It's Friday, Isn't It?

I appear to be having one of those days when coffee is keeping me upright. I'm working, let there be no doubt about that, but I'm also clutching my coffee cup like there is no tomorrow.

First, though, there is the Booker longlist. After a few years where the prize appeared to be a tiny bit lost, the year's longlist reads like the Hay Literature Festival programme: Sarah Waters, JM Coetzee, Hilary Mantel, AS Byatt, Colm Toíbin, William Trevor and Sarah Hall. Respectable, safe and commercially viable authors.

I used to rant against how the Man Booker Prize was held up as promoting the best and most exciting literary fiction around and how big a sham this notion was - but I think that nowadays the public has seen through the "best and most exciting" hype and expect solid, slightly conservative literary fiction from their Man Booker nominees (and the Man Booker seal of approval has certainly turned into something of a canonisation tool, hasn't it?). At any rate, I should get back to Byatt's novel and pick up Toíbin's Brooklyn - and promptly forget that I may have picked up another three Georgette Heyers..

Oh help me shopping gods, for I have fallen in love with this skirt at the same time as I suddenly have to find an extra £850 in my budget. I have also found Totally Buttons - a site feeding my button obsession (I do not need any more. I have just acquired even more vintage buttons).

Finally, on a very pleasant note: yesterday David and I celebrated four years together. The four years have been rollercoasterish, filled with adventures both good and bad, but we've always been very good together even if Life kept throwing us curve balls for a wee while. Here's to far more years together and hopefully they'll be a tiny bit more .. staid.

(Photo? Our local foxes and their cubs playing in the sunshine..)

Isn't It Romantic?

A few weeks ago my partner, David, came down with the flu and I succumbed a day later. I suspect it was the dreaded H1N1 flu, although we cannot be sure. I was cooped up in bed for a few days which obviously led to me devouring one book after another. That is, one Georgette Heyer regency romance after another. To be absolutely precise, fourteen Georgette Heyer books. I'm in withdrawal as we speak. The curious thing is that I started to really get into the socio-economics described by Heyer. Usually she is praised for her knowledge of early 19th century fashion and her distinct language usage (la!), but as I was lying in bed reading one novel after one, I started paying attention to money. Who has money? Who hasn't? What do they do with the money? How does money flow through the novels? How does money connect and separate people? Gosh, I almost feel like a Marxist literary critic..

A Civil Contract sees an impoverished aristocrat marrying a wealthy trader's daughter and through the marriage attempt to improve his estate's farming conditions. It is not a wildly romantic novel (no passionate embraces; no swooning) but a rather pragmatic look at class differences and social aspirations. While the book is far from being Great Literature, I found it convincing and interesting. I'm not sure I will read it again (unless I discover an hitherto unknown passion for early 19th C drainage problems) but it is certainly one of Heyer's beefiest novels.

The Unknown Ajax is a straightforward read compared to A Civil Contract. The hero and heroine flirt, chase ghosts, encounter smugglers and fall in love. Lather, rinse, repeat. What I loved about the book, though, was the fact that the hero is a Yorkshire woollen mill owner(!) and Heyer devotes several passages to the discussion of fleeces, crimp, sheep breeds, and the economics thereof. Just the thing to read when you're in bed and too weak to knit.

At the end of it all David pondered if I like reading Heyer because of a) the fashion discussions (I am a costume history devotee), b) the Yorkshire sheep or c) the many, many dogs with distinct personalities? I like to think it's a combination of all three plus the sparkling wit, the often ludicrous language and the knowing use of literary references (like the Shakespeare, Pope and Byron quotations in Venetia, possibly my favourite Heyer novel).

Speaking of things Romantic, I have begun knitting the Percy (Bysshe Shelley) shawl in Old Maiden Aunt 2ply alpaca/merino in the Bracken colourway. I paged through my well-thumbed copy of Shelley's Collected Poems earlier today and was amused by the doom and gloom I encountered. I had forgotten how Gothic he can be..

Ah, and the title? Enjoy Chet Baker's version of it on YouTube..

Isle of Cumbrae

(yes, I came home with a tonne of ideas for future projects)

On a Knitterly Note

Today's a very quiet day in Casa Bookish. I believe my parents are currently looking at marching penguins in Edinburgh Zoo (or possibly at shoppers on Glasgow's Buchanan Street - not that much difference, anyhow). I'm still in my jammies and have been working away on the body of my Pine cardigan. I might just reach the "put body on waste yarn" stage today. I'm almost excited. First, just a brief link. Sarah Palin quit her job as governor of Alaska earlier this month because she is not a quitter (and something about basketball and dead fish too). Vanity Fair out her resignation speech through the capable hands of their literary editor and their copy editor. The result is very colourful.

The Interweave Knits Fall 2009 Preview is up.  So far the consensus seems to be "it is not horrible". On preview, I like the Freyja pullover (although I don't get the spelling) and the Barcelona jacket (although I'm not sure about its fit on people with curves - it could end up looking very frumpy). The Trellis and Vine pullover is immensely wearable and, with longer sleeves, Rosamund's Cardigan is a must-knit (and I have the yarn already!). I would have liked to have seen a Eunny Jang pullover or cardigan - and maybe some fabulous lace shawl, but you can't get everything.  Now to wait for the Vogue preview..

At the moment, though, I'm really drawing my inspiration from North European and Scandinavian crafters: Petra O's blå sjal (blue shawl) with its lovely yellow edging, Sanne's Percy shawl pattern (rav) which is my next shawl project, Veera's fantastic and inspirational modern garden cardigan, Birgitte's strikingly blue Buttercup/Cornflower and Olesdatter's beautiful Rabarber (Rhubarb) cardigan. I think it is the way they approach colour and their chosen projects. Veera had An Idea and chose a colour which would support the idea rather than overshadow it; Petra used contrasting colours to showcase the contrasting lines of her shawl; and Birgitte went all out colourwise knowing that her chosen pattern could deal with a striking colour. Seriously inspirational stuff and they are making me think about how I can use colour in my forthcoming projects.

Where do you find inspiration for your projects? How do the work of other crafters make you reconsider how you approach your projects?

New Lanark: We'll Be Back

My parents are currently visiting these shores and today we treated them to a visit to New Lanark,  a former cotton mill village and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, about an hour from Glasgow. I have long wanted to visit New Lanark although prior to my permanent relocation to Great Britain the words "industrial revolution" and "spinning jenny" would strike fear into my heart. In secondary school I had a very eccentric history teacher who persisted in drawing complicated diagrams of how 18th C machinery worked (he'd also draw diagrams of our town's sewer systems). Nowadays I connect "industrial revolution" and "spinning jenny" with local history and, of course, knitting traditions.Fear has been replaced by utter joy. New Lanark turned out very different to what I had imagined. I had envisioned some lovely scenery coupled with archaic spinning technology. Instead I was greeted by mind-blowing nature, fantastic architecture, great whiffs of History and some rather delicious cake. I picked up a tiny bit of wool - some skeins of Flying Flock shetland/hebridean DK and some 'limited edition' New Lanark Aran -  but the visit was far more about jaw-dropping sites and learning new things about my new homeland. Sadly the camera batteries gave out before we could shoot pictures of the amazing sights..

.. but it will not be our last visit.

My parents are here until the end of the week and we are planning a trip up the West Coast on Saturday. I'm thinking a trip to Largs possibly or do my Scottish readers have better suggestions? And no, unfortunately my mother's not hugely into knitting otherwise we'd visit the Old Maiden Aunt studio..

Friday Linkage And Such

Ooooh, nice location and a suitable size! I also like that it hasn't been refurbished beyond recognition (I have a particular bone to pick with developers putting Poggenpohl-knock-off kitchens into Victorian properties).  Shame about the price, of course. A few months ago David and I went to see the Swedish vampire film, Let the Right One In. It was more art-house than Hammer house and unsurprisingly it is set for a US remake so people do not have to endure subtitles or pale Swedish boys with bowl haircuts. While most aspects of the US remake fills me with dread - the director made Cloverfield and ambiguous gender portrayals are becoming significantly less ambiguous - I found it really interesting to watch the casting tapes of the three girls up for the lead which io9 posted recently. I know which girl I prefer but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. Also, do not miss the discussion on io9.

Psychotic Letters From Men was a recent MeFi find. Normally I would cast it a cursory glance, move on and not mention it here, but the site did remind me of the time I received letters from a blog reader who was convinced that a) I had an artificial limb and b) this was the biggest turn-on in the world for the guy. No wonder I let my old blog die a very quiet death..

Finally, Advanced Style cheered me up. It really proves that style ain't no age-thing.