The End of Something

My autumn/winter mitts have been blocked and subsequently worn for several days with much pride. It is a stash-busting project too as I used partial skeins of Lett-Lopi and New Lanark DK I had left over from previous projects. What is not to love? Taking a decent photo of them, however, proved too much for my photography skills, and it wasn't until this afternoon that Official Photographer went for a walk in the rain with the camera, that an in-focus photo appeared.

The pattern is free, but be warned that it needs to be tweaked in order to work. As written, the thumb increases do not match up with the colourwork and if i were to knit these again, I would go down a needle size as the mitts are a smidgen too wide across my hands despite going with the smallest size. On the positive side I can fit a pair of gloves underneath these for extra warmth.

Now to something completely different.

I first read Schrödinger's Rapist - or a Guy's Guide to approaching Strange Women Without Being Maced a couple of weeks ago and it has been on my mind ever since. In a strange way, the blog entry manages to explain exactly what it feels like being a woman and make me aware that this is how it feels for me. Honestly, I do not think about my body or my gender most of the time. My body is just there as a vehicle for my brain and, well, I have never felt like I was part of any Special Sisterhood. And yet, that blog entry made me finally acknowledge to myself that being a woman is not like being a man. I'm in my early thirties and I finally admitted this to myself.

Deep down, though, I must have known and sought to protect myself. During most of my twenties I hid in baggy black clothes. At one point I even preferred being severely overweight to having a healthy weight and receiving attention. Today I wonder why, although I have some residual fear of walking on my own in remote places and I never go outside at night unless someone is with me. For someone who is not all that aware of her own body (and, believe me, having a body never ceases to confound and surprise me .. especially after I have walked into yet another door or stumbled), I do seem to be aware of the dangers connected to having one.

After reading the initial blog entry, I wound up reading the long Metafilter thread/response. Nattie's response was particularly thought-provoking and I found myself nodding to several points she made - and surprising myself by being able to nod. I need to think a lot more about this and work out my own response. Somehow this feels like an awakening.

On Languages and Blogging

"It is a sign of a deeply disturbed civilization where Tree huggers and Whale huggers in their weirdness are acceptable... while no one embraces the last speakers of a language." -Werner Herzog

Found here which looks at whether we should preserve languages and whether a world with monolithic language usage would be a bad thing? More on this later.

Mooncalf left an astute comment on my last entry wherein I had a mini-rant about Danish lifestyle blogs being smug and self-satisfied. She linked two blog entries, both of which reacts to the Martha Stewart-ness of some blogs. I really enjoyed reading the entries and I have taken some of their points to heart. I think it is important to remember that all blogs are edited in one way or another. We all have messy tables, bad days, sweaters that do not fit, unread books and frozen pizzas. I tend to shy away from confessional blogging (and I'm also notoriously private for someone who has blogged continuously for almost nine years), but I do attempt to create a fairly realistic picture of my life whilst leaving out things I would feel uncomfortable sharing.

So, bearing all this in mind, please ask me a question.

And, going back to the idea of language, notions of identity etc etc, I found this little tidbit in one of my commonplace books:

"As there is no selfhood without some other, a national canon -- whether attached to land or language -- is constituted in such a way that its identity has both intra- and intercultural aspects. In other words, it is mediated by the memory of the other and its development always involves at least two cultures. The court of Louis XIV, English Classicism, or the Weimar Klassik defined itself with reference to Graeco-Roman Antiquity. Thus, it is possible to argue that national canons reveal an interacting with other creeds. They are intercultural manifestations, conflictual as well as mutually complementary, configurations that are, in relation to each other, not only powerfully reciprocal but also strongly oppositional." -Mihály Szegedy-Maszák

I think that pretty much reveals my stance on whether we should preserve* languages or not.

(* I'm not of a prescriptive bend, mind.)

I Apologise In Advance

I don't know if I am being particularly bitchy today, but when I came across the following pattern note on Ravelry, I stopped in my tracks:

When I’m knitting a Jared Flood pattern, I feel like he’s making love to me. When I finish a Jared Flood pattern, I feel like I just gave birth to his child.

I feel this quote is almost worthy of a lolcat picture - you know the "U R DOING IT WRONG" type - because either I'm not knitting the right kind of patterns or the quoted knitter has not been involved in the right kind of love-making. Also, I know that seaming stuff is seen as a painful process but it is as painful as child birth? Really? And, finally, I just find the pattern note a touch on the creepy side of things.

But I do think I am in a bitchy mood today. I spent my lunch catching up with blogs and after a few reads I decided I had had enough of self-congratulatory, self-satisfied glimpses of homemade organic bread, tidy houses with expensive Scandinavian design furniture and delicate beige sweaters paraded on a series of identikit children who are all doing so incredibly well at school.

I think tonight I'll need to crash a lot of cars on the Xbox 360 whilst eating chocolate. And possibly knit a couple of more rows on David's sweater (I'm hoping stocking stitch will make me go completely zen).

I'll leave you with one of the greatest Halloween costumes I've seen for a long, long time.. and a slightly bitchy link: Regretsy.

Chasing Wool

I had to chase a greyhound today. It went up to me in the park, looked adoringly at me, then grabbed a ball of wool and ran away. It did not get very far - not because I am a fast runner (ahahahahaha!) but because its owner was right next to us. According to Lilith, who is wise in the ways of dogs and wool, some dogs react instinctively to the smell of sheep even if they're a nice city-dwelling dog. Guess that tells you just how rustic and just-off-the-sheepsies New Lanark's wool is.. .. yes, I have begun knitting David's sweater and I'm using New Lanark Aran in the "Bramble" colourway. David chose the colour himself, bless him. I have decided to make up my own pattern as most men's patterns are not geared towards a skinny indie kid like David. I'm knitting bottom-up and am yet to decide what to do once I reach the yoke. In other words, so far it is pure stocking stitch in the round. It's not very exciting, but it is plain knitting and rather hypnotic. I'll get it done in plenty of time for our overseas visit to colder climes.

I have also begun a quick little colourwork project. I've long thought back to my favourite sweater ever: a green and red sweater with a cowl which my gran knitted for me when I was twelve or thirteen. Sadly she gave the sweater away to charity when I moved across to the UK (I've always felt the timing was highly suspicious). So I'm trying to create the sweater as colourwork mitts and I'm trying to do this from memory.

I'm using two partial skeins from the stash - Artesano DK and Rowan Felted Tweed - and am enjoying the process a lot. I'm frogging a lot as I'm working out what I want from this project, but it is pretty cool stuff. I'm learning a lot about colour dominance and about the Faroese geometric patterns which inspired the old sweater. Also, ignore the "holes" you see in the top bit of the mitten - they have been fixed.

Finally, I'm going to rip out the first sweater I ever made (rav link). I have worn it three times, it does not fit and I love the yarn and colour so much that it seems an awful shame to let the yarn go unused. So, ten balls of Noro Kureyon in a fabulous purple-pink-charteuse colourway. What would you make? I found this pattern earlier today but I would prefer something with sleeves (it's the Scotland-is-chilly thing) and I'm not sure if I could pull off wearing that top.

Deja Vu

YouTube Comment or E.E.Cummings? One of the funniest 20th century poetry/21st Century internet crossovers I have seen today. Not that I have seen that many, of course. After a few weeks of awe-inspiring knitting productivity, my busy fingers have become almost idle. I cast on, knit maybe twenty rows, decide the project doesn't thrill me and I rip it all out. Lather, rinse, repeat. Possibly it is the continuous failure of Topstykke that haunts me. The pattern is great, of course, but I keep messing up:

1. I cast on too few stitches and tried to remedy this whilst on a fast moving bus to Aberdeenshire filled with shouty Russian students.
2. I cast on the correct number of stitches but lost my stitch markers somewhere between a sofa and the kitchen table (a 3 year old nephew might have been involved).
3. I cast on correct number of stitches, got all of the set-up row right and blissfully knitted on until I realised that I was knitting a size up from what I'm supposed to knit.
4. I cast on correct number of stitches, got all of the set-up row right and blissfully knitted on until I realised I had twisted my cast-on and I was knitting a moebius-shaped top which will be impossible to wear (in this dimension, at least).

So I think it is time to let Topstykke rest for a few weeks whilst I get other things done. David's sweater is a top priority (he won the Halloween costume competition, by the way) and I want to have another lace shawl on my needles (Aeolian, I'm looking at you). I just hope that I can stick with those two projects and not rip them out after twenty rows.

Shockingly enough I have begun reading again and am currently one-third through Iain Banks' Transition. Banks strides the literary and speculative fiction divide, but cunningly uses a middle initial "M" to differentiate between the two genres. Interestingly, "Transition" is being marketed in the UK without the "M" (i.e. it is not speculative fiction, you fools!) whereas the US market gets courted with the "M" (hey, it's speculative fiction!). My favourite Banks novel, The Bridge, is a non-M novel but is more speculative than many genre novels. It's all about marketing, isn't it? So far I'm enjoying the novel, in case you were wondering..

Self Portrait With Dark Felt Hat

.. one Halloween costume down, one to go.

Other Half is currently trying to consider whether or not to stab the ear with a palette knife or not.

Oh, decisions...