I Gotta Use Words When I Talk To You.

One day I'll stop viewing the world through TS Eliot's words. Thankfully that day is not yet here:

There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Today is my writing day. Visions and revisions, toast and tea. And in the company of Old Possum who laboured over words way back in 1915.

It feels like the past ten years never happened.

Children of the Echo

We are children of the echo. Born just after some kind of explosion, and doomed to spend our lives working backwards to try and get as close as we can to the moment of that Big Bang. (..)

But the whole point of the Beatles is that they were ordinary. Four working-class boys from Liverpool who showed that not only could they create art that stood comparison with that produced by "the establishment" – they could create art that pissed all over it. From the ranks of the supposedly uncouth, unwashed barbarians came the greatest creative force of the 20th century. It wasn't meant to be that way. It wasn't officially sanctioned. But it happened – and that gave countless others from similar backgrounds the nerve to try it themselves.

(..)

People of my generation felt this obscure pang – this feeling that we'd somehow missed out on something amazing. So we tried to make it happen again – but exactly the same. You cannot do a karaoke version of a social revolution (good fun trying though). What changed in the interim? Why was Br**pop doomed to failure? Too many factors to go into here, but one was: too much information. Too much reverence. Wearing the same clothes and taking the same drugs will not make us into Beatles. It will make us fat and ill.

(..)

We, the children of the echo, should get a life. We, the children of the echo, should know better. Time to move on. Imagine that.

Jarvis Cocker on The Beatles is a very, very good read.

FO & Pattern: Serpentine Avenue

Remember the old joke about tombstones reading I told you I was ill? It was one of my uncles' favourite jokes, bless their socks. Though magnificently Gothic, Serpentine Avenue is not my tombstone, but it does allow me to say I told you I was knitting!

It is the first pattern release for the Karie Bookish Knits/Old Maiden Aunt autumn 2012 yarn club. At the moment it is only available to yarn club members, but the pattern will be made available for general consumption in January 2013 as part of an ebook.

The shawl was written for OMA Bluefaced Leicester 4ply. It used approximately 375 yrds and is knitted on 4 mm needles.

But I want to write a little bit about the design process involved in designing Serpentine and the other yarn club patterns.

When Lilith of OMA first approached me, I started out by creating a moodboard on Pinterest. Lilith had decided on yarn bases by that point and then dyed up some samples for me. What a privilege it was! I sat there surrounded by yarns and beautiful colours - and I had to figure out which yarn/colour combinations I wanted to use.

It was around that time I started sketching patterns. Lilith and I had already decided upon Sherlock Holmes & Sir Arthur Conan Doyle  as a common reference point between us. So, I wanted something gothic, something Victoriana, something vaguely burlesque, and something steampunkish.

And so I ended up with a stack of swatches and a stack of stitch patterns.

I finally cast on for Serpentine during the Olympics Opening Ceremony - it was to be my own Ravellenic Games project - but it flew off my needles. The only snag I hit was trying to decide upon the cast-off edging. I first used an elaborate crochet cast-off  and it worked nicely. Then I changed my mind as I know a lot of knitters are not very comfortable with crochet. It was a step too far, I felt. The crochet cast-off will be used in another pattern down the line.

The second cast-off was a picot cast-off. It was pretty - it was very pretty - and I was happy with it for a long time. I finished designing and knitting the two other yarn club patterns - and suddenly the picot cast-off did not work. Don't ever try to tinker back a picot cast-off on a shawl, dear readers. It was not fun and I did it two days before the photo shoot.

I am really looking forward to seeing people's shawls. A lot of people have already talked about its Gothic and Steampunk feel - and I am so, so pleased that people have made that connection. It was very much the intention.

Then, the photo shoot.

If I look pale and flustered, it is because I wore a corset. I could hardly walk and talk at the same time - however did ladies waltz in corsets? I bought the corset especially for the photo shoot from Corsets UK - my corset is of far better quality than I would have assumed given the very reasonable price tag and they have good customer service. I also bought some stunning handmade earrings from Cherryblossom on ebay - again, highly recommended.

And now back to work. You know, I told you I was knitting..

10,328

I was going to write a long post about being strapped into a rollercoaster of woah and longing for days of meh. I had it all worked out in my head, but once I had written it down, my brilliant metaphors seemed significantly less brilliant and more .. belaboured. And as we all know that belaboured prose is one of the cardinal sins, I will quietly forget that blog post I composed in my head this morning over breakfast. Life is rushing past me at the moment and I find it difficult to catch my breath. I remember that feeling from my university days when I found a rich seam of information to mine and just lost myself in the library. It is so tempting to just step into that slipstream of excitement, fascination and intense, hard work - but these days I have some very good reasons as to why I cannot quite allow myself this. Back at university I would end up with ulcers - these days my body has other acute reactions that I should very much like to avoid (not that I am very good at avoiding them - as I am typing this, I have a very distinct headache brewing). It is just difficult to remember to say no to exciting opportunities - especially when I am having so much fun.

A fellow freelance knitting person recommended Asana to me the other day and it has already given me so much. It is a time and task management tool that is geared towards small teams, but works really well for this one-woman venture too. I have slotted in all my to-do tasks and I can already see where things are potentially clashing and how I can push one task into another time slot.So useful: I might even end up with some spare time on hands at some point!

I have already begun plotting what I would like to do with potential spare time: I'd like to whip up a few sewing projects, I'd like to finish my Acer cardigan in time for winter, I'd like to see some friends, and I'd like to read some proper books. My partner gave me a Kindle for our anniversary and while I have been using it a lot for nefarious knitting purposes, I have also devoured a lot of bad regency romances (which in itself is a sure sign of me being stressed).

(What? You think me plotting activities for my spare time is a sign of impending doom? I think you might be right. Ahem.)

Forthcoming:

+ if you have signed up to the Karie Bookish Knits/Old Maiden Aunt yarn club, the yarn parcels are under way and the first pattern will land in your inbox this Friday around noon UK time. This means I can finally blog about a Finished Object - that very thought thrills me no end!

+ I will be part of the "Reviving Woollen Traditions" Public Study Day at Glasgow's The Lighthouse Design Centre on October 18. This Public Study Day forms part of a Glasgow University research project and although the day is open to the public, I believe the organisers still would like you to sign up. It looks ace and I am looking forward to meeting a lot of online friends who are also participating.

Finally: 10,328? Ah. The number of stitches I knitted on Sunday. In laceweight. Doing lace. My wrists and shoulders are still aching.

Sanity: Restored

Oh how I wish I were still sitting here..

We unplugged ourselves from the world  - no computers and no smart-phones - and went up north for a mini-holiday. Dave grew up on Scotland's North East coast and I always love visiting his childhood landscape. The light is different up north - it is thinner and bluer - and to me it feels very Scandinavian. It was a joy to sit on the beach and watch the North Sea roll towards us again and again and again.

And although the light was thin and blue, it was also strong. The UK had another bad bout of weather this week, but somehow the North Sea Coast emerged relatively unscathed .. apart from sea foam. We basked in unexpected sunshine, skipped stones and tried to identify sea birds.

We had no trouble identifying these geese flying south for the winter. The birds were everywhere in the sky and flew in the most marvellous formations.

And there were muddy fields too. We went in search of prehistoric sites near the coast and found two stone circles just 300 metres apart. It was an interesting walk towards the two sites as tractors had been working the muddy fields and we had to navigate our way around the worst tractor tracks whilst trying to avoid stepping in cow pats. One of us was successful (hint: it wasn't me). The two sites - Auchquhorthies and Old Bourtreebush - were my first UK stone circles and I'd be interested in following the Causey Mounth track. I'll need to invest in proper wellies first. And maybe learn how to pronounce "Auchquhorthies"..

 It was sad having to leave our little beach haven with its stone circles, fishing huts and picturesque cottages. It was also sad saying adieu to family and new-found friends (such as Hattie the Horse with her on-trend haircut). Alas, the modern world awaits us and I have patterns to finish, samples to knit, and workshops to teach.

But it was good to get away for a few days. I feel a lot more sane than I did just a week ago.

What the Kids Do Today

My local Unnamed Major Supermarket is the gift that keeps giving. It used to be really dodgy, then it was given an Unnamed Major Supermarket Extra! overhaul and is now twice the size and twice as dodgy but does its thing twenty-four-seven. Going to Unnamed Major Supermarket is always an adventure. What will it be today? Junkies in wheelchairs fighting over a cat on a leash that doesn't belong to either of them? A happy birthday card saying "Daddy, I love you more than chips"? Shady Lady having very suggestive mobile phone conversations in the middle of the Tinned Food section? Junkie challenging Mormon preacher on Hitler's Christianity? Or will it be as mundane as being elbowed by Angry Old Lady Who Doesn't Want That Luxury Hummus (And What the Hell IS hummus) But Doesn't Want Me To Have It Either.

All these stories are true.

But today my Unnamed Major Supermarket adventure was different. I was sending a birthday parcel to my BFF and the Post Office lady looked at me: "Is it one of those yarn swap parcels the kids do today?"

.. let us just pause and rewind..

"Is it one of those yarn swap parcels the kids do today?"

My Unnamed Major Supermarket just gets weirder and weirder.

(Also, it just dawned on me that I was identified as A Knitter by the Post Office lady. Note to self: must wear fewer layers of wool if I am to blend in with native population)

Addendum: If you are struggling to find me a gift, I'd be perfectly happy to accept Lord Byron's copy of Frankenstein, inscribed by Mary Shelley.. This Hark! A Vagrant! comic is wonderfully on-topic.