Stranded

Question: if you were home alone on a cold winter evening, what would you do? My answer: look at the photo. I'm sitting in front of the computer, surfing various sites and occasionally picking up my new project to knit a stitch or two. Oh, and sipping lukewarm decaf coffee while I'm at it. It is a hard life.

My project? Well, I needed a portable project for knitting night (Dave's sweater is getting too big to carry around with me; lace knitting at knit night = big no-no), so I had a quick look at my Ravelry queue and, really, it was a no-brainer.This fair isle tam called to me loud and clear.

I have plenty of hats, but right now they all seem flimsy and floppy. I want a hat which will keep my head warm in the midst of winter and stranded knitting was the obvious solution. I dug into my stash and uncovered a skein of "homegrown" Gotland wool I bought at a sheep farm in rural Denmark which matched a ball of Rico Poems I recently bought here in Scotland. I have been wanting to try a project with Poems since I first heard it being touted as an affordable alternative to Noro Kureyon (I'm easy that way). So far it feels more like a long-colour-repeat version of Twilleys Freedom Spirit, but I'm yet to learn if Poems will pill as much. One thing is certain: Poems may initially look a bit like a Noro yarn, but it feels far less substantial.

Finally, one of my knitting buddies showed me the coolest knitting implement tonight.. I may be slightly in love.

Swings & Roundabouts

Maybe it is the festive season, maybe it is the constant news coverage of the climate conference, but I am homesick. I have lived in Glasgow well over three years now and I have settled reasonably well, but even so this is Not Quite Home. I miss my Danish friends. I miss meeting up with them for coffee and croissant. I miss the easy chatter which comes with fifteen years (and then some) of friendship. I miss getting on my bike and making my way home together with thousands of other cyclists. I miss the recycling system, my favourite cinema and buying proper pastries. I miss the cobbled streets, the public fountains, the neon signs and watching the New Year's fireworks displays.

Thank heavens I'm off to Denmark soon. That usually cures any amount of homesickness. And I am not fooling myself, anyway. If I were to return to Denmark, I would miss Scotland. I would miss having easy access to any book I wanted, the BBC, dramatic landscapes, the easy-going attitude, my lovely neighbourhood and a certain sense of freedom. Swings and roundabouts, dear reader, swings and roundabouts.

Yesterday we went craft fair hopping. First, we visited the Glasgow Craft Fair Mafia at Mono, then we headed back to our own neighbourhood where The De Courcy Arcade has undergone a facelift and a slew of new quirky boutiques have opened showcasing handmade gifts and vintage fashion. It felt like I spent the entire afternoon living in Etsy-land: little owls, ironic embroidery and felted flowers ..

.. and I realised I wasn't enchanted. I can partly blame the old "I could make that myself" attitude and partly that I am a crafter myself and know what well-finished items should look like. The stern Scandinavian in me was particularly blind to the virtues of an ironic embroidered portrait of Dolly Parton or Burt Reynolds.  I fear I am too old to be a irony-embracing hipster or maybe I have just started living by William Morris' creed: "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful".

I'm homesick and I'm grumpy.

Bulletpoints

A few brief links:

• Why not visit Pompeii from the comfort of your own home? The ruins of Pompeii are now available on Google Street View.
• This is absolutely lovely: Flare, a wind-sensitive electronic dress. "As the wind gently caresses the dress or if you "blow" on the dandelions themselves, a pattern of lights will twinkle across the dress."
• I have fallen head over heels with at least three of the garments in Rowan 47. A preview is available from Rowan's site (it is slow-loading, beware). My current favourite is the pink filly concoction in KidSilk Haze. I might knit in another colour, mind.
• An illuminated snowflake. At some point I will get one of my scientist friends to show me how to make these.
• A YouTube clip chronicling Franz Ferdinand's use of Soviet interwar avant-garde graphic design/art. Ah, El Lissitzky. Be still my heart.
• Starbucks will start selling  Flat Whites in the UK in the new year. I love Flat Whites and hope they'll become available in Glasgow too. Yum. (thanks, Kimfobo)
• This little clip makes me a little sad that I won't be in Blighty for Christmas (thank heavens for iPlayer)
• Finally, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The first sleeve on David's pullover is done! Let me do a small \o/ - and as my stepfather's Christmas is done , I feel like I can cast on the delightful Yule Pig potholders in good faith that they'll be done before Christmas. I might even throw in a Christmas tree or two, thanks to these spiffing Christmas socks.

On A Day Like This

On a day like this, you just want to curl up on your sofa with a mug of hot tea, some tea biscuits and some knitting. Unfortunately I had to go outside.

On the left, behind those trees, you'd find The Botanics and the river is, of course, my beloved River Kelvin. At the time I was heading towards Byres Road to buy the paper and maybe find a little tasty snack in Roots & Fruits (I didn't on this occasion). Such a splendid, cold Saturday in Glasgow.

Counting the Days

This entry's by request..

Starting on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, Danes will open so-called "advent presents" and light a candle in their advent krans (I have not made an advent krans since the year one caught fire in my Copenhagen flat and nearly burned down the house). The presents are usually small - I have been known to find novelty socks in my parcels.

However, my gran has obviously decided that a "small present" equals giving me 11 (ELEVEN) balls of yummy DK-weight superwash wool in a rather fetching shade of red. She's included a pattern for a yoked cardigan too. I have three more parcels to go. I dread to think what she might have come up with. Incidentally David found a handknitted beanie in his advent present. I seem to spot a theme..

(Sorry about the '80s feel about this photo - it was the best I could do in order to capture the colour)

The advent calendar is a variation upon a theme. When I was very young, I would get a julekalender instead, much like the one Linn is blogging about. Twenty-four tiny parcels, one for each day leading up to Christmas. The presents were tiny - maybe a pencil or a piece of chocolate - but they served their purpose. I got out of bed on time and I kept track of how many days I had to wait until Christmas.

Linn mentions something which I really miss here in Scotland: the calendar candle (not to be confused with the advent krans). One candle with numbers 1 to 24 clearly marked and each day you burn away one number. Just before December 1st, you make a "juledekoration" to really display the candle (I have fond memories of going to the woods with my family and finding materials for these things) and then each night as you are having dinner or tea, you light the candle. The trick is to get the right size candle so you do not burn away the numbers too quickly or slowly.

And the final way of counting the days? The televised yule calendar. Yup, twenty-four episodes of a special Christmas children's show with one episode shown per day. It's usually about how Christmas is in danger for one reason or another.. You'd get a royal version with princesses and Christmas gnomes,one taking place in Greenland, a puppet version, a 19th century version and, well, one for the grown-ups (all YouTube links and, yes, Danes are very fond of singing..)

Any particular Christmas traditions in your family or in your culture?

A Cold Coming We Had Of It

We live in a typical Glasgow tenement building (red sandstone; built prior to 1919; quite similar to this photo). Most of the time I love living here: the buildings are delightfully late Victorian, we have a bay window which lets in an enormous amount of light, the rooms are huge, the fireplaces are Art Deco (and sadly defunct), the tiles lining the staircase are gorgeous Arts & Crafts tiles (much in the vein of these), and our neighbours are mostly charming and friendly people. It is a pity that we do not have double glazing, though, for I have ended up with yet another bout of stuffed nose/sore throat and spend most evenings wrapped in a blanket/sleeping bag. In fact, I have read two Georgette Heyer novels in the last twenty-four hours which should speak volumes about just how miserable and cold I'm feeling. Tania of Cherry Makes is a good craft friend of mine. We have never met, of course, but that has never stopped me from forming friendships. Recently Tania came up with the intriguing idea of Ten for '10: "Simply choose ten things that you think will expand your skill set, and resolve to make something that tries your new skills out".

I want to participate in Ten for '10, but have been thinking hard about what I want to achieve craft-wise next year. Without going into too many details, my life might just undergo a few changes in the next few months and I find it difficult to think beyond the next few weeks. So I am expanding Tania's idea to go beyond craft and include other things too. It is not a New Year's Resolution wrought early, in case you are wondering, but more like things I feel I may have neglected lately.

1. I want to read more than I have in 2009. Or, rather, I want to read better quality than I have in 2009. I find it easy to curl up with frivolous little books, whenever I'm feeling sorry for myself, but I should also curl up with books that make me think (because I love books that make me think and sometimes I forget this).
2. I should watch more films. We went to the cinema once in 2009 which is plainly ridiculous. We watched a few on DVD, but there is definitely room for improvement.
3. I want to feel comfortable baking with dried yeast. I grew up using fresh yeast for bread-making and since moving to the UK I have been reluctant to scale this molehill called "dry yeast". Enough.
4. I should really get around to knitting a pair of socks. It is not that I cannot wrap my head around sock-knitting, it is more that I'm not entirely convinced I will enjoy the process.
5. Make Flyte, the jumper of my dreams. I have the yarn and I have the pattern. I even have a tweed skirt that'll look extremely fetching together with the jumper. Enough dithering.

Five more aspirations tomorrow.

Finally, are you following the Drops Christmas Calendar? Each day leading up to Christmas, they'll unveil a new pattern. Hey, I'm Scandinavian. We love doing things like this (stayed tuned for tomorrow for a bit more on Scandinavian holiday madness).