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Revelations

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In January, Cindy Jacobs, a co-founder of an American prayer movement and host of the TV show God Knows, had a prophecy come to her. The voice of God warned Cindy about the troubles ahead for global economy. And lo, on October 29 Cindy and her fellow believers went to Wall Street and prayed in front of the Golden Bull that their fortunes should be restored and for wealth to return to the US.

In Cindy's own words:

"We are going to intercede at the site of the statue of the bull on Wall Street to ask God to begin a shift from the bull and bear markets to what we feel will be the 'Lion’s Market,' or God’s control over the economic systems," she said. "While we do not have the full revelation of all this will entail, we do know that without intercession, economies will crumble."

Thank you Daily Kos, Ravelry and Metafilter for the heads-up. I was going to write a lengthy commentary but I think Cindy and her friends speak well enough for themselves.

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Popscene!

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Tonight's Never Mind The Buzzcocks featured the lead singer of mid-90s Scottish indie band Geneva. Boy, did that make me feel old.. Here's the forgotten(?) gem of "No One Speaks" from their first album:

.. now where did I put my miniskirt, green glitter eyeliner and 70s vintage shirts? Hey, hey come out tonight.. (YT link)

More trips down memory lane; looking back I really liked my music angsty, eyelinered and vaguely androgynous: + Sleeper: Inbetweener + Strangelove: Time For The Rest of Your Life + Suede: The Drowners + Subcircus: 86'd

(Darth Ken, don't you dare leaving a snarky comment containing a picture of me in full indie girl gear)

Doctorin' The Tardis

David Tenannt has quit as Doctor Who. He was my first Doctor and will forever be tied in my mind to the early stages of the epic Ms Bookish/Scottish Guy (now known as Other Half) long-distance relationship. I watched New Earth and Tooth and Claw (Tennant's first proper episodes) during one of my visits and timed my next visit so it coincided with the breath-taking season finale. Aww. Back then I didn't have a big Doctor Who problem, of course.

Anyway. According to Other Half (formerly known as Scottish Guy), the smart money is on Paterson Joseph to replace David Tennant, although other contenders apparently include James Nesbitt (please, no, no) and Robert Carlyle (he'd be another local boy and, well, he likes my knitting). Any preferences?

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On Beauty

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When I was at university back in Denmark, I'd walk across the Amager Common from my student halls to the faculty. I'd pass by a huge rose bush with beautiful yellow roses, D.H. Lawrence's Gloire de Dijon echoing through my head. The roses have long gone, thanks to urban development, but the memory of their beauty remain. Beauty continues to matter to me. Throughout my life I have discovered beauty and savoured it. Poetry, art, rock formations, landscape, things people have said, music, colours and textures. I mentioned poetry first, not only because it epitomises and distils beauty and I experience the world through words, but also because the etymological root of 'poetry' is the Greek ποιητης - poïêtes which means 'artisan, creator, maker' (you still find that in the Scottish term 'makar'). Beauty is poetry is creation. And this brings me to a new way of experiencing beauty that I have only recently discovered.

I am currently finishing a lovely red cardigan and I find myself getting lost in its beauty. The stitches are slightly uneven and the buttons are a touch wonky, but it is beautiful. I work with wool which is clearly the product of a sheep's fleece, the colour is stunning and I already have beautiful memories* tied to making the cardigan.

And then I happened across this blog entry which says it so much better than I ever could:

People talk about friendship and community and getting back to the roots of handcraft when they reference [craft] blogging as a movement, but there's something else about this craft movement that I think is really special and I haven't seen folks talking about, and that's beauty. Redefining beauty. Taking beauty BACK from the magazines and the movies and the Botox parties and the red carpet. Taking it back into our own hands.

I have always seemed able to capture beauty, but I had no idea that I could get caught up in its creation too. It is a wonderful, empowering sensation.

* Mags, a good friend now living in London, unexpectedly showed up in Glasgow yesterday whilst I was finishing one sleeve. I will think of her every time I wear this cardigan.

PS. This all links back to ideas I have about feminism, craft and knitting groups, of course.

Weather With You

This is the weather forecast from BBC. As you can see, I need to finish my cardigan and get started on some emergency mittens and hat or I shall die of frostbite. At the moment I'm monogamously working on a red version of my beloved grey cardi. When I say "version" I really mean "same but different" as I'm only using the basic shape of my grey cardigan and am working with different textures. I have eight more rows of stocking stitch (i.e. glatstrikning) left before I start on the garter stitch (i.e. retstrikning) border. I anticipate doing that tonight and then I just have two sleeves (again in plain stocking stitch) left to do. Shall we say 'Wednesday night' or is that too ambitious?

I'm yet to decide which mittens to knit. I re-arranged my Ravelry queue of desired patterns the other night (apologies to anybody on my friends-list - you will have noticed me swamping your friends-view with a gazillion patterns) but I'm still torn. I'm a bit tempted by the Chevalier mittens but the idea behind knitting emergency mittens is not to spend ages labouring over (gorgeous) cable work, but to get warm quickly. I'm also wondering whether I should knit a cute beret or a big chunky hat that'll keep me warm. You see my dilemma: being chic or not dying of hypothermia.

I have also wondered if I should knit some big, warm, woolly socks for indoor use as Casa Bookish has a nasty draft coming from the closed-off fireplace in the living room. But I've ruled out sock-knitting for ages and risk being gently mocked by my lovely knitting friends, so strike that.

After the emergency mittens and the emergency hat, it's time to look at Christmas knitting. I have been roped into knitting David's Auntie M. "something green" (apparently a shawl, but we shall see about that - shawls take longer than you'd expect) and I have other sneaky plans involving yarn and people I love. I am also thinking of tackling this cardigan again in a more suitable yarn.

First, though, my red cardigan. Stocking stitch ad nauseam, here we go..

PS. Sorry about title but I'm on a roll, clearly.