I love the public library service for what it did for me as a child and as a student and as an adult. I love it because its presence in a town or a city reminds us that there are things above profit, things that profit knows nothing about, things that have the power to baffle the greedy ghost of market fundamentalism, things that stand for civic decency and public respect for imagination and knowledge and the value of simple delight. Philip Pullman reacting to UK library closures
Fashion Query For Fashionistas
"For an island look choose a pareo or sarong which can be easily wrapped around your waist.. Find the perfect swimsuit to get ready for the beach or pool parties. Purchase a versatile cover-up that can take you to the pool and lunch." But how does normal, sane women dress for summer?
A long-term goal of mine is to refashion my wardrobe through sewing a lot of it myself. Figuring out The Summer Wardrobe is one of my first hurdles. Every summer I end up looking through my wardrobe and struggling to find anything to wear. My natural inclination is to hide as much skin as I can which leaves me feeling and looking positively Victorian every year. I'm slightly fortunate that I live in Scotland, so I do not have to cope with constant sunshine and high temperatures, but even Scotland has the occasional summery day during which I cannot wear jeans and a long-sleeved tee.
But what do I wear then? If I were to define my personal style it would be along the lines of "minimalist librarian chic with a retro feel" (even if that makes me feel all pretentious and such). How do I get away from tweed skirts, leather boots, and woolly cardigans into something I can wear at the height of summer - and not feel completely exposed or like I'm playing dress-up?
WIP Update: Purple Rain
Thanks to train journeys, my purple Colourscape cardigan is almost done. I still have to attach the sleeves, knit the button-loops, find buttons and weaving in ends, of course, but they are all relatively minor things. It has been a very quick knit and one I have enjoyed a lot. The pattern was very straightforward and came together without a hitch.
Okay, so I tell a lie: there was a hitch but it was of my own doing.
See how the fronts have mitered corners? It's a super-easy technique which looks great .. but if you use a long-tail cast-on (it is my go-to cast-on method), it will not work right off the bat. The left front worked great, but the right front left me bewildered. It just did not want to mirror the left front despite me following the pattern intently. Then it dawned on me: you automatically knit the first row when you use the long-tail cast-on which essentially meant I needed to decrease whilst casting-on because the pattern wanted me to do a sharp sl 2, k1, p2sso decrease on the very first row. It all seems so obvious now, but it took me a bit of head-scratching to get to that point. If you do a knitted cast-on, you won't have the same problem, by the way.
Montse Stanley is a bit hesitant about my next trick: the crocheted seam -->
In her excellent The Handknitter's Handbook, Stanley remarks that a crocheted seam is fine if you anticipate wanting to recycle an item and need a seam that can be unravelled relatively quickly. I like a crocheted seam when I worry about being able to provide stability and structure. The two pieces - the buttonband and the front - stretch in opposite directions and I wanted to make sure that the seam did not pull and provide stability. The seam is bulkier than a mattress stitch seam would have been, but this does not show on the outside. In its own way, a crocheted seam is also rather pretty.
I have been looking through my button boxes trying to find two buttons that work with this garment. I'm thinking some rather chunky and earthy buttons would suit the style of this cardigan. However, while I do have several chunky and earthy buttons in my button stash, I cannot find any that really, really work.
The Celtic knotwork buttons (four of them are tied together, one is facing) would be fine if they had been bronze- or copper-coloured. I don't think the silver colour works. The lilac plastic buttons are foul and were only in contention because parts of the cardigan are lilac. The bronze-coloured buttons were birthday presents from my mother, but they seem too shiny for this project. They'd be lovely against some dark green tweed, though.
I've looked the usual places but to no avail. Well, I have sleeves to ease in first..
Pointilism
It has been a hell of a week, quite frankly.
- A lot of work. I don't discuss work here so let's leave it at that.
- A lot of travelling across Scotland meant some truly great views from my train window.
- A lot of knitting got done on train journeys. My purple cardigan needs to be assembled and then it is done.
- Come to think of it, my red cardigan needs to be assembled too. I didn't reknit a thing, so I have no idea if I should commit to assemblage.
- My loo was finally fixed after being broken for four weeks. I was terribly excited.
- I've booked myself in for some sewing machine demonstrations/trials. I may commit to a model this decade.
- I really, really, really to catch up on sleep or my brain + body will fry.
Zzzzz...
Books Read 2011: Jasper Fforde - Shades of Grey
Years ago a good friend visited me in Copenhagen and somehow persuaded me into reading The Eyre Affair, an obscure first novel by a British writer. I had misgivings but my friend has good taste in things. Like countless others before and after me, I loved the book and Jasper Fforde is not an obscure author any more. He is more like a cult phenomenon - much in the same way as Terry Prachett (of whom I've never been a fan, incidentally) and Monty Python (who I love) he inspires devotion and fanaticism. You bond with other people over his books. You give them to friends and hope they'll come back laughing hard. Having said that, the Thursday Next novels which started with The Eyre Affair were a case of diminishing returns after the first three books and I never got into his follow-up series, Nursery Crimes. My interest in reading Shades of Grey was the unlikely combination of my friend Kirsten loving it and Adam Roberts calling it a failed high-concept sci-fi book (Pot Kettle Black, Mr Roberts). Shades is a more serious, darker book than what I expected from Fforde. Okay, so his dystopian vision is still filled with silly puns and comic asides, but the world is a sinister place where nasty things do happen to good people. The book is also more science fiction than his previous books (which were pomo-literary-comic-fantasy-detective-thriller-fiction) which is particularly noticeable in its world building. However, I wish I had known that Shades is the first of three novels, so I could have understood its pacing a lot better. The extensive world building takes up almost 2/3rds of the novel and the plot does not unfold until very, very late.
So, I had a mixed reaction to Shades of Grey but I know I shall be reading the next two novels in the series because I do love a good dystopian novel and the plot set-up is really quite intriguing even if I had to read 250+ pages about The National Colour Grid, the importance of maintaining a colour dynasty, beigemarket dealings in colour swatches, and homing slugs.
Is 'Sixthly' Even A Word?
First of all, congratulations to Ms Old Maiden Aunt whose yarn was just featured in the new Winter edition of Knitty. I particularly like how the Knitty people have made a lovely page banner out of a close-up of Lilith's yarn. The yarn was used for Palisander, a beautiful scarf by Denmark's own Signest (congratulations to you too, obviously!). Man, this knitting world is really freaking small at times.. Secondly (and just to prove my point), there is a photo of yours truly, Ms Celtic Stitcher, and SoCherry in the February edition of UK knitting magazine, Let's Knit. We were just knitting away at The Life Craft's knitting night and somehow a photo made it into a magazine. In all honesty, I am only an occasional guest at The Life Craft's knitting nights for one reason or another, but I am a huge fan of the shop and have enjoyed their hospitality on many (camera-less) occasions. It's great to see the gals (and guys!) of TLC getting national attention.
Thirdly, since Friday I have knitted 1 back, 1 sleeve and 1 front of my Purple Rain cardigan. You have to love 7mm needles and their Instant Gratification factor. I hope to have the cardigan finished by the end of the week which sounds bizarre to me after having spent five months knitting another cardigan (more on that one later). Seeing as my working week will be marked by a work-related train journey north, I should perhaps start planning my next big project..
Fourthly, I have already planned my next big project. In fact, I have planned my TWO big projects which will keep me occupied the next few weeks and then some. I recently bought some Rowan Silky Tweed in a delicious mustard yellow and my skeins are destined for the Acer cardigan by Amy Christopher (rav link). I have admired that cardigan for a long time and as the yarn is a light aranweight with excellent stitch definition, I get the feeling it'll be a match made in knitting heaven. My other planned project is Fancy from the new Rowan magazine. The photo does not show it, but the jumper has a goddamn fabulous Estonian-lace-ish stitch pattern going for it. I'm helpless in the face of Estonian-lace-ish stitch patterns, so a Fancy in chartreuse green Kidsilk Haze will be on my needles soon. I first thought of making it in black but then decided I was clearly mad.
Fifthly, friends mentioned above have persuaded me to give my red alpaca cardigan some time in the knitting basket. Time to let me get over myself and my body image. It's not the cardigan's fault that I had a few too many mince pies at Christmas nor that I'm more Christina Hendricks than Nicole Kidman body-wise. The alpaca'll probably wet-block really well too. Cough.We shall see.
Sixthly, speaking of celebs, I could not resist looking closely at the Red Carpet fashion at yesterday's Golden Globes and I loved the 1930s cut of Angelina Jolie's green dress. Very Old Hollywood and yet very current. Sigh.