What A Difference A Dyejob Does

Meet Percy post-dyejob. That safety vest orange shawl turned into deep, vibrant Wollmeise-esque red shawl. I am very, very, very happy with it.

Some of you have asked how I dyed the shawl. I had a big ovenproof dish into which I poured half my dye solution. I put my shawl (which had been soaking in lukewarm water for 30 minutes) into the dish and poured the rest of the dye solution over it. I squished the shawl gently to ensure that the dye was seeping into all parts of it, and then I put the whole thing into the oven at Gas Mark 1/140C for 45 minutes. Then I took it out and let it all cool before rinsing the shawl thoroughly. It was very easy. I think that I'll use a similar method on all those overtly variegated lace yarns I have lying about.

Speaking of ovens, I baked David's birthday cake last night so we could have some just post-midnight (we are both children at heart). The cake is one of my all-time favourites and it's so easy to make.

Meringue Cake (serves four or five)

Sponge: 2/3 cup butter 1 cup sugar 2 egg yolks 1 egg ½ tsp vanilla essence 1½ cups all purpose flour 1 tsp baking powder

Meringue: 2 egg whites 2/3 cups sugar

Filling: Raspberry jam.

Mix butter, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla and egg for about 4 minutes. Add flour and baking powder and fold in gently. Pour the batter into a small, greased oven-proof dish. Put the filling on top (if using jam, try heating it a bit before as to making it more runny/easier to spread - see notes). Whip the egg whites until stiff, then folding in half the sugar. Whip the egg whites again and gently fold in the rest of the sugar. Pour on top of the cake and bake for 1 hour at 150C/Gas Mark 2/300F.

Notes on filling: you can basically use whichever filling you want. I'd recommend using something sharp or tart as the rest of the cake is very sweet. Instead of raspberry jam, you could use tart apples (peel and slice them before adding them) or maybe even gooseberries? One of my friends tried adding banana and loved it, but I found it way too sweet.

(I would have shared a picture of the cake but funnily enough it has all disappeared. So, instead, you get a photo of me freezing.)

Croak, Croak

Health update: I think I'll be okay as long as I a) do not talk, b) do not laugh and c) keep drinking rum toddies. It is a slightly flawed plan, so I have stocked up on Halls Soothers. We are also on our third day of curly kale soup - it is my first time cooking this soup which was one of my great-grandmother's special dishes and I'm happy with the result although I'm going to tweak my recipe a tiny bit to make it a bit more like my nan's - and hopefully all those fresh veg will also make a difference. Knitting update: I have stalled on the first sleeve of Dave's pullover and am seven rows away from finishing my shawl's Chart B. Onwards, ever onwards. I am still pondering NaKnitSweMoDo (interNational Knit a Sweater a Month Dodecathon) for next year although both my knitting group and my beloved claim I will grow bored and whiny. We shall see. It depends upon the stash.

General update in the form of one link: These literary clutch bags make my heart go all a-flutter although I am most definitely not a clutch bag girl. They combine so many of my loves: books, paratextuality, craft, things handmade and geekdom. Be still my heart.

Also, I'm getting a bit nostalgic about the noughties almost being done and dusted, so expect wallowing entries in the near future.

Changing the Game

It is not often that people are praying for my soul when I'm at knitting group. Tonight was certainly different. We got caught up in evangelical Christians protesting the play Jesus Queen of Heaven outside Glasgow's Tron Theatre which involved the press and some (rather bored) policemen. As odd as the praying thing was, it did not compare to walking outside and seeing some very offensive anti-gay posters and billboards being held up by Respectable Citizens. Such people seek confrontation and thrive upon attention. I was not willing to give them any satisfaction and I resorted to quietly shaking my head at the candle-holding and chanting men and women as I made my way home. The twentieth century is slipping away before our eyes:  one of its greatest intellectuals, Claude Levi-Strauss has died. I always assumed that he had passed away before I began studying critical theory, although I cannot tell you why, but instead Levi-Strauss lived to the ripe old age of 100. Rest in peace, you structuralist giant.

I Apologise In Advance

I don't know if I am being particularly bitchy today, but when I came across the following pattern note on Ravelry, I stopped in my tracks:

When I’m knitting a Jared Flood pattern, I feel like he’s making love to me. When I finish a Jared Flood pattern, I feel like I just gave birth to his child.

I feel this quote is almost worthy of a lolcat picture - you know the "U R DOING IT WRONG" type - because either I'm not knitting the right kind of patterns or the quoted knitter has not been involved in the right kind of love-making. Also, I know that seaming stuff is seen as a painful process but it is as painful as child birth? Really? And, finally, I just find the pattern note a touch on the creepy side of things.

But I do think I am in a bitchy mood today. I spent my lunch catching up with blogs and after a few reads I decided I had had enough of self-congratulatory, self-satisfied glimpses of homemade organic bread, tidy houses with expensive Scandinavian design furniture and delicate beige sweaters paraded on a series of identikit children who are all doing so incredibly well at school.

I think tonight I'll need to crash a lot of cars on the Xbox 360 whilst eating chocolate. And possibly knit a couple of more rows on David's sweater (I'm hoping stocking stitch will make me go completely zen).

I'll leave you with one of the greatest Halloween costumes I've seen for a long, long time.. and a slightly bitchy link: Regretsy.

Deja Vu

YouTube Comment or E.E.Cummings? One of the funniest 20th century poetry/21st Century internet crossovers I have seen today. Not that I have seen that many, of course. After a few weeks of awe-inspiring knitting productivity, my busy fingers have become almost idle. I cast on, knit maybe twenty rows, decide the project doesn't thrill me and I rip it all out. Lather, rinse, repeat. Possibly it is the continuous failure of Topstykke that haunts me. The pattern is great, of course, but I keep messing up:

1. I cast on too few stitches and tried to remedy this whilst on a fast moving bus to Aberdeenshire filled with shouty Russian students.
2. I cast on the correct number of stitches but lost my stitch markers somewhere between a sofa and the kitchen table (a 3 year old nephew might have been involved).
3. I cast on correct number of stitches, got all of the set-up row right and blissfully knitted on until I realised that I was knitting a size up from what I'm supposed to knit.
4. I cast on correct number of stitches, got all of the set-up row right and blissfully knitted on until I realised I had twisted my cast-on and I was knitting a moebius-shaped top which will be impossible to wear (in this dimension, at least).

So I think it is time to let Topstykke rest for a few weeks whilst I get other things done. David's sweater is a top priority (he won the Halloween costume competition, by the way) and I want to have another lace shawl on my needles (Aeolian, I'm looking at you). I just hope that I can stick with those two projects and not rip them out after twenty rows.

Shockingly enough I have begun reading again and am currently one-third through Iain Banks' Transition. Banks strides the literary and speculative fiction divide, but cunningly uses a middle initial "M" to differentiate between the two genres. Interestingly, "Transition" is being marketed in the UK without the "M" (i.e. it is not speculative fiction, you fools!) whereas the US market gets courted with the "M" (hey, it's speculative fiction!). My favourite Banks novel, The Bridge, is a non-M novel but is more speculative than many genre novels. It's all about marketing, isn't it? So far I'm enjoying the novel, in case you were wondering..

And They Lived Happily Ever After

.. and they lived happily ever after - they being the knitter and her own Liesl. I frogged a scarf I knitted last year but only wore twice and miraculously I got an entire top out of my three re-purposed skeins of Noro Iro. Liesl is a magical pattern, I think.

Right now I'm really using knitting as means of escape from a very, very busy life. I cannot write about the things that are happening as I have vowed to keep certain aspects of my life separate from this blog, but I am currently facing a workload which is causing me to a) freak out slightly, b) stress and worry a lot and c) have brain-freezes. I wish I could pick up a book and escape, but my head is not in that sort of space at the moment.

So I knit. I knit a lot.

Earlier this year I was told to relax by watching trashy TV and reading crap books. I've finally taken those words on board and so I'm watching a lot more TV - whilst knitting, of course - than I usually do. This has lead me to conclude that FlashForward is very bad; that True Blood is very interesting; that Merlin is very silly, has pretty art direction and occasionally sports hidden depths; and that I have very little patience for reality TV (bar BBC's MasterChef which Other Half watches religiously).

In other news, the most despicable "newspaper" in the UK - the Daily Mail which does not deserve a link - has published a poisonous article on the death of boyband singer Stephen Gately of Boyzone (BBC link). I read the homophobic article itself earlier today before the Daily Mail found it necessary to edit it. In the words of the Guardian's Charlie Brooker (and his entire column is magnificent):

The funeral of Stephen Gately has not yet taken place. The man hasn't been buried yet. Nevertheless, Jan Moir of the Daily Mail has already managed to dance on his grave. For money.

It has been 20 minutes since I've read her now-notorious column, and I'm still struggling to absorb the sheer scope of its hateful idiocy. It's like gazing through a horrid little window into an awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite. Spiralling galaxies of ignorance roll majestically against a backdrop of what looks like dark prejudice, dotted hither and thither with winking stars of snide innuendo.

I hope Gately's husband and family sues the hell of Daily Mail. And I hope that other advertisers follow Marks & Spencer's example and withdraw their advertising money from the Mail. It is not the first time the Daily Mail angers me (in fact, you could set your clock by how often I feel personally insulted) but this is truly gobsmacking vicious.

Ah, a blog entry which is all over the place. And all I meant to say was that I really do love my new top and that I'm knitting a lot at the moment. The fact that this turned into a bit of a rant should give you a clue as to how stressed I am.

Pax.