Biking in Glasgow

I have been biking in Glasgow since mid-March (so, two months). Here are a few observations. First, though, you should know this about me.

a) I am Danish and have been biking since I was two or three.

b) I grew up biking in a small rural community in Denmark with no cycle paths.

c) I spent the majority of my adult life biking in Copenhagen which is an enormously bike-friendly city.

d) To me, biking is not a sport or leisure activity. Biking is a mode of transport - a way from getting from A to B.

Some background:

I moved to Glasgow in 2006. The six years between moving here and me getting a bike are the longest I have ever gone without a bike. Initially I decided against getting a bike due to traffic running in the left lane rather than the Continental right and then I was unable to bike for a number of health reasons. However, I had been toying with the idea for some time and I eventually bought my bike in March 2012.

What made you decide to get a bike?

We don't have a car in our household which means I had become reliant upon public transport. Public transport in Glasgow is not great: bus routes are frequently illogical, you cannot transfer from bus to subway without getting a new ticket, and prices have shot up in recent years. Add to that some rather unfortunate incidents on my most-used bus route and I had had enough. Time to get a bike.

So what is it like biking in Glasgow?

It is both better and worse than I expected.

Good bits:

• Cycle paths are readily available. I really enjoy being able to spot deer, foxes and swans on my daily commute rather than grim bus drivers.
• Navigating left-side traffic is not terribly difficult and it is far less terrifying than I had expected.
• Due to the nature of Glasgow, it is easy to find short-cuts and unexpected routes. You don't need to use heavy traffic roads unless you have a strange desire to do so.
• People are easily impressed. 'I bike to work' is mostly met with dropped jaws and compliments - even if biking to work only takes me 20 minutes. I am now an exotic creature!
• I feel an enormous sense of freedom. I don't have to wait for buses or trains. I don't have to plan my day around timetables. I can run my errands without any hassle.
• And I am losing weight! A nice side-effect.

Bad bits:

• Biking provokes people. I have had snack wrappers thrown at me from a passing car with matching verbal abuse. I have also had verbal abuse from random pedestrians. Also, teenagers have jumped in front of me trying to make me swerve into oncoming traffic which was an new and exciting experience.
• Cycle paths are not always ideal - for my money, cobbled streets are the work of the devil - and occasionally interesting to bike down (there is one part where I'm likely to fall into the canal if someone tries to pass me).
• Cars will often park right across your cycle path leaving you few options where to bike safely.
• Cars will also stop and block your way without any indication - and drivers will also open their doors without notice. I have had this in Denmark too although not to same degree.
• People associate biking with sports, so most of the gear available is decked out in florescent colours and is very over-priced (presumably because it is marketed as 'high-tech'). I sometimes wear a skirt when biking - this confuses many of the other cyclists who are mostly wearing Lycra.

Any tips?

• I try to make myself as big as possible when I bike on normal roads. I don't crawl along the kerb as I believe this'll make drivers less careful around me. Instead I bike maybe 3 feet away from the kerb and I make sure to exaggerate any arm indications I am making.
• I do not wear big florescent jackets  for the same reason as above. I believe wearing these jackets will actually make drivers less careful around me as the 'safety gear' indicates a certain level of invulnerability. I wear my normal clothes but add florescent strips at night (as well as lights, of course).
• I wear a bike helmet. I see people without helmet and while I used to be one of them, I wouldn't do that here in Glasgow.
• Get in touch with Sustrans who can provide you with info on local cycle routes.
• Assess your local landscape before buying your bike. I wish I had bought a bike with five or more gears, but I opted for a three-gear bike before I realised just how hilly Glasgow can get on a bike. I love my bike to bits, but it is not as practical as I would have liked.
• Be prepared to justify your existence on the road. Biking is not as much of an integral part of your average lifestyle (unlike Denmark) so you have to be prepared for some offensive comments and behaviour.

Finally, would you recommend getting a bike?

Yes. It is the best thing that has happened to me in a very long time.

The Wedding Blanket

This one has been under wraps for a very long time. I am a member of Glasgow Knit'n'Stitch - Glasgow's biggest knitting community with almost 400 members. When I first moved to Glasgow, I knew very few people and GKS was instrumental in me connecting with people outside my very small circle of acquaintances. One of my closest friendships is with Elaine of SoCherry. Elaine is getting married this year and this led to some of us discussing what to make her and Future Mr SoCherry. Originally we wanted to make them a quilt but once other members of GKS heard about our plans, the plans .. grew. They grew so big so rapidly that the focus was quickly shifted to a communal project - one that everybody could contribute to no matter their skill level or amount of time they could devote.

And so The Wedding Blanket project began.

We briefly contemplated using The Great American Afghan pattern book, but it did not have as many sampler blocks to choose from and several of our less experienced knitters expressed concerns.

Instead we chose to use a US knitting pamphlet - Leisure Arts no. 932 - which contains 60 different sampler blocks ranging from beginner-friendly squares to rather complex cables. It proved a great choice and I would heartily recommend the sampler to anyone wanting to increase their skill sets by making a blanket. You have a good selection of squares to choose from and all of the patterns are clearly written out.

We already knew that Elaine loves her Aran-style blankets and although we finally ended up with a mix of lace and cables, the emphasis is very much upon texture and cables. This also influenced our choice of yarn. Paula and I were in charge of the yarn-sleuthing. Again, we had a set of criteria: it had to be British, it had to be cream-coloured/natural, it had to be aran-weight, it had to be pure wool and it had to be superwash. We also had a budget in mind which made yarn-sleuthing even more fun! Eventually Lilith of Old Maiden Aunt came through for us and we ended up with an amazing yarn: superwash Bluefaced Leicester Aran. (Lilith is currently dyeing this base and fourteen GKS knitters can vouch for how incredibly nice yarn is! We feel very privileged that we were allowed to knit with it before anybody else!)

With everything in place, what followed next? Three intense months of knitting.

Elaine had no idea, of course. Parcels were exchanged under the table; secret meet-ups were arranged; Tam Shepherd's became our mid-city drop-off for parcels & yarn pick-up; cryptic messages were sent out; and at one point Lilith was distributing yarn from the back of her car in the pouring rain. Yes, it felt rather like we were running a drug gang!

Looking back it is incredible that nobody slipped up and that everything went so smoothly.

One GKS member even knitted her square in Australia whilst there for work. Another GKS member had yarn sent to her in Amsterdam where she now lives. I know several other people wanted to have taken part - Emma and Mags, I am thinking of you - but the planning stage was no more than a week at best. It was so touching to see just how many people were keen on getting involved and how much Elaine and her fiancée meant to people.

Then one Sunday not so long ago most of us gathered at Paula's house to finish the blanket. It was a very special afternoon watching squares turning into strips turning into sections turning (finally) into a blanket. I imagine making barn-raiding quilt would have been a bit like this: women gathered together making something. We worked at it from every angle - at one point one person was crocheting the double crochet edging and another person was crocheting the lacy edging on top. Chain gang, if you will pardon the pun!

And we finished the blanket!

From left to right: Alison, Fiona, Paula, Karie, Catherine, Janice, Lynette, and Julia.

Not present: Jules, Lisa, Kathleen, Eleanor, Kerry and Gloria.

Photographer: Lilith.

Gloria also created a beautiful scrapbook detailing how much work went into the blanket, how we had made it and how much it was a labour of love.

And we did think of it as a blanket of love. For me, personally, the blanket represents how much I learned from being involved with GKS; how my life has changed since I embraced being a Knitter; and just how amazing knitters are when they get together. We make things and we give so much of ourselves to others through our making. I made this blanket together with thirteen incredible women with each their own story - and we made it for a couple with their own story-making.

(I hope that made sense. I am not usually this sentimental!)

And then everything almost went haywire. We had planned a small knitterly hen-night for Elaine and we wanted it to be a surprise. On the morning of the hen-night Future Mr SoCherry texted me to tell me that Elaine had had to leave work due to a nasty migraine. Eventually we managed to coax her out to a quiet knitting night but certain members of GKS did have mild panic attacks prior to that.

Subterfuge was finally done away with - and we presented her with the blanket. I think she liked it.

Fourteen knitters, three countries, two continents, three months, fourteen hanks of Old Maiden Aunt BFL Aran and A LOT OF SUBTERFUGE..

.. equals one blanket of love.

Pattern: Elvan

It might come as a surprise, but I crocheted before I could knit. In fact, throughout my teenage years, I preferred to crochet. It was faster and much more immediate. It took years before I felt able to invent when knitting - but i was always able to do so when crocheting. These days I knit much more than I crochet as I find knitting gentler on my hands. I do teach a lot of crochet and there is a real dearth of patterns aimed at people who have only just begun to master the stitches. This is why I sat down and came up with the Elvan cowl. Elvan is free to download from Ravelry and uses approximately 200 yards of fingering weight yarn. I made my version out of the new Rowan Wool Cotton 4ply (so soft and warm), but I'd also love to see it made in an indie-dyed sock yarn. As with most of my patterns, Elvan is customisable, so you could use all of your awesome sock yarn and get a long cowl that'll wrap around several times. And, yes, if you can do a treble (US: double crochet), you can make this pattern. Promise.

I have made two versions of the pattern - one using UK terminology and one using US terminology. Make sure to download your preferred version.

It is a bank holiday here in the UK. I don't tend to work Mondays as a rule but even I can get into the holidaying spirit. Yesterday I went to see Alice & the Rampant Trio at Glasgow's legendary King Tut's club and I am nursing a tiny hangover as a result (two beers!). Today I am off to have dinner with good friends. Outside, right now, it is snowing cherry blossoms.

Day Two: Pictured

I am still amazed that I live in the same city as this mad, bad building known as the Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum. When you travel along Dumbarton Road/Argyle Street, all you see are dull shop fronts and dwellings. Suddenly the shops and houses give way to the Kelvingrove Park with Kelvingrove itself situated right on the edge. It was built in 1888 for a Great Exhibition and the building feels like a manic Victoriana Gothic fever dream with tiny turrets, arched windows, statues and staircases. Inside it is far more calm than you would suspect. I have been there so often it feels like my second home - if I were the heroine in a steampunk novel, that is. Right after I took this photo, a hailstorm broke. People tried to take shelter at bus stops or under umbrellas. Glasgow weather is one of the greatest challenges I know as a knitter and photographer. Try taking shots of a Finished Object or for a pattern when you don't know what the weather is going to be like ten minutes from now. No wonder that so many of my photos are taken indoors..

Then I went pub-knitting with a bunch of friends. I was trying to capture the spirit of a get-together: the banter, the chat, the riot of colour, the yarn mountains, and knitterly frustrations. I gave up. Instead I simply shot a series of people knitting. I never get tired of watching people knit (is this weird?) and how their hands work in small, precise motions.

The last photo is of me (wearing Signest's amazing "I YARN CPH" tee) and apparently I knit too fast for the camera shutter.. Apparently.

Knitting to me is also about community, feeling part of something a bit bigger than yourself and nurturing creativity across boundaries. It is about going to the pub with your best buddies and turning a heel over a glass of Whatever. It is about making knitting a part of your everyday life.

You can find more blogs participating in the Knitting & Crochet Blog Week by googling 3KCBWDAY2. If you have come here as part of the Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, thank you for visiting. I'll still be here once this week is over and I'm usually blogging about arts, books, films, language besides all the craft stuff. Do stick around.

Day One: Green

Some people claim I have a bit of a problem..

..I have no idea what they mean.

In reality, though, I have to be careful that I don't end up wearing green head-to-toe. As a result of my love for green, I have recently begun thinking more about knitting neutral-coloured items (I already get a huge amount of wear out of my grey Nev shawl, for instance) and avoid greens except for accents.

Which is obviously why I'm knitting a mustard yellow cardigan.

You can find more blogs participating in the Knitting & Crochet Blog Week by googling 3KCBWDAY1. If you have come here as part of the Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, thank you for visiting. I'll still be here once this week is over and I'm usually blogging about arts, books, films, language besides all the craft stuff. Do stick around.

Both Sides of the Internet

I have a long list of things I tell myself I Should Really Blog About and somehow I end up keeping them in my head. It has been puzzling me why this is so, but I think it is the combination of no longer being relatively anonymous and being able to talk to my Other Half about these things that I end up keeping things off the blog. It is a shame and so here we go.

Recently I was having a quick little internet chat about STFU, Parents. It is a website in the vein of Regretsy and Lamebook with a dash of Ravelry Rubberneckers and F_W (all these links should be considered NSFW) as it navigates social media sites and documents some truly unfortunate oversharing and jerky behaviour. I had an exchange with a friend who thought the site was rather mean. I agree that it is mean but also that it documents meanness towards other people. Let me expand upon that.

It never ceases to amaze me that my gender plus age plus relationship status = it is perfectly okay for people to ask very personal questions about the state of my uterus. What I take from STFUP is that I am not the only one who gets random "lol, so r u preggers? lol why not?" comments at me (or get emailed some insensitive 'lol' questions). I find some of those remarks and mails really, really mean too.

Of course, STFUP documents meanness towards other people too - particularly towards people's own children. That hilarious poop story will be infinitely less funny when your child finds it online 15 years from now - and it is really not funny now.

If a site like STFUP can make one person less likely to mommy-jack, ask me questions about my uterus and/or sexual orientation, post an embarrassing story about their kiddo, or name their child something horrid - then I am all for it. Even if that makes me a mean person. Incidentally there are also other variants upon the same theme and I think the common message is (as always): don't be a jerk.

Now that is out of my system, let me share an altogether lovely story about the kindness of strangers.

Remember the story about the lost shawl I found in Glasgow City Centre? It has been reunited with its rightful owner. In a completely unnecessary gesture, the owner has given me a gift - this made me tear up as I certainly did not expect anything.

Thank you Jules and Jules' Mum. You are amazing and much too kind.