Clip My Wings

Pause, rewind. Sewing is a different process to knitting. So far I have traced the pattern, worked up a toile (muslin) and discovered that I need to move the bust darts higher as well as doing a FBA. It is sort of a pre-process prior to making the actual garment out of the fancy fabric. Had this been knitting, I would have swatched using the actual yarn and probably be well under way making the actual thing itself.

Different processes. It's interesting.

Anyway. Random selection of linky bits: + The George Hotel, Glasgow. If you like urban decay, faded glamour or Trainspotting (the film, not the activity) + Is Denmark Breaching Human Rights? The other reason why I left Denmark. Even if D has a so-called "correct" skin tone and is an EU citizen, he would still get so much flak. No way would I put him through that. + BBC4 - The Beauty of Books. For a programme series apparently about the materiality of books, it does boast a suspicious amount of textual critics and biblical scholars. I was not impressed but I'm not exactly a layman. You might like it? + 100 Young Adult Books For the Feminist Reader. I spot certain omissions (such as this and this) but everyone's got opinions and it's a handy list. + Are you a knitter of the literary persuasion? Why not give the Beowulf socks a go?

Finally, I've derived great enjoyment from this video tonight.. Enjoy!

Purple Rain, Purple Rain..

First, an update on my lovely Lumley cardigan. It turned out to be too small across my bust & midriff. I blame Christmas cookies, my mother's genetics, and also a pattern which - according to Rav knitters - runs very small. It's in time-out before I muster the energy to pull out the two fronts and re-knit them. My partner had a genius idea about re-knitting the fronts, incidentally, and I might just use that idea..

But before I do that, I need a project to cleanse my palate.

Just a few days ago I succumbed to some Rowan Colourscape in the January clearance sales. The colour is "Purple Rain" and it is an otherwise unreleased shade that selected John Lewis stores across Britain were selling as one-offs. I bought 6 skeins with no clear idea in my head - I just loved the deep, deep purples which my camera has clearly failed to pick up.

And now I've cast on for a Sarah Hatton pattern. I sat knitting the cardigan whilst re-watching Hot Fuzz and I actually got halfway up the back in just one evening. Just what the knitting doctor ordered. Now I hope I've cast on for the right size - after the Lumley debacle I have grown a tad paranoid.

Some links:

• A really good article from The Salon about why people love so-called "bad writing". I'm a self-confessed 'Stylemonger' (read the article for description!) but I'm also unapologetic about my dips into genre reading. Well, unapologetic unless I read fourteen Georgette Heyers in less than two weeks.
• Erica Jong on modern motherhood. The concept of that article might sound like something out of your worst nightmare but it makes some interesting points - even for this non-motherly person.
• My cake decorating skills lie somewhere between "bad" and "wonky". You can't say the same about the people who made this astounding cake.
• Five Emotions Invented by the Internet.
• Born This Way (via MeFi): "A photo/essay project for gay viewers (male and female) to submit pictures from their childhood with snapshots that capture them, innocently, showing the beginnings of their innate gay selves. It's nature, not nurture!" Disclaimer: I read this blog not so much as reinforcing stereotypes (as some MeFi contributors argued) but rather "more about what you see in the mirror, once you know what to look for" as queer people look back at their younger selves. It's about nostalgia, self-acceptance, lived lives, and identity.
• And, then, Prince singing Purple Rain.

Third

I have not mentioned my red Kim Hargreaves cardigan recently, have I? It has turned out to be one of those curious projects where I work obsessively on it for three days and then it lingers for about a month before I return to it. I have no idea why I do not just keep working on it. Once the pattern has been 'spread-sheeted', it is actually a really relaxing knit and the yarn is beautiful. Yesterday I cast off the first sleeve and I cast on for the second sleeve. Things are zipping along really well - except once I cast off the second sleeve, I need to unzip the provisional cast-on on both sleeves and start the k2p2 ribbing. Still, the end is in sight and I cannot wait to sew up(!) this beauty. I'm really looking forward to wearing it. Let's hope it fits as well as I think it will..

As the light at the end of the tunnel becomes increasingly brighter, my thoughts have obviously begun to turn to the next big project. I have another big project on the needles which I need to finish quite soon, but as it's not a jumper or cardigan I have been roaming the Ravelry database in search of patterns.

• I'm totally in love with Balance from the forthcoming Rowan Studio 22. It looks like a combo of Kidsilk Haze and Kid Classic. I'm thinking Jelly (KSH) and Spruce (KC) although wilder colour combinations also appeal (orange, anyone?)
• Recently I've begun looking closely at Bliss, an old Sarah Hatton pattern. I bought some Rowan Calmer last year in order to make a Kim Hargreaves jumper, but I'm beginning to wonder if I wouldn't get more wear out of a short-sleeved cardigan?
• Speaking of cute cardigans, Miette recently jumped into my (carefully curated) queue. No, I'm not going to knit another red cardigan. Probably not.

Another thing I'll be knitting is an inside layer of my Twee Winter hat. I finished it well in advance of Christmas but it has turned out very big (when rav comments all say 'this hat is huge', believe the comments). Paula came up with quite a few solutions and we decided that knitting an extra inside layer would a) make the hat smaller and b) make the hat winter-proof (felting was not an option, incidentally). I still need photos taken of the matching mitts - they are goddamn adorable and I've been wearing them constantly.

A few links, finally:

• Pete Postlethwaite has passed away. He was easily the best actor in most of his films and it was a joy to see him in even small parts.
• And the Danish contestant in Eurovision 1980 has passed away too (skip the 1st minute). His was the very first concert I ever saw.
• I really, really want a puppy and I think Maddie is just about the most adorable thing in the world.
• I've bought fabric with this quilt in mind. I'm crazy.
• Best line ever line from a trashy book? Don't know, but "Yum. Johnny Hulk tasted like fresh gorilla" is up there. Or down there depending upon your perspective.

Last Thing

Tonight I'm a cooking an almost full-blown Danish Christmas dinner (only 'almost' because I'm only serving one type of meat). We decided to make this a tradition so every time we celebrate Christmas in the UK we get a Danish Christmas dinner a week later and vice versa. It's a new tradition, though, and it is the first time I'm cooking the dinner on my own. We are having duck breasts (scaled down from an entire duck) with two types of potato (boiled and sugar-glazed potatoes), braised red cabbage and duck gravy. Normally I would also serve roast pork but it is nigh impossible to get the correct cut here in Scotland unless you order it well in advance. For dessert I'm serving risalamande with hot cherry sauce. I bought the cherry sauce when I was in Denmark in November! Food is such an expat thing, I tell you. I never used to care so much about traditional Danish food as I do now. I saw tea rusks in my local supermarket today and could almost taste hot elderberry soup right there and then.

(And seeing this little guy try out salty licorice (salte fisk!) made me beam. He's a very cool kid even if he says that salty ammoniac licorice requires "an advanced palette".)

Happy new year - happy Hogmanay - godt nytår! I'm off to try and balance four pots cooking at the same time..

Assorted Monday-ness

Using this recipe (link in Danish but worth google-translating) I baked Yule cookies on Saturday. Don't laugh, but it was the first time I ever used Lyle Black Treacle and I fell head over heels in love with both the beautiful tin and the rich, almost-licorice-like taste. Baking the cookies proved a bit of a challenge as our kitchen is poorly designed with very few places to put things, but I managed. (I still miss my Copenhagen kitchen, though. It was very small but functioned a lot better as a working space. Our current kitchen is one of the main reasons why I do not cook nor bake as much as I did in Denmark)

Sunday we decorated the cookies - D. took great delight in making aesthetically pleasing cookies whereas I just piled on the icing - just in time for the annual Yule bash in our tenement. After an hour half the cookies had disappeared along with any feeling in my toes (it was an outside do). It is usually a lovely get-together filled with carol-singing, plenty of mince-pies and happy children. This year we all just huddled around the small wood stove and hoped no body parts would off due to frost bite. The snow has disappeared for now, but it has been replaced by a bone-chilling frost. I gave up after 90 minutes and retreated to the flat with its warm quilts and hot cocoa. Brrr.

Changing the topic: lately I have been receiving a slew of emails from The Christian Coalition of America (wikipedia link). Nice, polite emails asking me to support God's legacy by using my God-given vote to be pro-family, pro-life and pro-America. Nice, polite emails filled with homophobia, anti-women's rights and a downright nasty attitude towards anything Not Christian (i.e. their version of Christianity). I have been doing a bit of on-line sleuthing and have deduced that someone must have signed me up for these emails. Deliberately. I wonder why? Was it a joke that misfired or someone who thought I'd benefit from these mails? I much prefer the former to the latter, you know. I don't like the idea that anyone of my acquaintance genuinely thought I needed to hear from the CCA.

Now for assorted randomness:

• Lifehacker gives you Top 10 DIY Food Geek projects although some of it is a bit .. I mean, "make fresh bread without a breadmaker"?! Really? Is that so new and controversial and life-changing that it needs its own entry?
• I loved David Lynch's Twin Peaks so this makes make feel so very sad.
• Everything We Know About Scotland We Learned from Romance Novels: "All Scottish men wear kilts, even when they were outlawed and even when they didn’t exist. All clans have an identifying tartan."
• I'm getting ideas above my station and I don't even have a (working) sewing machine yet! (youtube link)
• Fable III is taking over my life not-so-slowly. I'd blame it on the dog you have as an companion but, really, the combination of the Vortex and the Fireball spells is just so much fun.
• Sarah Hatton of Rowan and genius knitting design fame has her own website now complete with a knitting app for your smart phone (if you have one - I don't, actually).
• And, oh, how I would love spending a holiday here. A long holiday. A really long holiday.

Catch-Up

I have ten rows to go on my tenth shawl of 2010. The rows are getting very long now, so I'm taking a break - just long enough to make myself a cup of tea and to update my sadly neglected blog. It has been a very long week. All my best intentions and all my best-laid plans flew out the window whilst I tried to hold on to my sanity and get through a mountain of work. I have been playing catch-up ever since returning from Denmark and I think I'm almost nearly there.

These things have helped me through the week:

• He Will Have His Way - the follow-up to She Will Have Her Way, funnily enough. Boy & Bear's version of Fall At Your Feet is quite possibly my favourite Finn cover (fighting it out with Holly Throsby's Not the Girl You Think You Are) and I also really like the surf rock take on Shark Attack.
• Humoncomics can be very hit-or-miss, but I liked their take on Scandinavian cuisines. I made Danish rice pudding this week - it's a main course in Denmark and makes for wonderful comfort food. We did not have any leftovers, though, or I would have made some klatkager the next day.
• Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving. If you have a dog or ever known one, you should read this. I still remember how betrayed my dog looked when we moved across town (I was 18. He was deeply upset on a profound level).
• This youtube video made me smile one cloudy, grey November morning: Dannii & Kylie Minogue flash mob in Sydney.

My shawl beckons me (as does that cup of tea). Have a lovely weekend.