Knitting & Reading

Meet Larry the Leicester. I am knitting Larry out of British Sheep Breeds DK in Bluefaced Leicester cream and brown. The pattern is Janice Anderson's free sheep pattern (pdf). I made a slight mess of picking up stitches around Larry's face (the decreases stand out more than I'd like), but I hope it'll even out once I stuff the toy. I'm knitting Larry on request, but I'm actually enjoying the process way more than I thought I would.

I'm really, really loving the BSB wool: it is a heady combination of the rustic wools I love so dearly (smells faintly of sheep, is unprocessed, comes in natural colours only) and the tempting butter-soft merinos I keep going back to (so very soft, feels great as you're working with it, next-to-skin smooth). I had no idea it would be so fabulous, although my friend LH has been in raptures over it for as long as I have known her. I really have to knit a jumper or cardigan out of it one of these days. Srsly.

In very related news, my knitting bag is safe. Don't ask.

I finished reading Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go on Friday and I was very disappointed. The book has a meaty subject matter and Ishiguro has the necessary writing chops, but instead of an "extraordinary", "enthralling" and "masterly" book I was left reading a rather tedious, flawed novel. I get that Ishiguro writes about people unable to live full lives, people who are somehow lost (even to themselves) and people who are out of step with time. I get that he "writes like someone impersonating a realist" with resulting defamilarization etc. Still, the novel has an extraordinarily clumsy dénouement, the plot has numerous gaping holes and the writing felt lazy as though Ishiguro was painting by numbers. Never Let Me Go just did not add up as a satisfactory read and I am left wondering if the glowing reviews (and subsequent prize-nominations etc) were the result of Ishiguro's reputation as an important British novelist or if I am losing my grip on what a good literary novel reads like.

Next: I have exchanged my book vouchers for Toibin's Brooklyn and Mantel's Wolf Hall. I even got Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo thrown in as a special offer, although I rather regret not getting it in Swedish (but then David would be disadvantaged).

A Thoughtful Present

People's reaction to my sock knitting has been very amusing. One afternoon I was meeting up with a couple of friends and we were merrily knitting along when a woman came up and said very slowly: "Oh. You are. All. Knitting. Socks." We weren't, actually, but I appreciated the stunned tone to the woman's voice.

And how did my Other Half react? He went out and got me a wooden shoe last because, and I quote, "you might want to use it for showcasing your socks on Ravelry photos." I already knew he was a keeper, but it's always pleasant to have this confirmed.

While I am not convinced the last will work for showcasing any socks, I do think it is exceptionally pretty in that 'early-20th C industrial item' way when mass-produced items were still being made in non-industrial materials such as wood, when you could still detect the workman's hand in the final product.

I do also adore the tiny details: the little plaque bearing the manufacturer's name, the stamp, the hinges and the elegant handle.

Ah, if this won't get me sock-knitting, I am not sure what will. I do have a pair of very plain socks on the go and I'm actually looking forward to a no-feet-involved photo shoot now.

Still no word on the missing project bag. I have a mind to go rummage through my workplace's storage facility today (and maybe buy a few books whilst I am in City Centre - those birthday vouchers are burning a hole in my pocket!). I find some comfort in the fact that both David and my mother think I might just have misplaced it. They know me too well.

Frankie Says .. Gone.

This morning I packed my bag for work knowing that I'd be heading to knitting group after work. I zipped up my Frankie Says jumper on its KnitPro needles, threw in the pattern and was too lazy to fish out my sock needles. Now, my workplace is the sort of place where you can waltz in with a a project bag and no one lifts an eye brow, so I did just waltz in with my project bag, left it in a secure place and got on with work. Hours later I was leaving for knitting group, dipped in to fish out my project bag and it was .. gone. I spent thirty minutes looking into every little nook and cranny wondering if I had been absent-minded enough to leave it elsewhere. No, it was definitely gone. I started to second-guess myself. Maybe I had forgotten the bag at home, maybe I had just imagined taking the bag with me to work and maybe it was still in Casa Bookish. I called David who looked All The Usual Places but couldn't see anything. Right, I thought, I'll take a detour home, pick up the project bag from its ingenious hiding place and then I will go to knitting group because, obviously, David would not have spotted said project bag even if it were sitting on top of the kitchen counter. I got home, started looking and, no, the knitting bag is definitely gone gone gone.

I am surprisingly upset about this loss. By "upset" I mean "holy crumpet, I'm going to burst into tears any second now and sob hysterically for thirty minutes unless something really uplifting happens in the next fifteen seconds". We are talking half-a-front of a jumper, some Rowan Summer Tweed, my precious KnitPros and the fact that some **** thought it okay to avail him/herself of my private property.

I mean, who the hell steals a half-made jumper?! Oh lowlife, may your tension become wonky, may you lose stitches and may you develop a sudden allergy to all things woolly.

(of course if the project bag suddenly reappears next time I come into work, we will pretend this little interlude never happened)

Now We're Getting Somewhere

I finished my Ravelympics project on Monday night, but had to wait until Wednesday morning to photograph the result. I'm rather happy with my first pair of socks: they are pretty, the pattern was fun to knit and the finished object has already been used as bed socks (it gets cold in old Victorian tenements). I am not sure I will ever be a confirmed sock knitter, but I will admit that socks do make for a nice portable project. And that having a pile of handknitted socks will be very useful for someone who is always cold. So there is that. I began my next project on Tuesday night - my Summer Tweed jumper from Rowan 47 - and the weather gods turned against me immediately. We have had snow the past couple of days. I am so tempted to cast on for a big, woolly jumper but I know I will cherish the Summer Tweed jumper in the months to come. Sometimes I am being too pragmatic for my own good.

Some random links from my "blogging" bookmark file:

+ Very, very, very pretty dustjackets for Jules Verne books. I doubt they will be put into production due to costs, but they are very charming and, dare I say it, toy with liminal aspects of paratextuality (that's my big, pretentious phrase of the week, then).

+ I met Ms Dirty Martini late last year here in Glasgow. She was affable, lovely and cheerful. I had no idea she was collaborating with Karl Lagerfeld (NSFW link). Six degrees of separation, my my.

+ Kathryn Grayson has passed away. She starred in some of my favourite Hollywood musicals - Anchors Aweigh and Show Boat. Here's a YouTube video of her with Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawson. Sniffle.

+ "Nobody Knows What the (BEEP) They Are Doing" - or how clever people feel like imposters and wonder why they are doing well. I wish I had seen this ages ago when I was a graduate student. The piece is admittedly a bit pop psychology-ish, but I found it an interesting read.

Warm and Fuzzy In Several Ways

For some odd reason I keep going back to the idea of a knitted dress. I found a machine-knitted dress in Monsoon (British clothes shop) which I absolutely loved (apart from the fibre make-up) and then I saw some jaw-dropping Briars and lengthened Dusty tunics. I just sit here in my cold flat and imagine how wonderfully soft, comfortable and warm they would be to wear. Then I remember how traumatised I get when knitting more than one sleeve or a slightly lengthy body. Maybe I would not go nuts knitting a dress or tunic, but the jury is definitely out on that one. Plus, you know, I had the following exchange today: "Can I talk to the lady in charge of this?" - "That's me. " - "No, I want to talk to the slim one." Ouch. Maybe a soft, clingy knitted dress is a very bad idea, full stop.

Anyway. Finished object: my Kaiti shawl knitted in Rowan Kidsilk Haze (shade: Liqueur). I used just a smidgen over two balls (and you could totally get away with just two balls) on 4.5mm and although I really wanted to knit Sharon Miller's Birch, I used the top-down version, Kiri, to maximise the shawl-to-yarn ratio. This is a supersoft and very, very warm shawl.

(I'm not-so-slowly getting addicted to Kidsilk Haze - I'd love to knit a cosy jumper in KSH and have fallen in love with yet another Kim Hargreaves design: Veer from Rowan 32. The simple lines plus the quirky little details just stole my heart. )

Photo taken at the Kelvingrove Museum which is my favourite Glasgow museum, hands down. No matter how often I visit, I see something new and interesting. They even have a small, but exquisite collection of Early Modern Period art (one of my favourite ages). Afterwards we headed towards the Hunterian Art Gallery where, be still my heart, we saw a special exhibition on Albrecht Dürer in Italy and printmaking (including an incunabulum, phroawr). Seriously, seriously good stuff. I love my neighbourhood.

Picture Perfect-ish

This one's called "Green Sock On Concrete". My inspiration for this? Well, I wanted to address tempus fugit, the inherent pain of creation (note those needles: both the instrument of making and of maiming) and something about urban life versus nature which the concrete/foot constellation symbolises. Oh, and our living room carpet would have clashed with the green sock and Official Photographer was out, so I posed on our stairwell. I'm about to graft the toe and I am delighted with this little thing, but something about socks still bugs me. Maybe it is my irrational dislike of feet. Seriously, I think feet are disgusting. So whenever I try on my sock, I have to get over the "omg, this thing I'm knitting has been on my foot and I have to touch it!" I wish I could wash that sock every time I pull it off my foot, but it's just not feasible for a work-in-progress.

I tried watching the Olympics today whilst knitting, but for some reason BBC thinks curling is more watchable than the men's short programme in figure-skating (something about Britain actually maybe possibly being able to win a medal at curling could have something to do with it, but still.)