On a Knitterly Note

Today's a very quiet day in Casa Bookish. I believe my parents are currently looking at marching penguins in Edinburgh Zoo (or possibly at shoppers on Glasgow's Buchanan Street - not that much difference, anyhow). I'm still in my jammies and have been working away on the body of my Pine cardigan. I might just reach the "put body on waste yarn" stage today. I'm almost excited. First, just a brief link. Sarah Palin quit her job as governor of Alaska earlier this month because she is not a quitter (and something about basketball and dead fish too). Vanity Fair out her resignation speech through the capable hands of their literary editor and their copy editor. The result is very colourful.

The Interweave Knits Fall 2009 Preview is up.  So far the consensus seems to be "it is not horrible". On preview, I like the Freyja pullover (although I don't get the spelling) and the Barcelona jacket (although I'm not sure about its fit on people with curves - it could end up looking very frumpy). The Trellis and Vine pullover is immensely wearable and, with longer sleeves, Rosamund's Cardigan is a must-knit (and I have the yarn already!). I would have liked to have seen a Eunny Jang pullover or cardigan - and maybe some fabulous lace shawl, but you can't get everything.  Now to wait for the Vogue preview..

At the moment, though, I'm really drawing my inspiration from North European and Scandinavian crafters: Petra O's blå sjal (blue shawl) with its lovely yellow edging, Sanne's Percy shawl pattern (rav) which is my next shawl project, Veera's fantastic and inspirational modern garden cardigan, Birgitte's strikingly blue Buttercup/Cornflower and Olesdatter's beautiful Rabarber (Rhubarb) cardigan. I think it is the way they approach colour and their chosen projects. Veera had An Idea and chose a colour which would support the idea rather than overshadow it; Petra used contrasting colours to showcase the contrasting lines of her shawl; and Birgitte went all out colourwise knowing that her chosen pattern could deal with a striking colour. Seriously inspirational stuff and they are making me think about how I can use colour in my forthcoming projects.

Where do you find inspiration for your projects? How do the work of other crafters make you reconsider how you approach your projects?

I Am Aware Of My Own Mortality

The other day I tried on a wedding dress. Now before you all start screaming with joy and gushing - hold on for a minute and let me explain.

Principles is yet another UK clothes chain in deep financial doo-doo. It sells really nice stuff, though, and I went into one of their closing-down sales to have a gander. And I saw this which looks more like a 60ish mini-dress than a tunic. And I thought to myself: "If that no-good man of mine ever asks me, I'd want to wear a slightly hippie-ish 60ish inspired tatted-lace dress, wouldn't I (with these shoes)?" Sadly it was very shapeless, being a tunic and not a mini-dress.

Seeing my partner's facial expression when I told him? Highlight of my day, I tell you, highlight of my day.

And deep down it all felt a bit weird too.

Also in the "oh dear, I'm getting on in years" vein, several people around me insist on spawning. This has resulted in me spending several traumatic minutes combing the Ravelry database for acceptable baby knitting projects. So far I have found these patterns: Lucille (a vintage-inspired cardigan), Autumn Leaves (a simple cardigan with a patterned yoke) and the super-cute Fiona's Top. Clearly I need patterns for stuff that boys can wear too. Any recommendations?

Finally, todays' "neighbourhood" photo was taken yesterday at the North Kelvinside Meadow, a green space just two minutes away from our flat. The meadow is a disused space which has never had any housing on it and has been out of use since the 1970s. Local campaigners are now trying to persuade Glasgow City Council that we need to turn it into a meadow rather than flats. Cue guerrilla gardening!

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.

Between Days

Blog silences happen when un-bloggable things are happening. So, bloggable things in quick recap form:

• I'm reading a lot of Georgette Heyers at the moment. I'm on my third in less than a week.
• I've cast on for Helga Isager's Pine in a new Scottish handknitting yarn. I will have to rip it out as I started the brioche stitch section last night at knitting group and Something Clearly Went Wrong.
• Wimbledon is in its second week and I'm really enjoying the coverage. I have always loved watching tennis - not just Wimbledon - and it makes for great knitting TV. Andy Murray is the homegrown hero, but I'm finding it slightly difficult to warm to him as he's of the Agassi school of tennis and I've never been a huge fan of that particular style.
• And I also watched a bit of Glastonbury coverage on Auntie Beeb. Blur were fantastic (surprisingly so as they never were the best live act out there) and made me super-nostalgic for my youthful days.

Back to un-bloggable things.

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..