on the left? My great-grandmother. She would have been ninety-six 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. The photo is black/white.

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). Post reposted from 2009, 2010 and 2011 with Momse's age amended. I continue to miss her.

This Bit of Glasgow

It has been a very long month. While January is seldom a cheerful month, this month has been a never-ending stream of tight deadlines, late night working, and battling post-flu malaise. Today I sent off one pattern submission that may or may not go into print (these things always depend) and it was so, so nice to be able to tick that one off the list. Now I just have to tackle the other entries on the to-do list.. Between deadlines, flu and whatnot I have found time to start work on a new shawl pattern. It's a really relaxing knit - one I can do late at night when my brain is too wired to sleep and too tired to focus - and I'm really pleased with it so far. Tonight I have been tweaking the charts and I had a really satisfying moment when I solved a particularly nagging row. I hate hate hate transitions that do not stack or flow into one another - unless I can see a clear reason why they do not stack, they just strike me as laziness on the behalf of the designer - and this one row just did not look right. The solution was right in front of me: moving decreases from the centre of the pattern repeat to the edges. Hooray!

My favourite bit on the interwebs this week? Reel Scotland speaking to John McKay who directed my favourite Sherlock Holmes-related BBC drama. No, not that one. Nor that other one. This one. The article is full of interesting takes on film-making, on working in TV, and on making things happen in Scotland. And then there is this great throw-away line that just made sense: "..this bit of Glasgow, our San Francisco."

My other favourite internet bits this week? This fantastic collection of Soviet science-fiction magazine covers. This grey airship bag from Etsy. And you can learn the most interesting feminist lessons in very surprising places.

Desolation Row

Years ago I briefly dated a guy we shall call Jay. Jay was a catch, I guess. He had an incredibly successful career and a beautiful Copenhagen apartment, he was handsome in his expensive suits, and his date nights were always carefully planned with foreign films and meals to match. Relatively quickly I realised that Jay had no friends, just colleagues. He had a family but he had no contact with them (nor any desire to speak about them). Jay was lonely and he had no idea how to transcend this loneliness. We went our separate ways relatively quickly - there was no connection and there never would be.

I watched Steve McQueen's Shame yesterday and for the first time in years I thought about Jay. The similarities between Shame's Brandon (played by Michael Fassbender) and Jay are superficial - the walled-up Self and an absolute inability to connect emotionally whilst seeming succeeding in life - yet I was struck by them. I hope Jay is happier now.

Shame has been marketed as a film about sex addiction and carries an 18 certificate (NC17 in the US) with much hype surrounding Michael Fassbender's nudity. I thought it was an intellectually engaging film - and very pointedly unerotic - and I don't buy that it is about sex addiction. The addiction is the symptom, not the cause. This review pokes at some uncomfortable things (spoilers).

Visually it is just stunning as you would expect from a director rooted in visual art: scenes are very deliberately framed, long shots are used to great effect, and the film is drenched in blue-grey hues. McQueen also uses reflective surfaces very effectively hinting at Brandon's fractured Self. I noted a meta-commentary running throughout the film: Brandon rides the New York subway a great deal and the trains have posters framing Fassbender's face: Medical Enhancement, A Work In Progress etc. Every single detail matters in this film.

Every single detail matters in this film, so I wonder about some  things. Brandon dresses in well-made, yet bland clothes and lives in a stark apartment where you would be hard pressed to find anything expressing personality - except for his records which are all on vinyl. We see him placing a needle on the record (Glenn Gould's The Goldberg Variations) - in a film so careful about each frame, that tiny detail nags.

My good friend Anne saw Shame yesterday as well and we had a long conversation over the phone about it. She liked it as much as me - although like is a strange word to use in this context. It is a thought-provoking film, it is a beautiful film, but it is not a film for everyone. I think it will stay with me for a long time.

A Month Away

Count yourself lucky that I have not posted the blog post I spent the other day writing. It turned out to be a 2,000 word essay on defamiliarisation as narrative device in Emma Donoghue's Room and Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin complete with bibliography and footnotes. If I were still handing out assignments, I would totally ask undergraduates to compare and contrast narrative devices in the two novels. But, you are not getting 2,000 words on literature. Why make it easy for undergraduates? I wish had read Kevin a few days earlier than I did, incidentally. It would have added some much needed quality to my 2011 reading list. I have also been kept busy by a quasi-flu and trying to compile a wish list for my birthday. Wish lists are hard because they need to fulfill a certain list of criteria (mostly to do with my family's location) rather than what I'd love to have in my wildest imagination. So, without further ado, here's my real wishlist:

+ A dwelling similar to this one, but in Glasgow. Also, with very different art. + A puppy, preferably a little crossbreed with a dash of Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (not a purebreed because Cavaliers are awfully in-bred and unhealthy). + Moda "Circa 1934" Jelly Roll: .". collection [of] its typewriter key caps, vintage numbers and ornate medallions.. Rich red, worn yellow, antique white and sage green give you the perfect palette to work with." + 15 balls of Rowan Baby Alpaca in mid-grey. Just because, you know, it's a gorgeous yarn. + Andrew Pettegree's The Book in the Renaissance + A chromatic typewriter + A really, really snazzy DSLR camera - I do like Canon's cameras. + A trip on the Orient Express - art deco decadence for the win! + This poster in a lovely understated frame. + A cherry brooch + This t-shirt - although I should read the book (again? - have I read it?) + You can take the girl out of Scandinavia, but she'll always love classic Danish design lamps. + Another trip to New Zealand. I'd love to show D. Wellington - man, I loved Wellington. Yeah, two months should be plenty. Thank you. + And, finally, blocking wires! I cannot believe I still don't have any!

So, which things would you love to receive but also know you'll probably never get for your birthday?

Yes She Said

I bought myself two Christmas presents. First of all, I finally became a member of MetaFilter - still the best community weblog the internet has to offer. I have been lurking on MetaFilter for almost ten years, so it was definitely time to take the plunge and cough up those five bucks. My second gift to myself has also been a long-time coming. For years I have been circling Garthenor Yarns and their organic, sheepy goods. Their yarns are produced from sheep kept on organic lands and the yarn is spun with minimal processing and no dyeing. I finally cracked earlier this week and now my Shetland single ply laceweight in 'light oatmeal' has arrived.

Oh, but it is beautiful. It reminds me of the Faroese laceweights I have been using: the same self-assured simplicity and honesty that says 'this has worked for centuries, so why change anything?'. This yarn is as far away from novelty yarns or instant gratification yarns as you can get - and for my money it is all the better for it. Although I'd love to see Karise knitted up in this sort of rustic yarn, I think I'll end up writing an entirely new pattern for it.

Okay, I have also bought fabric but it is less an indulgence than a response to 'oh dear, I have just thrown out half my wardrobe'. I did try to find tops I liked on the high street, but eventually I just went to Mandors and bought several yards of pretty polycotton in their January sale.

I intend to make several Art Teacher tunics - I'll be tweaking the pattern, though. The original Art Teacher tunic had a zip which I confess never using as the tunic easily slips over my head. I'll also lengthen it a tiny bit, make it slightly more A-line and I'll try very hard not to have ironing mishaps during construction. Scout's honour (I was never a Girl Scout).

Finally, I'm going to read James Joyce's The Dead tonight. Why? The story takes place on January 6.

Joyce is one of those authors with whom I have not really made peace (having said that, I think that is everyone's relationship with Joyce). I have read Dubliners from which The Dead is taken. I have made headway into Ulysses and Portrait but never attempted Finnegans Wake. I could happily drown in a sea of Joyce's words - Listen, a fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos - but I never connected with him the way I connected with TS Eliot.

Having said that, if you have not read any James Joyce and you recoil at the very idea, sit down and read The Dead. It is a fairly quick read, you won't need a spreadsheet to help you understand it and - best of all - it is wonderful.