Boom! Boom! Chaka! Chaka!

This is one of my favourite weeks of the year: the Eurovision Song Contest week. For my non-European readers, imagine American Idol with 45 different countries competing. Then add xenophobia, bad blood, neighbourly love, dubious ethnic costumes, weird instruments, and mangled lyrics. The combination is oddly compelling. The first semi-finale took place yesterday with the second one happening tomorrow and the finale is on Saturday. Here are some selected highlights:

• Armenia delivered an astonishingly bad, yet classic Eurovision performance in the first semi. It did not progress past the first stage. It was a bit of an upset for a nation that has done very well in recent years.
• Despite myself, I actually like Ireland's song although it features the dreadful Jedward twins (to spare you googling, just watch this clip and weep for humanity). I feel dirty.
• Georgia was one of my personal favourites in the first semi-final which tells you a bit about the level of talent. It is not a classic year.
• Meanwhile Russia's "Alex Sparrow" and Sweden's Eric Saade are fighting it out for the Cute Twink Singing Club Anthem award. I actually prefer Saade's 2010 effort which didn't make it past national finals.
• Iceland has a very strong song with a big sob-story background. I expect this to do very, very, very well.
• Germany won last year. Unusually the winner has chosen to defend her title and she has opted for a seriously cool, dark little song. Go, go Germany! Israel has also sent a former winner. I don't think Israel will do well this time around.
• Finally, my two "home countries" which are both doing well with the bookmakers. Blue's "I Can" is the strongest UK entry for over a decade and this is the sort of stuff the UK should be entering every year*. Denmark's also being hailed as a potential winner. I loved the song when Andreas Johnson sang it in the Swedish 2006 finals. Bad boy Denmark for ripping off a Swedish song.

(* I have heaps of ideas of who to represent the UK at the ESC. Alexandra Burke, Little Boots and The Saturdays would be fabulous if completely unlikely competitors.)

Just to finish off, some of my recent ESC favourites: Turkey 2008, Bosnia & Herzegovia 2008 (which included knitting ladies!), Romania 2006 and France 2007. For sheer WTF-ness, try Azerbaijan 2008. For cuddliness, try Norway 2009 (which won).

And Sweden 1983 which spawned a life-long Eurovision love.

Exciting News

A sneak preview of a new Old Maiden Aunt yarn which is set to launch this summer. Oooh. Lilith handed me two skeins yesterday and I am under oath to not breathe a word about this new yarn to anyone. Okay, I can tell you this much: it is 4ply and the colour shown is called 'ghillie dhu' (it's part of her brand-new colour collection).

I can also reveal that I've been asked to design specifically for this yarn and that you'll be able to purchase the new yarn line with accompanying pattern support at this year's Knit Nation.

As far as everything else happening with Lilith, Old Maiden Aunt and Knit Nation .. well, I'm sworn to secrecy (but it's really cool stuff). I've been asked if I'm going to Knit Nation this year, but sadly I have prior engagements. I nearly did accept an invitation to do some work there but .. annoyingly I had to be a proper grown-up with a "I have already agreed to do something else, sorry". Sigh.

If you're going to be in London for Knit Nation, please do visit Lilith's stall and say hi. Also do a trip on the London Eye for me because I'm so scared of heights I need someone to do it on my behalf.

Fenris & the Lady

I finished a book the other day to my great relief. I have been struggling with books for a few months now after the disastrous Zadie Smith - On Beauty almost-read. Refusing to finish On Beauty, I picked up several books only to put them down after a few pages and so it went for a few months. Wilkie Collins' The Law & The Lady isn't a great book by any stretch of the imagination , but it kept me reading and I'm very thankful for this. Mostly I have been working on my jumper, Fenris.

I have just finished the body; it includes so fairly dramatic waist-shaping, short-rows to shield my lower back (which is always cold) and short-row bust shaping ala Knotions' excellent guide. I am now working on the sleeves using the method I 'unvented' when knitting Snorri. I suspect I will also snip off the bottom ribbing and reknit it again like I did with Snorri. We shall see.

Fenris will have a circular yoke with some colourwork. Fenris is, of course, the monstrous wolf in Norse mythology which bit off Tyr's hand. While I am not planning on having disembodied hands nor wolves roaming around the yoke, I am idly pondering some Norse-inspired motifs. It all depends upon the colours I will have at hand. I only have the one colour in the yarn I'm using but its texture and appearance matches New Lanark Aran fairly well, so I have been digging through my stash to find suitable oddments (successfully locating some green, grey and brown bits).

Which brings me to: If any of you have oddments of New Lanark Aran (5g - 10g) in pinks, cream or blues - or in a similar yarn - please do get in touch and we can work out a swap or something. I refuse to spend £10+ just for a few yards of contrast colour.

I'm still working on my Fancy but I think I'm going to turn it into a shrug. Despite swatching and going down a size, it is still coming out huge. Future plans include writing up a couple of patterns (two freebies, one non-freebie), sewing a few skirts, and hopefully then have cleared out my knitting basket in time for the winter collections to arrive. Mildly ambitious..

A few recent favourites from Ravelry:

• Paper Daleks: this one caused a minor discussion in Casa Bookish. (I'm still not going to knit you a Doctor Who scarf, Dave. It doesn't mean I don't love you. It just means I think it'd be a great beginner's project and I'd be very happy to teach you how to knit)
• Cactus Blossom: I love the vibrant green colour coupled with Noro. Yum.
• Julia's BSJ: So awesome-looking in Kauni. I'm leaning towards making one for my pregnant colleague. I do not know that many pregnant women so it's now or never..
• Vintage St James: So gorgeous, it makes me want to make a striped sweater with a big kick-arse bow.
• Grey Miette: How pretty! How wearable! I must, must, knit myself a grey cardigan!

..In Mysterious Ways

Yesterday I had a meeting with a well-known knitting designer and I was asked to tell her about myself. I reverted to my age-old answer: "Oh, I am a failed academic.." and then realised to my great astonishment that my age-old answer no longer applies.

(Maybe it never did apply because the only academic failure I ever had was that my PhD funding fell through. As many people have pointed out, that hardly counts as failure.)

Regardless, I need to figure out how to contextualise myself. Who am I nowadays and how do I communicate this Self to other people? In order to figure this out, I did what I always do when I need to think: I sat down to knit.

And I want to write at great length about this knitting project, so I hope you are sitting comfortably.

I am using a pure wool yarn which was purchased in my mother's supermarket(!) in Denmark. It is a quite lofty yarn with a beautiful handle and I'm terribly pleased with it (the price was great too). My only problem is that I bought it on the basis of it knitting up 14sts/4" but it actually knits up 17sts/4" (which makes it aran-weight). Those three stitches really make a difference - particularly as I am using the yarn for The Most Popular Sweater In The (Ravelry) World - and this particular pattern does not work with an aran-weight yarn.

Before I go any further, here is a photo of my knitting/zen spot today. Pretty, non? The sound of the river running was also really calming. Handy when you are suddenly not knitting what you thought you were knitting.

And .. exhale.

On the other hand, I like knitting bottom-up sweaters and so I just went auto-pilot on the project whilst soaking up much-needed Vitamin D and thinking about self-presentation, self-image and all that. Then I went home and did a very clever thing. I started my DVD player.

My lovely colleague LH has lent me her Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Workshop DVDs. I have taken my time getting through them all: mosty of her techniques are familiar to me but there is still a lot to take in when you watch. Today I was watching her masterclass series whilst idly working on the sweater's body.

For anyone not familiar with Elizabeth Zimmermann, she is the doyen of contemporary knitters around the world. She passed away some time ago but her legacy is maintained by her family through Schoolhouse Press. Her influence can be traced in many contemporary designers from indie designers like Jared Flood and Ysolda Teague to established designers like Sarah Hatton.

I recently had a twitter conversation with Mooncalfmakes about EZ. We agreed that  while neither of us find EZ's aesthetics all that pleasing, we found her approach to knitting much more interesting. EZ made a virtue of liberating the knitter from patterns. You are the master of your own knitting and with a few basic rules tucked away inside your skull, you can knit anything you like.

So while my mind was being blown by EZ's top-down garterstitch multi-dimensional pockets - you have to see it to believe it: it's a very cool knitting trick - I was knitting away on my Failed Most Famous Sweater In The (Ravelry) World. I was adding short rows to the lower back like Kelley Petkun once recommended as my lower back is always, always cold .. and then I realised that I can take this FMFSIT(R)W project anywhere I want to take it. Of course I can.

So for the time being it is a a bottom-up seamless sweater and who knows what I'll do when I get to the yoke. Maybe I will add that parliament after all. Maybe I'll use up oddments of aran yarns I have kicking about. Maybe some colourwork. Maybe not. Who knows? What a pleasure this making-it-up-as-I-go-along type of knitting

I still haven't sussed out how to introduce myself to people, but hopefully I can make it up as I go along too. Sometimes I actually think that's how life works.

Greenery

Dear FirstGlasgow, I am interested in learning why your bus driver wanted to charge me an additional 45p for a return ticket within Zone 1. I was wearing a green coat (from a reputable High Street chain) at the time which the driver was quite obviously eye-balling before informing me that a Zone 1 ticket was "For you, £3.45". Surely FirstGlasgow does not base its pricing upon what a customer wears, so what gives?

Looking forward to hearing from you, Karie Bookish.

In case anybody wonders why I'm discussing my wardrobe in a complaints letter, here's the Wikipedia article on Sectarianism in Glasgow. My green coat is just a green coat, but unfortunately some people see it differently. Green equals support for Celtic FC in their eyes and so I never wear my coat when the Old Firm are playing each other. People get very silly sometimes, unfortunately.

In less serious news, I cast off my Skald shawl the other day and unpinned it today. Photos and info to follow. The yarn, a Faroese 1ply, blocked beautifully but it does look like a cat slept on top of the shawl. It's really quite hairy. I have cast on for the next shawl, the Rock Island Shawl, in Old Maiden Aunt merino/silk lace (colourway: strange rock'n'rollers). The shawl is actually meant for Ms Old Maiden Aunt herself, Lilith, and I hope she'll like it. It has been ages since I promised to knit her a shawl..

.. I've been knitting whilst listening to Enzology, a podcast from Radio New Zeland about one of my all-time favourite bands: Split Enz (sort-of like New Zealand's answer to The Beatles, only not). It is a heady combination: lace, sunshine, and early Split Enz (youtube link). The combination has truly blown the cobwebs from my brain.

Less than two weeks to the Eurovision Song Contest, though, and I'm still not excited. Maybe I need to remove a few more cobwebs..

Shiny Special One

Happy birthday, dear Darth Ken. The Buffy to my Xander. The Rosenkrantz to my Guildenstern.  The Han Solo to my Chewbacca. The Kirk to my Scotty. My most frequent blog commentator.

(Somewhere in my vault, I have a photo of Darth Ken wearing crushed velvet and a Plaster of Paris grotesque half-mask . In the same photo I am wearing black sparkly lipstick, a bodice constructed out of a pair of leggings and a velvet skirt. Man, the mid-90s were really scary. That photo will never see the light of day).