Changing

Ever played the casting game? You take one film or TV series and try to recast it using a specific criteria. One of my favourite ones was the "Lord of the Rings gone Hollywood bad" challenge. That one had Dolph Lundgren as Aragorn and Pam Anderson as Eowyn. My latest recasting involves the Inception cast. Apparently Christopher Nolan presented the idea to a Hollywood film company in 2001. So, if the project had been greenlighted in 2001, who would have played the various characters? The central character, Cobb, a charismatic action hero with underlying trauma? Tom Cruise, of course. He did Vanilla Sky around the same time and was at the height of his career. As a result, I'd say that Penelope Cruz would be a shoo-in to be the 2001 version of Marion Cotillard. Julia Stiles might work as the young architecture student, now played by Ellen Page, but I struggle when it comes to the other actors. Who would have been the 2001 equivalent of Tom Hardy? Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Cillian Murphy? It's a silly game but I have been playing it in my head ever since I saw Inception last week (which is a peculiarly fitting way to think about the film, I suppose).

And now for some knitting.

I cast on for Kim Hargreaves' Opal shawl/scarf last night. I had some Kidsilk Aura in my stash from one of my recent stashing downfalls. The colour is really interesting - it is grey but with a blue undertone. It looks a lot like wet asphalt(!) and also like the colour of the haematite gemstone. Normally I would not touch a colour like that, but I think my Scandinavian minimalist wants out at the moment.

The pattern is incredibly easy - so easy that I decided to mess it up three times by not paying attention to the instructions and just playing it by ear. I find easy patterns the most difficult ones, actually. I got back on track, though, and the shawl is zipping along merrily. I am going to up-size it slightly as a I had a brain-blunder when I ordered my needles. For some reason I ordered 8mm needles instead of 9mm .. and can I just say that the KnitPro acrylic tips are not my favourite? The actual tip of the needle is wonderfully pointy, but the needle itself feels cheap (like bog-standard plastic needles) and the acrylic makes the yarn drag a bit. If I had known, I would just have gone for regular circulars and not expensive interchangeable needle-tips.

Hopefully I will finish it today or tomorrow. Hopefully it'll stop raining so I can post a photo. Hopefully.

The John Coltrane Version

Elvis Costello's music has always lurked in my life. Growing up I occasionally heard him on the radio and was told by my gruff uncle that "Don't bother: that Costello bloke is really hit-and-miss." Then some time in the early 1990s I borrowed the Girls! Girls! Girls! compilation from my local library and fell in love. So Like Candy from "A Mighty Rose" (1991) is one of my all-time favourite songs. True fact. By 1994 I had parted ways with my gruff uncle's authority on all things pop music, and "Brutal Youth" had been released to coincide with my perfect year: Music never sounds better than when you are 18. This Is Hell from that CD has one of my favourite lines: "'My Favorite Things are playing again and again/ But it’s by Julie Andrews and not by John Coltrane". So here are a few of my current favourite things (the John Coltrane version, hopefully): + Radiohead playing How To Disappear Completely live in a studio. + The Anti Room looking at Montgomery Clift: "the new manhood in classic cinema". Have you seen From Here To Eternity? Ooh. + "Reading Barnes, like reading so many other English writers of his generation – Martin Amis, McEwan – leaves me feeling that I and the world have been made smaller and meaner." Gabriel Josipovici on the 2010 Man Booker longlist which does not feature any of the authors above. In the related MeFi thread, someone points out that Ian McEwan is the literary equivalent of Coldplay. Oh, snap. + Bookshelves. + Alasdair Gray walking down Byres Road with all his pockets stuffed with his books. + Quince jelly on a good slice of cheese on fresh bread. Yes, that new cheesemonger's doing his job well. + Sitting inside while the rain falls and falls and falls. Sitting inside with hot tea, a blanket and all the time in the world while the rain falls and falls and falls. + "Being an introvert, I explained, is not about being shy, although I was painfully shy for the first 18 years of my life. Being an introvert is more about finding it difficult to engage in social interaction for extended periods of time, and about valuing your own company as much as (if not, in some circumstances, more) than the company of others." - she said. + "This is the coastal town they forgot to close down /Armageddon, come Armageddon, come!"

Points

Firstly, the response to my Larisa scarf has taken me completely aback. The pattern has been available from a shop here in Glasgow for about a week - and so far more than fifty people have "bought" a copy (pattern comes with the purchase of a ball of Kidsilk Haze). I have received so, so many lovely, thoughtful and sweet comments from complete strangers that I don't know what to say except thank you. It's really quite startling and I feel a bit overwhelmed. Secondly, I will be at the UK Knit Camp marketplace next Saturday (the 14th of August) in Stirling. Mostly I will be browsing and trying not to buy things, but I will also be helping out at the Old Maiden Aunt booth.  I know several bloggers will be attending and I'm really looking forward to meeting many of my online friends/reads. If you recognise me, do say hello! I have very mixed emotions about attending the UK Knit Camp - it seems to have descended into chaos - but as it is one of the very few Scotland-based knitting events, I have decided to tag along. I just hope that the UK Knit Camp shenanigans will not deter people from staging further events up here. It's not Scotland's fault, I swear..

Finally, I had the pleasure of meeting Ali from Jamie Possum today.  We had a great talk about sustainability, New Zealand and KnitNation. I am yet to try out her beautiful yarn, but I'm a) such a Kiwiphile and b) such a sucker for gorgeous yarn that it is just a matter of time before I succumb. I have long wanted to knit the Lorién beret and I'm quickly running out of excuses. Except that I also appear to have run out of knitting time and my stress levels are at a two-year high.

How to combat stress when my stress is knitting-related? Answers Suggestions, please.

In the Sea of Words

For some odd reason I appear to be catching up with myself at the moment. I am knitting things I queued years ago and I am reading a book I have been meaning to read for at least ten or twelve years: James Joyce's Ulysses. Once upon a time I sort-of specialised in Modernist literature - early 20th century experimental literature, if you like, which broke away from realist modes of expression. I mainly focused on Modernist poetry (I had major problems with prose at the time and abandoned fiction for several years - it's a long and dull story why) so I have big gaps where you might expect otherwise. Hardly any Virginia Woolf, very little James Joyce, just a smattering of DH Lawrence and no Djuna Barnes or Marcel Proust. I have been playing catch up ever since I rediscovered prose.

So far I am really enjoying Ulysses. I used to be slightly frightened of the novel - it is the big mythical beast of 20th century English-language literature after all - but I am relaxing into it in a most enjoyable way. A not-so-small part of me is itching to sit with a concordance and jot down marginalia as I slowly work my way through the book, but I am mostly just enjoying the reading experience. It is a more immediate way of reading the book and while I know I am missing layers of meaning, I like this informal way of reading. Because I was trained to read in a methodical, almost-clinical manner I am sometimes struggling to connect with some books, and I really enjoy when I can lose myself in a book.

(I did put an exclamation mark next to the bit which I'm convinced Ezra Pound "borrowed" for his Cantos. You know, just for old time's sake.)

Wholly unrelated, but then again: The Best & Worst Job Prospects in the Urban Fantasy Economy for 2011. Years ago I kept borrowing books from friends hoping that I could get into genre reading - specifically urban fantasy, supernatural romance and Celtic fantasy (the genres most popular with my friends) - but I struggled to get past the clunky writing. I still remember reading Laurell K. Hamilton's Guilty Pleasures (which came highly recommended to me) and being unable to get past the sentence: "He laughed bitterly, like shattered glass". When I learned that Guilty Pleasures were supposed to be the best book Hamilton has ever written, I twigged that I should probably just go about reading the kind of books I like and stop trying to emulate others' reading patterns.

I continue to be wary about reading recommendations, but Five Books looks useful: "Every day an eminent writer, thinker, commentator, politician, academic chooses five books on their specialist subject." I thought these looked intriguing: Sara Maitland on Silence, James Meek on The Death of Empires, Rebecca Goldstein on Reason and Its Limitations and Thomas Keneally on Russia.

My Favourite Obsession

People who lived through a certain obsession of mine will get a kick out of knowing I have found a pattern for Moulin Rouge mittens. Yes! Mittens with cancan dancers and a big red windmill! My life is complete! Maybe I should knit mittens based all my film obsessions. Any suggestions for Trainspotting, Velvet Goldmine or Hedwig & the Angry Inch mitts? Of course I already own Hedwig-themed yarn thanks to Ms Old Maiden Aunt. And no, I'm not asking about Star Wars patterns because there are plenty of those around.. I saw this little Ten Ways To Ruin Your Sewing tutorial over at Colette Patterns and thought it applied really well to knitting too. Here are the best bits but with a knitting slant added by yours truly:

1. Stupid self-imposed deadlines. I have been prone to thinking "I need to get this pullover done so I can wear it to XYZ." End result: I never finish the pullover because I work on it 24/7 and end up hating it. Or it ends up looking a shoddy mess and I won't ever wear it. Besides, no-one but myself cares if I wear a new pullover to XYZ.
2. The wrong fabric yarn. So you like that indie-dyed cashmere? And you're going to use it for a baby cardigan? Really?! You might want to talk to someone about that. Yarn recommendations are there for a reason. Substitute the recommended bulky-weight merino yarn with a 4ply cotton yarn at your own peril. If you are allergic to a fibre or the recommended yarn is out of your price range/you don't like the colour range, get clever about your yarn substitution. Also, using alpaca for a summer top = no-no.
3. Inaccurate cutting. Okay, there might not be an equivalent knitting faux-pas .. except if you ignore the given tension. I've tried that. I tried to knit Mr Greenjeans without checking my tension. I ended up with something which was four sizes too big. I do these things so you don't have to.
4. Winging it on a new technique. "Aha! So this project calls for a provisional cast-on? I don't know what that is, so I'll just use my normal cast-on. Oh, I need to unravel the cast-on and pick up new stitches? Where are my scissors?" Okay, so I have never done that, but that is because I love learning new techniques. But you get what I mean.
5. Expecting every pattern to fit “out of the box.” "It’s a rare person that most patterns will fit without adjustment of some kind. Sewing knitting patterns (and ready to wear) are made for a statistically average body, and chances are high that that body is not yours. I know it’s not mine. Learning to make the adjustments you need is just a fact of sewing crafting life." (quoting this for truth)
6. Being dishonest about your measurements. This is the big one for me, personally. I have a weird, distorted view of my body shape so unless I'm careful (and honest with myself) I end up knitting things that just do not fit.

Another great post is courtesy of the new Twist Collective: Shop Talk, by Sunday Holm, hits so many of the marks for me. "Requesting that the shop photocopy a particular pattern to avoid paying the full purchase price of a book." is a huge pet peeve of mine (can you tell I used to work in publishing?) as is Getting a less than warm welcome which I remember vividly from a certain defunct yarn shop here in Glasgow. Sunday's article is well worth a read and even a re-read.

Finally, Jess and Casey of Ravelry-fame and -foundery are coming to Glasgow. Join us all for a knitting picnic in Glasgow's Botanic Gardens - more information on Ravelry in the various Scottish/Glasgow groups - and a big thank you to Vonnie of The Life Craft for alerting me to this! See you there?

Coming Up For Air

I have been so busy lately that it is a wonder that I have managed to knit a single stitch. Note to self: don't take time off just before your busiest time of year; it will come back to haunt you. I have been hung up on boring and not-so-boring work-related things, that last week's relaxing jaunt to Aberdeenshire feels like it took place last year. But somehow I've still found time to cast on a small baby cardigan for a pregnant co-worker. I'm using oddments of Rowan Extra Fine Merino for a top-down raglan cardigan (I'm using this pattern for numbers but not for much else) and it is zipping along just fine. I have done so many top-down garments now that I find it difficult to think of something new to say, so suffice to say that I think it'll be done by the end of this week .. which is not bad going seeing how hellishly busy I am.

And when things calm down once more I will proceed with a proper autumn knit. I've been eyeing some gorgeous new autumn clothes in various shops. I'm head over heels with this little dress and I'm loving the fact that purple + moss green appear to be this season's musts. I never used to pay attention to clothes or fashion, but since I began getting into knitting/crocheting again, I'm noticing things that I never noticed before: necklines, shoulder construction, drape, fit, ease, fabric, fibre etc. And I feel silly because I used to feel that fashion was something I was expected to be interested in because of my gender - and I rejected this due to being a raging feminist - and now I stand around cooing over a neckline or colour.

If I ever start going on about shoes, shoot me.

But seeing the new autumn lines going into shops do make me yearn for a real, proper autumnal knit. I think it'll have to be purple (and not moss-green because some people claim green cardigans are all I ever knit) and be a really snuggly knit. Just a few more days and I can see the end of the tunnel.

You know, I might even have time to read. I caught up with Anne Donovan very briefly today and we had a lovely conversation about knitting and books. Although I do love knitting and yarn, nothing beats a good book. I miss my books and I want to return to my current read. It is one of those books you have to keep in touch with or it leaves you. And then my next read will be David Mitchell's new novel and I'll have words to share about the Man Booker Prize (as always).