If It's Saturday, It Must Be Random

You take approximately 750g of ripe elderberries (rinsed and de-stalked, natch), 200g of granulated sugar, two table spoons of lemon juice, two diced cooking apples and about 2 pints of water. Stick 'em in a pan and boil until you've squeezed every last drop of goodness from the elderberries. This should take about ten minutes. (Remember to remove the pink foam that will form on top of the boiling goodness.)

Then strain your elderberry juice through a clean tea towel (it will stain your tea towel!), dice another three cooking apples and put them into the elderberry juice, boil until apples are cooked (and add sugar and lemon juice to taste - usually I don't see the need, though).

Serve hot in a mug with a spoon to fish out those delicious apple bits. It's toe-curlingly wonderful stuff.

Meanwhile, on the knitting front, I have been working on a pair of fair-isle fingerless gloves to match my autumnal hat. I'm two rows away from finishing one glove and I think I will leave it at that.

It is not that it is not pretty. It is not that it is not a quick knit (each glove takes less than two evenings worth of knitting time). It is not that I do not have enough yarn. I am just not feeling it, baby.

Granted, the fit is awkward (slouchy where I'd prefer snug) and I have issues with the pattern (such as increases not fitting with the colourwork). But I could deal with that - ripping out the excess fabric and adjusting the increases - if I knew I'd wear the finished gloves. But I'm pretty sure I won't. The hunt is still on for autumnal gloves, then.

Finally, a few links:

• I want this bathroom.
• I want one of these hats (and generally want more people to wear hats!)
• Scientists draw squid using its fossilised ink. Amazingly cool.
• Scotland's oldest robbers are, of course, local boys.
• While the UK condemns ring-wing groups, something is still rotten in the state of Denmark.
• Finally, if you are able to use BBC's iPlayer, I recommend Peter Capaldi on Scottish portrait painting and the first episode of Tweed, a docu-soap about Harris Tweed. For someone who claims not to watch much TV, I have been watching quite a bit lately..

Knit A Poem

Knitting and poetry are more similar than they might first appear, she added, with poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy partial to an occasional knit, and the Society's president Jo Shapcott, Seamus Heaney and Emily Dickinson all authors of poems featuring knitting. "With poetry and with knitting, you work line by line, and if something goes wrong you have to unravel it," Palmer said.

In order to celebrate the Poetry Society's centenary, people around the world are knitting individual letters which will be made into one giant poem. Yes, I am one of them. I have been assigned the letter G and I'm working on my letter in-between other projects as I'm not a huge fan of the intarsia technique. But I love poetry and I celebrate that something as wonderful as The Poetry Society exists in this day and age.

Keep up-to-date with the ongoing project at Knit A Poem - The Poetry Society.

And the Award For Best Knitwear Goes To..

First of all, it is time to announce the winners of my little blog giveaway. Thank you so much to everybody who left me a comment. I really enjoyed looking at everyone's favourites - some very familiar and some very unfamiliar projects among all your suggestions! The skein of Old Maiden Aunt DK yarn has been won by .. Birgitte.

The Ishbel shawl in Kid Silk Haze has been won by .. Meg.

The three crocheted flower brooches have been won by .. Katherine, Laila and xtiand.

The vintage button earrings will adorn Anne.

And the vintage button selection has been won by Anna.

Congratulations to all the winners - I will be in contact with you by either Rav message (if I know you on Ravelry) or by email

Secondly, the illustration and the photo come from  one of my secret vices: vintage knitting patterns. Most of my  local second-hand shops stock  patterns from the late 1970s until the late 1990s, which can be vaguely interesting on occasion, but I much prefer patterns circa 1930 to 1950. The patterns flatter the female figure, are elegant in a timeless manner, and have clever little details you don't get with much later patterns.

Last I visited Denmark I found a pattern book from around 1941 filled with knitting patterns. As it is a wartime publication, you only get a handful of photos but a healthy helping of beautiful illustrations.

Interestingly, the patterns draw inspiration from Scandinavian folklore - reindeer, stars (familiar to many from Selbuvotter), merry dancers and Faroese geometric patterns - and many of the patterns are knitted in very patriotic colours. A little girl is even styled to resemble the little princess Margrethe ( born just five days after Denmark was invaded in 1940). Wartime patriotism, ah.

Most of all I am intrigued by the way instructions are given. A pair of very intricate gloves with embroidery are described thusly: "Start knitting the cuff in the usual manner; 7 centimeters long; divide for hand and start thumb gusset; knit hand until it measures 7 centimeters; divide for fingers; finish each finger; reverse for other hand." The embroidery is described in less succinct terms, thankfully, but there is little doubt that Danish ladies of the early 1940s knew a thing or two about knitting. A little chapter is devoted how to darn socks too. I still remember my great-grandmother darning socks.

I picked up another vintage knitting pattern the other day, an old Patons pattern, which includes instructions on how to knit helmet liners for brave RAF pilots fighting in World War II. The cover features a Hawker Typhoon and one of those brave pilots looking very dashing.

Knitting is social history and I love it.

The Knitting Basket of Doom

Hello FLS, my old friend,I've come to knit you again, Because pretty yarn came softly creeping, And I can knit you while sleeping, And the shawl that was frogged yesterday Still remains Within the knitting basket of doom.

In restless dreams I walked alone Wondered if I should knit Cobblestone, 'neath the halo of a second-hand lamp, I turned my eyes to the weather cold and damp When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of bright light That split the night And touched the knitting basket of doom.

And in the naked light I saw Ten thousand possible projects, maybe more. Projects without assigned yarns, Projects with double-sided lace charts, Projects that look fabulous - but not on me And not one made me Disturb the knitting basket of doom.

Head said you do know Your yarn stash like a cancer grows. Find some sweater amount for Hey Teach, Take these patterns and an FO this month you may reach. But my hands like idle raindrops fell, And rested By the knitting basket of doom.

And so to the great knitting goddess I prayed I looked at items I had previously made. And the signs were flashing, By the sweater amounts I had been stashing. And the signs said, top-down it shall be It'll be easy garter-stitch and fancy-free And suit that lovely wool-alpaca yarn you have kept in the knitting basket of doom..

(apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)

Percy & Me

Yes, that would be my Percy(Bysshe Shelley) shawl. I finished the set-up chart, repeated Chart A eight times and, for about a week, struggled with Chart B.

Chart B was my first double-sided lace chart (i.e. knitting lace on both the knit and the purl rows) and I found it inexplicably difficult to read my purl rows. Post-it notes did help me keep my place, but progress was very, very slow. With an ordinary lace project I can zip through eight or ten rows without problem. With this one I got through two rows and I had to stop because I lost concentration. In four days I knitted thirteen rows. So Percy is no more. Yes, dear reader, I frogged my shawl last night at 11am.

Do you ever start a book, discover it is dire and yet you finish it, come hell or high water? I am a fickle reader. I start a book and if it does not grab me in one way or another, I stop reading it. My life is too short for dull reads. I'm a lot more loyal and disciplined when it comes to knitting. I never have more than three projects on the go (and frequently fewer) and although I do suffer from Second Sleeve Syndrome, I finish my projects. I think a lot about what I'm knitting and spend much time considering patterns and yarn before I even start.

But Percy started getting on my nerves. It was not fun and I consider lace knitting to be my fun projects. I'll try the pattern again in a much heavier yarn while the Old Maiden Aunt yarn  is already ear-marked for another lace project.

(.. related: I've found some very delicious Swedish laceweight which I'll resist until I've knitted a huge part of my laceweight stash down..)

So, let us look at some new patterns. The new Drops patterns have been out for a wee while, but I have forgotten to mention them here. As always, the Garnstudio designs are a bit hit-and-miss but thanks to the sheer volume of designs, I always manage to find some real must-knits.

One of my favourites is this yoked pullover. It's classy and very wearable (which probably means it will languish in my Ravelry queue while less wearable and more flashy knits jump onto my needles). To wit, this tunic is far more likely to catch my knitting attention - maybe do it in gray? And what about adding long sleeves to this cool top? Also, a part of me is very, very taken with this crocheted skirt.. Moving swiftly along, I also really like this cardigan and am intrigued by the Twinkle-ness of another wearable cardigan. Or what about a cropped cardi? Finally, I know I'll never knit this and that it would look very unflattering on me, but this pullover just oozes "cosiness" and "snuggling up in front of a lit fireplace"..

Isn't It Romantic?

A few weeks ago my partner, David, came down with the flu and I succumbed a day later. I suspect it was the dreaded H1N1 flu, although we cannot be sure. I was cooped up in bed for a few days which obviously led to me devouring one book after another. That is, one Georgette Heyer regency romance after another. To be absolutely precise, fourteen Georgette Heyer books. I'm in withdrawal as we speak. The curious thing is that I started to really get into the socio-economics described by Heyer. Usually she is praised for her knowledge of early 19th century fashion and her distinct language usage (la!), but as I was lying in bed reading one novel after one, I started paying attention to money. Who has money? Who hasn't? What do they do with the money? How does money flow through the novels? How does money connect and separate people? Gosh, I almost feel like a Marxist literary critic..

A Civil Contract sees an impoverished aristocrat marrying a wealthy trader's daughter and through the marriage attempt to improve his estate's farming conditions. It is not a wildly romantic novel (no passionate embraces; no swooning) but a rather pragmatic look at class differences and social aspirations. While the book is far from being Great Literature, I found it convincing and interesting. I'm not sure I will read it again (unless I discover an hitherto unknown passion for early 19th C drainage problems) but it is certainly one of Heyer's beefiest novels.

The Unknown Ajax is a straightforward read compared to A Civil Contract. The hero and heroine flirt, chase ghosts, encounter smugglers and fall in love. Lather, rinse, repeat. What I loved about the book, though, was the fact that the hero is a Yorkshire woollen mill owner(!) and Heyer devotes several passages to the discussion of fleeces, crimp, sheep breeds, and the economics thereof. Just the thing to read when you're in bed and too weak to knit.

At the end of it all David pondered if I like reading Heyer because of a) the fashion discussions (I am a costume history devotee), b) the Yorkshire sheep or c) the many, many dogs with distinct personalities? I like to think it's a combination of all three plus the sparkling wit, the often ludicrous language and the knowing use of literary references (like the Shakespeare, Pope and Byron quotations in Venetia, possibly my favourite Heyer novel).

Speaking of things Romantic, I have begun knitting the Percy (Bysshe Shelley) shawl in Old Maiden Aunt 2ply alpaca/merino in the Bracken colourway. I paged through my well-thumbed copy of Shelley's Collected Poems earlier today and was amused by the doom and gloom I encountered. I had forgotten how Gothic he can be..

Ah, and the title? Enjoy Chet Baker's version of it on YouTube..