The John Coltrane Version

Elvis Costello's music has always lurked in my life. Growing up I occasionally heard him on the radio and was told by my gruff uncle that "Don't bother: that Costello bloke is really hit-and-miss." Then some time in the early 1990s I borrowed the Girls! Girls! Girls! compilation from my local library and fell in love. So Like Candy from "A Mighty Rose" (1991) is one of my all-time favourite songs. True fact. By 1994 I had parted ways with my gruff uncle's authority on all things pop music, and "Brutal Youth" had been released to coincide with my perfect year: Music never sounds better than when you are 18. This Is Hell from that CD has one of my favourite lines: "'My Favorite Things are playing again and again/ But it’s by Julie Andrews and not by John Coltrane". So here are a few of my current favourite things (the John Coltrane version, hopefully): + Radiohead playing How To Disappear Completely live in a studio. + The Anti Room looking at Montgomery Clift: "the new manhood in classic cinema". Have you seen From Here To Eternity? Ooh. + "Reading Barnes, like reading so many other English writers of his generation – Martin Amis, McEwan – leaves me feeling that I and the world have been made smaller and meaner." Gabriel Josipovici on the 2010 Man Booker longlist which does not feature any of the authors above. In the related MeFi thread, someone points out that Ian McEwan is the literary equivalent of Coldplay. Oh, snap. + Bookshelves. + Alasdair Gray walking down Byres Road with all his pockets stuffed with his books. + Quince jelly on a good slice of cheese on fresh bread. Yes, that new cheesemonger's doing his job well. + Sitting inside while the rain falls and falls and falls. Sitting inside with hot tea, a blanket and all the time in the world while the rain falls and falls and falls. + "Being an introvert, I explained, is not about being shy, although I was painfully shy for the first 18 years of my life. Being an introvert is more about finding it difficult to engage in social interaction for extended periods of time, and about valuing your own company as much as (if not, in some circumstances, more) than the company of others." - she said. + "This is the coastal town they forgot to close down /Armageddon, come Armageddon, come!"

Relics

"Legend has it that you don't fully quality for your West End passport unless at least one item in your house comes from Relics." I have only lived in Glasgow for four years, but by that standard not only do I carry a West End passport, I'm an ambassador for the West End. I love Relics and visit a least a couple of times a week - which you need to do in order to snap up the really good stuff. Through the years I've picked up vintage buttons, Dave's bought me the best knitting bag, we have found Soviet ceramic tiles, a Muirhead Bone drawing/lithograph from the trenches at Ypres (behind the vase), and dozens of other small pieces.

This week I found this beautiful 1930s vase you see in the photo. It may look a bit naff in the photo, but in real life it has a wonderfully subtle glaze and the flowers have a gentle glow. I fell in love with it the second I saw it, but it was not until I saw a woman pick it up saying "I might get this later.." that I realised that it had to belong to me or it would haunt me as The Vase That Got Away. And so I forked out my £3 and went on my merry way.. It is now sitting in front of the living room fireplace. I absolutely love it.

But sometimes my secondhand purchases get slightly out of hand. Today, in a different secondhand shop, I picked up some 1950s sewing patterns. This is all well and good, except both patterns are for 32" busts and my sewing machine does not work. I am pondering listing them on eBay, so they can go to a good home and I get (some of) my money back. Or I might hang on to them. Because I tend to hang on to things.

A few links to tide things over until I finish some projects/we have enough light for decent photos/anything to happen:

• The Language of Fashion - do crafters/DIYers use a different set of words to professionals?
• Do Typefaces Really Matter? - yes, they really do and I once wrote 106 pages about that. Good times.
• Weaving In Ends as You Knit - blog post in Norwegian but with instructive photos.
• Skirt Week - Inspirational Links to free sewing projects of the skirty kind.
• My Fault, I'm Female - stories of women who've been made to feel it's their fault that they are female at work, at home, or wherever.
• DK: KNIT - the Danish Cultural Institute, Edinburgh, is hosting an exhibition on new knitwear from Kolding Design Academy. I'm going!
• Crowded House makes frontpage on Metafilter. I rejoice despite not liking their new album.

Next up: dinner. Slow roasted pork shoulder in jerk sauce with baby potatoes and a fresh garden salad. Rainy days always make me eager to cook proper food.

Midway

The 4-ply cardigan has been pushed aside for a little gratuitous shawl knitting. The shawl has been worked on and little now and then, but I feel so frustrated with my cardigan that I thought I would give Mosswell (i.e. Aeolian) some love. As always, a shawl actually works up quickly once you pay it some attention. I zipped through the Set-up Edge Chart and am now midway through the Main Edge Chart. Another few rows and I will have a finished object. I feel almost faint. Still not head-over-heels with the pattern. It is exceedingly well-written, well-charted and well-explained, but it does lack a certain oomph. Perhaps I expected too much from the woman behind Laminaria (still my favourite shawl pattern), but I thought the stitches would flow into each other far more than they are. This is not to say that I am not enjoying knitting my Mosswell (because I am) but it is a different experience to what I had anticipated.

It is also very green which is why Mosswell will be given a little dye-bath once I have bound off. I hope to give a slightly more, er, "mossy" look. If not, I'll just rename the darn thing. Blackwell. Brownwell. Mudwell.

Oh, I nearly forgot.

Come autumn I will be releasing a couple of patterns for some scarves (just in time for Christmas knitting - you'd think I had planned this).One of the scarf patterns is currently with test knitters, but I thought I would let you catch a glimpse of my swatch. Once Mosswell comes off the needles, I will start working on the scarves in earnest and write more about the design process.

Oh, but for more hours in the day.

A couple of links:

• The early reviews of Christopher Nolan's Inception are in - and they are frighteningly GOOD.
• I chuckled at this list of imperfect Romance heroes/heroines. Oh no, Lady Alys is tall and odd-eyed! Prudence Lancaster is bespectacled and plain!
• 'Till Derrida Do Us Part' is the loveliest thing I read for some time. Other Half read it and said: "your mother would kill you". I replied: "I'm pondering if having a wedding ceremony just to interrogate the idea of "the vow" would alter the contextual meaning-making of the vow to such a degree that it could no longer be said to be a vow but rather an avowed non-vow?" Then he threw me out of the living room. Men.
• This method of making iced coffee looks very inviting - and possibly also a bit too daunting to someone whose idea of a good cup o' java is wholly dependent upon how much sleep she has had.

Love Spreads

Life is good when the sun is out and you have the day to yourself. The postman brought me the Spring/Summer edition of the Rowan International newsletter and I read it whilst surrounded by buttercups, daisies and playful squirrels. Later, when the sun disappeared, I went to the local Polish deli for rye-bread, tuna pate and buttermilk. It made for a delicious late lunch. I also found two beautiful tweed skirts in a charity shop along with an old, old knitting magazine. Total cost: £3. Yes, it has been one of those days today. One to savour.

I need a tiny pick-me-up, actually, because I have been struggling with wrist-pain following yesterday's knitting group. The old ice pack came out again as did the pain killers. I have been able to crochet without too much bother, so I am wondering if the small knitting needles are exacerbating whatever is wrong with my wrist - I am using 2.5mm and 3mm. Presumably it would do my wrist good if I swapped my usual Continental style for the English style, but as I am working with cotton, I am worried about any change in tension.

ANYWAY. Today has been a lovely day.

And that is even before I mention that a girl in winter has given me a pat on the blogging shoulder. Basically, it is one of those spread-the-love things where someone says "I love reading your blog, have this virtual plaque, think of ten random facts about yourself, and then mention ten blogs you love reading."

I'll give you six factoids, though, because I'm really dull.

1. I have two of my own designs on the needles at the moment. One is a sock pattern and the other one is a beaded scarf. I plan on releasing the patterns. 2. I think in colour and suspect a mild form of synaesthesia. 3. I cannot wear high heels thanks to hypermobile feet. Well, okay, I can, but I'll be limping the next day. I have inlays for my (flat) shoes which ensure my feet are kept steady throughout the day. Thankfully I don't need to wear the inlays constantly. My podiatrist once told me that had I been born in Russia, I would have been part of the State Circus. Thanks. 4. I identify as a Secular Humanist which sometimes makes people think I'm a big fan of Richard Dawkins. I am not. He veers far too close to fundamentalism for my taste and I find him decidedly off-putting. 5. When I say that my style is "vintage-inspired casual", I really mean "perpetually student-ish". I still get asked for student ID in shops despite being in my mid-30s. 6. I once appeared on a Danish quiz show and then travelled around New Zealand on my winnings.

Now imagine the next sentence in big pink sans-serif letters across the bust of a Photoshopped Hollywood Starlet: Ten Fabulous Bloggers You Need to Add To Your Feed Reader Right Now:

• Drop Stitches, Not Bombs - clever and stylish Italian woman knitting her way across Europe (although mainly UK-based)
• Bellsknit - Bells in Australia has a way with words, yarn and food. Gorgeous photography and great sense of humour too.
• Thrums - a recent find. New York-based woman who reads, knits and observes people.
• A Friend to Knit With - the photography is just stunning
• Feather & Fan - the brilliant Orata's blog filled with her own designs and travels.
• Ms KnitWit - I really like how she captures the extraordinary in ordinary life in her photos. Also: smart, funny and crafty.
• Roobeedoo - Someone else who has been transplanted to a life in Scotland. She's a reader, a crafter and very human.
• Academia Nuts- I'm privileged to call her a friend. You should see her knitting projects too.
• Anarkistens (ægte) Kogebog - Danish food blog. The funniest blog I've read in a long time. And she's all about using 12thC recipe books in her kitchen. Respekt dér.
• Petra O - a Swedish craft blog which is hugely inspirational with its beautiful photography and distinct style.

On Frocks & Books

A few things to tide things over..

• With a few modifications, this is how I'd like to live. I would not sort my books by colour (in fact, it is a pet-peeve of mine), I would tone down the pattern-upon-pattern thing, and I would go for a different IKEA sofa*, but overall this is my sort of home. It has that Scandinavian-midcentury/vintage-thriftiness/art-junkie aesthetic I like.
• As I keep saying, I am not getting back into dress-making. Nope. Not a chance. Having said that, I am drooling over this sewing project. There is no way that I'd look anything like the girl in the photos, but that is one fetching dress. I never know what to wear during summer but I like the idea of wearing pretty cotton frocks. But I'm not going to make one for myself.
• Not getting back into dress-making does not mean I cannot look at gorgeous fabric, though. Spoonflower supplies a design/print-on-demand fabric service. Look! Steampunk-inspired fabric! Fabric inspired by early American feminist writer! UK-based company, Clothkits, sells beautiful Liberty fabric designed by Grayson Perry. Sigh.
• Meanwhile Danish ladies' magazines keep publishing lovely free knitting patterns (mostly donated by yarn companies). My recent finds include this awesome cardigan, and a very cool top. I might even have yarn for the top.. Hmmm.

* yes, I have opinions on IKEA sofas. I'm a bit scared by this.

And on a completely different topic, take a look at this MeFi post about the quality of paper used in contemporary publishing.

"Eight years ago we started to notice the shift in buying patterns from free-sheet Permanent Paper to groundwood paper for hardcover books. Groundwood is the type of paper used in newspapers and mass market paperbacks, and its production is such that it is much lower-quality and degrades more quickly than traditional book publishing paper." What makes a book permanent?

The discussion quickly descends into a "well, why print books at all now the digital revolution is here" argument. I have nothing against digital publishing nor against digital archiving (in fact, I support digital archiving as it allows for storage on an unprecedented scale whilst not taking up much room), but I do take issue with people saying books are going to vanish within the next thirty years because they are too low-tech to be anything but obsolete. Despite globalisation, that is a very First-World argument.

The Book's low-tech nature is exactly why it is going to survive - and why books needs to be of better quality. Needing the Book is not about cherishing the object itself, but understanding its role in the dissemination of knowledge. Oh, but the internet! Oh, but Kindle! Oh, but what about people who have no access to the internet, or have limited/censored access? What about people living in areas where electricity is a scarce commodity reserved for the elite? Picking up a book "only" requires you to be able to read. Using a Kindle or the internet requires compatible technology, electricity, the ability to navigate and process information online, stable access, knowledge of how to download content/patch your software .. and then how to use your reading device.

(I miss working with print culture - can you tell?)

Linkage

A few links to tide things over:

• A few weeks ago a perceptive blogger wrote about volcanic activity in Iceland. Seeing as Northern Europe's airports are more-or-less shutdown due to a massive cloud of volcanic ash coming from Iceland, you might find it an interesting background read. Also: Katla, another Icelandic volcano, could well be about to get ready to rumble.
• Speaking of Eyjafjallajökull, have you seen this fantastic photo taken by a local farmer?
• And this is how to pronounce Eyjafjallajökull (links to sound). Not what I expected.
• Pictish writing?! The idea sounds ludicrous. Language Log explains.
• Best places to eat in Glasgow for the budget-conscious? The Guardian has a few ideas.. and handily includes a photo of the 78 (one of my favourite hang-outs) plus the opening paragraph explains why I love my new home.
• If you love fashion history or even costume history, chances are you will have heard of Prinny - King George the IV - a man so fond of bling that he built entire bling buildings where he could wear fabulous clothes with his bling and eat outlandish food. Glass of Fashion has been to see an exhibition of some of Prinny's outfits.
• Literary T-shirts. The double-think t-shirt is pretty cool. Others leave me wanting.
• Douglas Coupland has teamed up with Penguin Books for their 75th anniversary. Speaking to the Past is seriously gorgeous stuff with typical Coupland 'little ironies'. One for the bookmarks.
• Finally, Auntie Beeb asks why we need oil painters in a war zone.

Rufus Wainwright last night was very good, but I had certain reservations. More on that later - I also have a finished object to share and some thoughts about a certain free-for-all pattern.