Two - No, Three - Links

One website is really eating into my online time: Geni. It's a site which will let you generate your own family tree for free. I have an unwieldy and complicated family tree (think Jeremy Kyle or vintage Jerry Springer) which makes it super-fun to figure out how people are actually related to one another. As Geni also lets you add photos of the different family members, you can also trace where that family chin originated.. Another website which has captivated me today: the 'Coraline' website. The website seeks to promote the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's "Coraline" book - and in all honesty, I am not a big Gaiman fan. However,  try typing in the code: sweaterxxs and you will see why I'm enchanted. Clues: Starmore and miniature.

Addendum: Darn, I forgot to add this amazing video of a meteorite falling in Canada and burning up as it hits the Earth’s atmosphere. The footage is from a police car in Alberta. (via)

Buttons and Books

These are my Buttony Mitts. I test-knitted them for Lilith of Old Maiden Aunt. Basically, she asked me one day if I wanted free handpainted yarn and I replied with my best teenage "dooooh" face. The yarn is gorgeous. It is a soft alpaca-merino-bamboo blend and is handpainted in shades of forest green, khaki and pine. It knits to aran-weight but Lilith had decided to use a 4mm needle to create a warm, durable fabric. It worked a treat. The pattern itself was well-written and taught me how to make paired increases. If not for other commitments I could have finished the mitts in the course of two evenings (I love instant gratification projects).

Lilith is planning to make Buttony Mitt kits available on her site, so keep an eye out for those.

Other commitments? Among other things I went to Edinburgh on Friday night for a panel on the future of the book at The Scottish Book Trust. I was pleasantly surprised to see a relatively large turnout (fifty people or so! on a Friday night! in November!) and was even more pleasantly surprised by the panellists who all had interesting points to make. I was particularly impressed by Donald Smith (of the Scottish Storytelling Centre) who knew his book history and made good points about the book (codex) as a material object. The panel ran out of time, so the Q&A session was cut short, but I managed to raise a point about the socio-economic implications of digitalising books which was well-received. I suppose "you had to be there", but I really enjoyed myself.

As an aside, I was cornered by an American who wanted to know what I had bought my cardigan. Score!

PS. I trust the permalinks are working for people now. If not, let me know.

Codex or Kindle?

I am off to Edinburgh to attend a discussion on The Future of The Book. Codex or Kindle.. or something else? In the meantime, have fun with these links. + Urban Knitting: the world's most inoffensive graffiti. I'd argue it's not graffiti (as that word refers to lettering or the act of writing) but it's street art. Regardless, it's pretty cool. + Mighty Morph Pads. Sculptural notepads that you can morph into different shapes and/or decorate. Quite fancy. + Rethinking Garbage. How one man is very happy to receive your (empty) candy wrappers and why the end result can be bought on Etsy. + Swedish Dansbands of the 70s. Amusing photos for non-Scandinavians and painful family party memories for all Scandinavians around my age. Dansbands (Eng. "Dance bands") is a genre of music still going strong in Scandinavia - think of it as Scandinavian country music and bands like Vikingarna (youtube) continue to sell out venues. And Swedish TV is doing a The Dansband Factor primetime show! Aaaghrr! + Jenny Everywhere - an open-source comic book heroine.

Six Weeks of Solitude: Back To Reality

Anna left an astute comment to my first post on the Six Weeks of Solitude idea:

I find the idea of six weeks alone in the middle of nowhere very tempting, but I think I’d had to not take my knitting - for me it would be less about silence, and more about not ‘keeping busy’ all the time.

When I originally thought about spending six weeks on my own, I worked out how many books I could read in six weeks, then trimmed the number as to leave me some spare time and still wound up with eighteen books. Anna reminded me of the intention behind spending six weeks on a windy island. It is not to glance at pages (however tempting) but to glance inwards.

So we will leave the number at twelve (first list, second list) plus one: Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I remember when the US Army captured Saddam Hussein and news reports claimed that Hussein had been stashing Dostoyevsky novels in his underground chambers. My old mentor and I were enjoying coffee in central Copenhagen just after the news broke and I still remember my mentor drily saying he hoped Notes from the Underground had been one.

Six weeks of solitude. Thirteen books. A chance to centre myself. Should I bring knitting? Absolutely. Knitting can be very meditative - particular if I am knitting miles and miles of stocking stitch (as I would with my first project). Stocking stitch is not the only type of knitting that relaxes my body and focuses my mind. Lace knitting can be frustrating at its worst, but at its best I drift into a strange realm of "k1, YO, k2tog, YO.." which feels as good as any Aum.

My second knitting project would be lace. Evelyn C. Clarke's Forget-Me-Not Lace Shawl hits all the right marks, especially when I imagine it knitted up in Old Maiden Aunt alpaca/silk/cashmere in a deep forest green. Hours and hours of pleasure - and much introspection too. Knitting is good for the soul.

On that little note, I'm leaving my imagined island cottage. Time to face the busy streets of Glasgow.

And Yes, I Am Abusing the Word "Epic"

Attempt at making swift out of lazy susan and old umbrella = clearly EPIC FAIL. So I'm off to B&Q. Wish me luck.

Proper update to follow. Sod it. I'm going to collapse in front of Heroes.

Needle & the Damage Done

Honestly? I have never been interested in cross-stitching and my very few attempts at stitching ended badly. These cross-stitch versions of Banksy's street art might just tempt me into picking up a needle and the thread, though. The site is in Swedish, but all you need to know is that "ladda hem" means download and "gratis" means free. Yes, they offer free downloads of Banksy cross-stitch patterns. You can also grab skulls, feminist symbols and '80s Michael Jackson patterns.