Treasured

When I talked about independent bookshops and Glasgow, I mentioned that my neighbourhood has several excellent secondhand bookshops. This is my favourite: Voltaire & Rousseau just off Otago Street. Sometimes I even think it is my favourite bookshop in the entire universe, full stop. As someone whose idea of a good time is digging through piles of old books long out of print, unsurprisingly I once went on a date to Voltaire & Rousseau with David, now my live-in partner. But the bookshop is an acquired taste. On the photo you can just about make out its first room - the £1 room - and it is symptomatic for the entire shop. Books are vaguely sorted into categories and then shoved into ramshackled shelves or stacked on the floor. Last time I was there, I dug through an entire box of literary criticism hidden behind a ladder. The main room is similarly organised/disorganised. This is not a place you go if you want to find one specific book. This is a place you visit to find books you never knew you needed - and you go frequently to keep up with what is in (visible) stock. I think it's a slice of heaven on earth.

A few links for your perusal:

• The Human Genre Project: "..a collection of new writing in very short forms — short stories, flash fictions, reflections, poems — inspired by genes and genomics." They are actively looking for contributors, so if you have a short story or a poem kicking about, do take a look.
• Adipositivity (NSFW) "..aims to promote size acceptance (..) through a visual display of fat physicality. The sort that's normally unseen. The hope is to widen definitions of physical beauty. Literally."
• From KnitWit: "..I love the reclamation of knitting from a largely private, domestic sphere and drafty community halls where it is too easy to ignore,to be a more visible social activity"
• And from the Domestic Soundscape, an amazing post on the connections between earth, animals, spinners and knitters. I cannot choose which quote to pull because the entire post had me going "yes, yes!"
• Finally, the last in a triptych of related knitting posts: the much-linked Golden Fleece? post by Needled/Kate in which she looks at the (rather absurd) notion that Scotland equals cashmere. Warning: this post will teach you things about EU law and textile history. She even suggests you read Walter Benjamin.

Meanwhile, I'm not quite sure if I have a cold, if I have the flu or whether my body is just playing tricks on me as per usual. I'm off to bed and I have a few Georgette Heyers (bought from Voltaire & Rousseau) to keep me company. Have fun, kiddos.

In the Shadows of Trees

Mooncalf requested a picture of my Pine. As the picture reveals, the cardigan's green (which will shock and surprise many of my regular readers). I'm knitting it out of two threads of the same fingering-weight yarn which is an unusual experience for me.

First I thought I could cheat and use some lovely tweed worsted-weight yarn I have in my stash, but when I actually read through the entire pattern like a good girl, I realised that some parts are knitted using one thread. So two threads it is, although I suppose you could get away with using worsted-weight yarn and matching fingering weight. Something to consider if you are planning on knitting this.

The body consists of four "ridges" and I'm on my third already, so it is a relatively quick and easy knit. I'm still sliiiightly unsure whether or not I shall have enough yarn (i.e. I have just about what the pattern suggests but I've been told to be slightly wary of Helga Isager's yarn requirements), but I suppose I could always have the button-band be a contrasting colour?

As for where I was sitting this afternoon - well, the Glasgow Botanical Garden is a perennial favourite. It is a short walk away from my home, it's relatively quiet even on busy (i.e. sunny) days and I can go into the Kibble Palace (pictured) if it starts to rain.

After a long, stressful and utterly busy week, I took great joy in buying some sugary tea, getting my knitting out and just chill with my knitting for an hour or so before my Other Half came in to get me. I need more afternoons like this.

I also took some more photographs of my neighbourhood because I do love my West End and several of my Danish friends have requested a few photos of the place. Stay tuned.

Tonight, though, the concluding part of Torchwood Season Three (aka "Children of the Earth"). Scarily Torchwood S3 has been jumping the shark in reverse, so instead of going from good to bad, it has gone from being ludicrous in its first season to being absolutely compelling viewing. All I'll say is that this season had me at "Well, what else are the school league tables for..?"

Lost in Fiction - RIP?

Our local independent bookshop, Lost in Fiction, closed its doors recently. I greeted the news with very mixed emotions. Independent bookshops are becoming increasingly rare and it hurts every time one of them closes. The closing-down of LiF also reflects that rents and commercial property prices in the Glasgow West End are spinning out of control. An entire block on Byres Road, our main shopping street, now consists of closed shop fronts. People are taking bets on which shop is next to go.

On the other hand, Lost in Fiction was a really crap bookshop. I say this both as someone with extensive experience within the book business and as someone who should've been LiF's target audience. LiF was essentially a bookshop for people who don't like books very much. Its stock was curiously bland and resembled a slightly dated airport bookshop: pastel-coloured chick-lit and cheap thrills dominated with a few super-hyped literary novels from yesteryear scattered on the shelves. If LiF had an editorial profile beyond "bland mainstream", it was well-hidden. I think this lack of personality, this lack of editorial edge, was its downfall. Tellingly I visited the shop a few times and never bought anything.

As the West End already has several excellent secondhand booksellers, the idea of an independent bookshop is not a stupid one. I think you'd need a strong editorial profile and possibly even a specialised interest (such as  hard SF or GLBT literature), but above all other things the owner of the bookshop would need to know books and the book business.

I'm already looking forward to the day when that bookshop opens.

In other news, my current knitting project, Pine, is going well. This'll be my first bottom-up cardigan and while I'm not enjoying the tedious work on the body, the brioche stitches are making the knitting go quite fast. I'm horribly busy at the moment and my parents are visiting soon, so I do not anticipate seeing it finished just yet - but it is a semi-quick knit regardless. I have acquired (even more) vintage buttons which will look rather nice.

Recent Acquisitions

My good friend, the old maiden aunt better known as Lilith, is away on holiday and yesterday I went down to West Kilbride to look after her workshop. What did I spend my time doing? Did I pet her handdyed yarns or fondle the abundant piles of spinning fibres?

Of course I did, but actually I spent most of my times winding yarn. You can see the result on the left hand side. My arm hurts ever so slightly today (Lilith needs to get an electric ball winder, I should get myself a ball winder or perhaps I should just stop buying so much laceweight and 3ply).

Here are some of my favourites:

This one just glows, doesn't it?

It was a birthday present from Therese, my creative, funny and amazing friend from Sweden. The yarn is 1-ply organic Gotland wool painted with organic dyes for the Färgkraft co-op. The wool has that rustic, rough handle which I love with all my heart and the colour .. well, my favourite colour  in the whole wide world happens to be moss green.

In other words, this is the most perfect yarn in the entire history of wool.

While I am tempted to cast on for yet another Laminaria, I think this wool doesn't need fancy Estonian stitches or super-complicated patterns. It has so much character that I think we are talking garter or stocking stitch here. Any suggestions are very welcome - right now I'm leaning towards a Faroese style shawl or something similar. You can take a girl out of Scandinavia but..

.. and then this beauty which was a thank-you gift from Lilith for my help. I got to choose any yarn I wanted in her shop which was an absolute treat. I ended up with a 50% suri alpaca/50 % merino laceweight (shock, horror) dyed in the Bracken colourway which forms part of Lilith's Homecoming collection.

I really like the subtlety of Lilith's dyeing. Lilith gets that colours need to work together in order for the knitted-up fabric to work - something many indie dyers forget. This colourway is green but also beige and a bit gray and a touch of light brown with juuust a hint of creamy yellow-green. I don't know how she does it, but it looks stunning and elegant. I might just use this yarn for a very special birthday that's coming up next year.. or another Laminaria for myself?

Finally, a little treat for myself.

West Kilbride promotes itself as Craftstown Scotland which means the high street is littered with interesting little workshops. Lilith's workshop is one; Lorna's Chookiebirdie studio is another.

Lorna' s work is handstitched and handfinished using vintage fabrics. She works a lot with tartan cloth, tweed and Scottish lambswool and does very embellishments with beads and buttons. The first time I encountered her work, I spent a long time drinking in her style and flair. I'm not a handstitcher, but I can definitely draw inspiration from the way she uses embellishments in her projects.

And then I commissioned this little needlecase from her. I love the owl and the moon - and the craftsmanship is astounding. I know a certain widely-read Scottish crafts blogger has been told by Lorna not to blog about her work until Ms Chookiebird comes back from holiday, but seeing as I'm a completely obscure bloggerista, I'm risking Lorna's wrath..

"Are You Sure It Isn't Just Some Fanboy Thing..?"

I saw this* and then I started missing academia once more and also really, really wanted to move to London. But, you know, life isn't so bad. Thursday I'll be baby-sitting the Old Maiden Aunt studio as Lilith's away, so do pop by West Kilbride if you fancy buying some lovely handpainted yarn and a chat over some tea and knitting. Via John (and presumably everybody else on the interwebs): Buffy Summers meets Edward Cullen.

"It's an example of transformative storytelling serving as a visual critique of Edward's character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy's eyes some of the more patriarchal gender roles and sexist Hollywood tropes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed in hilarious ways."

As John says, "..I have a sneaking feeling that a Spike meets Edward Cullen remix would [also] be a thing of beauty and a joy forever."

* I nearly fainted when I saw Jewel Spears Brooker was speaking on “The Fire and the Rose: Eliot and Julian of Norwich”. Phoawr!

Worldwide Knit In Public Day, Glasgow Edition

A big thank you to everybody who showed up for the Worldwide Knitting in Public Day in Glasgow.

We had a lovely picnic at the Kelvingrove rockery (you can even see Lord Kelvin in the background looking at us - we thought about knitting him a beanie). It turned out to be so much fun that we are thinking about having another knitters' picnic later this summer. It was great to see so many people from various knitting groups and places (New York! New York!!).

Thank you to everyone who brought cake, fruit, homebaked bread and sunscreen. A special thank you to the amazing Jen who had devised a knitting game with fabulous prizes (handspun yarn! spinning fibre! dyeing kit! handdyed yarn!).

And now to apply copious amounts of aftersun lotion..