Knit Camp 3: If it's Tuesday, this must be Stirling

Making heavy weather of this - another photo-heavy post which makes Blogger/Flickr unhappy...

So, on the Tuesday morning, after an emergency meeting of camp participants at the somewhat unearthly hour of 07:35, supposedly in the (closed) dining hall and then upstairs in the atrium, I queued to make another change to my class schedule (the seventh, I think!), grabbed some breakfast, found the office for a computer password and the computer lab to check e-mail, and decided to head out to Stirling for my day's sightseeing, as I didn't have a class because my tutor was still in California... I'd originally planned to go on Saturday, but needs must and all that! Flexibility was definitely required for the entire week.

It was absolutely horrible weather as I set off - torrential rain - but by the time I got to the city centre it was merely drizzly and overcast. It seemed that the way to the Sights was uphill, so up I went.

Don't know what this building was, (shops now, but I can't work out whether it was a civic building or a church) although it has the first of several memorials to William Wallace. (I've never seen Braveheart; my main interest in Wallace is that he's someone whose trial, and condemnation to death, in Westminster Hall is recorded by a plaque on the floor I walk past a couple of times a week!)

I was walking this way with a purpose though - two lovely local ladies who came to the first-night party and dinner had pointed me towards... yup; a yarn shop. Not just any yarn shop, either...

McAree Brothers' mail order is something I've used often, but I hadn't realised that their main shop was in Stirling. It was brilliant to go in there. The range is fabulous, and they were really looking forward to carrying Debbie Stoller's range of new yarns. One of the people working there was being really enthusiastic about Camp and was talking about it to the customers and advertising the weekend marketplace. It turns out that this was Carol Meldrum, author of the wonderful Knitted Icons book among others; but I didn't realise that at the time! Lace yarn was bought, along with some bonus acrylic for Helen for a class we'd both transferred onto at short notice...

Fittingly, just up the road is an almshouse endowed by a tailor - loved the scissors on the sign.

And this, believe it or not, just down the hill from the Castle, is Stirling Youth Hostel. (Follow the link for a nice slideshow of pictures of the area.)

And I thought the one at Haworth was fancy...

Another nice sign - joint cadets and Scout headquarters...

Next up the hill was the Church of the Holy Rude... Beautiful, rather austere church with a fabulous history. Remarkable both for the number of volunteers helping tourists, and the number of languages their information sheets were in (probably 40 or so!)

Beautiful 19th century stained glass...

And equally beautiful 20th century glass. This is the Guildry Window . The river running through the lower panels is the Forth

On up to Stirling Castle. On the lawns in front was the first sight of the Rob Roy Pipe Band and Highland Dancers from Kingston, Ontario.

I'm not normally a great fan of the Highland pipes, because I'm usually coming across a lone piper in a shopping centre or other confined space, out of context. But these guys were amazing...

Turns out they were rehearsing for a concert in the Castle Gardens a little later, after their appearance at the Bridge of Allan Highland Games.

Stirling continued in the next post - I had too many photos! As you can tell, though, the weather (and my mood) gradually improved as I headed up the hill...

Knit Camp 2: the Classes

A little bit of description of the classes I took, as I've finally got down to the bottom of my suitcase, and disentangled this mass of little samples etc. Each tutor had a slightly different approach to teaching and the available technology, and it was really interesting to observe.

(I'm trying a different way of uploading photos today as Flickr's new interface is driving me berserk! You should be able to click on the pictures and then choose a different size when you get to Flickr if you want to view more detail...)

ETA OK, it's really ugly for landscape photos. Back to the drawing board but I'm leaving this post the way it is...

Wednesday morning: Double knitting in the round with Lucy Neatby

This was one I'd swapped onto at the last minute (on Tuesday morning) because rearrangement meant I was double-booked on Thursday afternoon with both Nancy Bush and Annie Modesitt. There was an irony in this as they were the last two of my original choices, but by this point... Anyway, scanning the list, it turned out that Lucy Neatby was also teaching double knitting, this time in the round; and it was a wonderful class. (I suspect this could also have been called "double knitting, backwards in high heels")

Here are the little samples - the two-coloured one is a mixture of techniques. We covered "simple" double-knitting in the round - the sort where you have two tubes, one inside the other - and then patterned double-knitting - the sort which is a single, double-thickness fabric in different colours (so you could make lined mittens or socks). The smaller sample at the top is a marvel - a way of knitting in the round but also making a pocket as you go. I'm going to start this again in sock-weight to make an iPod sock with a full-length pocket for the headphones...

Lucy had loads of samples of her own double knitting work, including some wonderful socks with padded soles, and the Bubbles scarf. Most of her teaching was done by demonstrating in front of the class but she also used judicious clips from her DVD on the subject, with the sound turned down and her own commentary over the top, which gave a very good guide to holding the yarns in different ways. She also just flung millions of ideas of how you could use a particular bit of the technique which I was scribbling down as fast as I could - such an amazingly inventive mind.

I've been downloading and printing double knitting patterns ever since I got home; definitely something I'm going to be doing in future.

Thursday morning: Planning your Aran with Jared Flood

Unlike the previous day's class (which had a bit of homework so we'd brought our own yarn), this time the yarn was meant to be provided by the organisers; which sort-of-inevitably meant that there was uncertainty for the first 20 minutes until the "classroom assistant"(a fellow student) fetched enough for everyone. As Jared explained, the tutors were "going with the flow", presumably to save their own sanity! He was certainly very well-organised and we started as soon as we could on a simple cabled sample, with the idea of steeking and cutting it by the end of the class. We learned cabling without a cable needle (the same method I learned from Gwen last year, so that was nice confirmation that I was still doing it properly).

The second section was much more about design; lots of very helpful stuff about how cabled fabric behaves in relation to stockinette/stocking-stitch and how much more ease is required; and some good percentages in terms of yardage and no. of stitches to cast on. We had a look at allocating the different stitches and what sort of "breaks" you might put between them as design features. Jared drew lots of diagrams on the whiteboard to help illustrate the sort of calculation you might make. He also talked about swatching proportionally and showed some of his own swatches as well as a finished cardigan I remember seeing on his blog a couple of years back.

In the third bit, we looked at steeking; in this case a crocheted (double crochet (UK)/single crochet (US)) steek right up against the edge we were going to cut. My crocheting is.... well; let's say less than stellar; but I did manage it, and I was fairly chuffed with myself. And there's no sign of the steek falling apart.

I'm slightly dubious about the idea of steeking Arans - I like the fact that there's a wrong side and a right side for counting rows between cables and quite often go wrong on cabled socks, and I think you possibly need seams because of the weight of the garment. But having said that, Jared's sample garment was absolutely beautiful, and more lightweight than a lot of Arans I've made, so I might well try it. And learning this method of reinforcing steeks, as opposed to Alice Starmore's "cut now, and tidy up later" method, was really interesting. We also got some very good advice on how many stitches to pick up for button bands in rib/garter stitch etc.

Another great class, with a tutor with a lovely sense of humour - I suspect that was much required during the week...

Thursday afternoon: Nordic Color with Nancy Bush

The technique we were using is called Roositud, which is an Estonian inlay technique where you carry colours across the face of the work without having to carry them all the way round the circumference (there's a really clever trick for even rows). The yarns I'd brought were a bit eye-poppingly bright, but happily so were a couple of the samples Nancy had brought. She'd designed a little sachet pattern for us - I'm about a third of the way through it at the moment.

We started with a double-stranded long-tail cast-on. Anyone reading this who has heard me whining about this in real life knows that long-tail cast-on is about the only thing in knitting which regularly defeats me, and I was actually feeling very flustered as she demonstrated this one, which had not only the usual manoeuvre I find very difficult but also a reverse version for alternate stitches. I had genuine visions of attempting to cast on for the entire 3 hours. (It did take me 4 hours to cast on 64 stitches for a sock once).

However, something miraculous happened and it just clicked in this class; I got the 42 stitches onto my needles and I wasn't even last to finish! I'll have to try it again and see whether something in my head has now finally got it.

Once we'd got the technique (there are two or three things a couple of us couldn't work out to start with, which were blindingly obvious when explained) it was a matter of practice; so while we were knitting away Nancy told us all about knitting in Estonia, and her experiences of travelling in that country. She also talked a bit about her involvement as the editor of the English version of the Haapsalu shawl book we've been raving about at I Knit recently. Fascinating.

My sample is a bit clumsy but I will finish it (not only because I'm stubborn and tenacious, but also because I can say that I have 6 stitches in it which were knitted by Nancy Bush - she used my piece to demonstrate but had to pick most of it out so I could try it myself) - I could see this working much better on the scale the Estonians use it at, on socks and gloves. Disappointingly, as it's the first time I've worked with it, the Biggam yarn (yellow) felt more like an acrylic than the pure merino it actually is. Maybe it's just the colour association...

Friday morning: Triangular Shawl Workshop with Elizabeth Lovick

This was a changed class, originally to be with Miriam Felton who has a pretty modern take on shawls I love; but nonetheless I really enjoyed it because again, it was a real expert teaching us about traditional Shetland shawls. Liz talked us through all sorts of triangles, tesselating them and showing on a PowerPoint presentation how different knitted samples fit together, before talking us through a number of differently shaped shawls she'd designed and made, all based on triangles. In the second part of the class we could either start to design our own based on a template she handed out, or for those who were less experienced with lace, start to knit one according to a pattern. I opted for the first possibility, and now have a chart produced for a shawl.

(I think, however, I've made a mistake on the left-hand side so am about to rip back and possibly start again on slightly smaller needles).

One excellent thing I hadn't seen/heard of before was that Liz had made a CD of her presentation, the notes and templates for us to take away; I'm sure that'll see a lot of use and it was a great idea.

Saturday: Whip Your Knits into Shape with Joan McGowan Michael

This was a class I was particularly looking forward to due to my rather hard-to-fit figure; it was meant to be happening on the Tuesday but Joan very sensibly stayed in California until the whole paperwork situation was resolved, and agreed to teach it on Saturday instead. And it was excellent.

We started off by measuring each other in pairs. And I'm not talking about just doing a quick bust, waist and hip measurement here. All told, we took something like 27 measurements. The slightly hilarious thing was that to get the measurements accurately placed, we wrapped each other in masking tape at the appropriate points. (Joan had brought a full-sized polystyrene torso, pre-taped, in her suitcase. I have no idea what that looks like on an airport X-ray. Apparently she keeps her shoes in it, in transit...) There's a modicum of embarrassment in probing a relative stranger's chest to see where the top of her breasts are, but we got over that quite quickly! Joan was circulating to check that we were putting tape in the appropriate places, and then we got onto doing stuff with tape measures...

At the end of the morning and in the afternoon, we then plotted all the figures onto brown paper (which was, miraculously, provided as promised- it wasn't there at the beginning of the class but had arrived before it was needed) to make a dressmaker's type paper pattern of our measurements. This isn't a good photo but gives you an idea. The template for the back is on top, with the one for the front underneath.

Some of the results were fascinating compared to what I'd have expected - I knew my front was an awful lot bigger than my back, but hadn't really fully considered what that meant for armhole shaping, for instance; and I've now got a good idea where I'd start short-rowing to create more fulness to get the 5" extra I need so the hemline of a garment is in the same place all the way round! Really excellent class.

Aware that Marketplace was also going on on Saturday, and one or two participants hadn't had a chance to get over there yet due to rearranged classes on Friday, we sat down at the beginning and ran through the content of the class; there weren't too many of us for Joan to check measurements, and we were all happy to halve the the lunchbreak, and everyone was happy with the knitting aspects of short rowing which was meant to be the practical part, and really just wanted to do the design elements, so in the end we finished mid-afternoon and were able to do a little more light shopping too.

General impressions

Overall; I loved the degree of flexibility the tutors were able to show (and their grace under pressure); all the ones I had were supremely well-organised and extraordinarily well-versed in their subjects. And they were also happy to answer random questions at the end or in quiet moments about other topics they were knowledgeable about, aware that not everyone could take every class. (Somewhere I got the tip that you pick up as many stitches around an armhole when steeking as feels comfortable at the time, and then decrease down to the stated number in the next row; I'm not sure which tutor that came from though!)

I'm not someone who thinks of herself as a fangirl when it comes to knitting; I picked the tutors whose work I liked, and who were known for good technical or design skills. But having taken classes, yes, I am pretty fangirlish about all of them, and will be following their future work with much more interest in future.

My fellow students were also a really knowledgeable, friendly, attentive, good-natured bunch. I didn't have a single person in any of my classes who wanted to prove that they knew more than the tutor or the others in the class, or engaged in side-conversations when the tutor was doing a whole-class part of the instruction. I haven't been to many knitting classes (my formal class experience is more with experimental textiles in general), but I've usually found that I'm pretty quick and waiting for the next set of instructions (unless I'm being taught long-tail cast-on!); in Tour de France terms though, I was definitely in there with the peloton this week, which was just excellent.

Quite aside from the classes, there was also a lot of "informal learning" going on. I was making a shawlette with crochet-hook beading and showed at least a dozen people how to do this over breakfast or in the bar in the evening, and I was shown at least one new cast-off and watched lots of variants of knitting style. It seemed perfectly fine just to wander over to someone doing something you hadn't seen before and just stare at their hands for a while - well, everyone I asked if that was OK was perfectly fine with it and really friendly, anyway!

(Oh, and in general "informal learning", the Brits in the Saturday class were complimented on the effectiveness of their undergarments, and chanted "Bravissimo", more or less en masse... According to one of Joan's Ravelry posts, Shopping Was Done before she returned home...)

Knit Camp 1: the Knitters

So - after a huge hiatus with only book reviews on the blog, I'm back from Knit Camp in Stirling, with photos. Not as many photos as a really conscientious blogger would take, but actually there was sort of a convention that taking pictures in classes was probably not that sociable, so I didn't have my camera with me at all times.

Lots has been said on Ravelry about Knit Camp; and while there's been a lot of wild speculation in some corners, a lot of the tales of chaos were undoubtedly true, most obviously and spectacularly the failure to obtain work permits for the non-EU tutors before they arrived, which led to one tutor being returned unceremoniously to the States and one speaker/author spending an unscheduled few days with family in the Netherlands.

Having had many changes and cancellations before I set off, on the Monday I found myself travelling up to Stirling with no notion of whether I'd have any classes at all before Friday when I had my one UK tutor. I was not, let's say, in the best frame of mind, and my packing suffered as a result! However, when we got there we found that although the seven affected tutors wouldn't be able to teach on Tuesday, things should be straight again on Wednesday, and total disaster was averted...

There was a lot of disorganisation; things were definitely skin-of-the-teeth close in terms of yarn arriving half an hour into classes in the nick of time for being used, tutors not having enough copies of handouts because of last-minute rearrangements, some participants (including me) never getting hold of a copy of the revised running order, etc.

The tutors themselves, however, whether they'd been affected by the immigration situation or not, squared their shoulders, picked up their needles and just got on with it, despite on very many occasions not being sure how many students they should have in their class even at start time.

And really: I had a very, very good week. It wasn't at all the week I expected when I booked, but I did uniformly superb classes with some very professional tutors at the top of their game, and enjoyed the outings, trips, knitting and nattering, and the marketplace. I'll do some posts on Stirling, Loch Katrine, New Lanark and the campus later.

Here though, just some general pictures of the best thing about the event: the Knitters. Like the tutors, the Knitters just picked up their pointy sticks and got on with it. There were two alternative slogans I'd heard for this - the first was Elizabeth Zimmermann's "Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises"; the second was a Rav post just before I left on Monday morning, the more prosaic "If it all goes tits up, we'll be down the pub". Either could have made T-shirts for the week, honestly. Maybe you could have had one slogan on the front and one on the back.

So: I present to you (click to embiggen)...

There were knitters in Clapotis. Many, many knitters in Clapotis. About 150, at a rough estimate and based on the numbers for the event. Never have so many Clapotis been seen in one place... There was also a yarn swap...

There were knitters in pub quiz teams. We (the Sinisters) came second, and won a costume prize for Kath's wonderful T-shirts (we were, needless to say, the left-handers' team). Left to right (Ravelry names in brackets afterwards):

Gretchen (gretchenroth), Rosie (MrsMaddog), Lucy (cardifflucy), Jane (JaneKAL), Kath (Kathj), Ann (AnnKingstone) and me (greensideknits).


There were knitters at World Heritage Sites....

... knitters messing about on or near boats (yes, that's Norah Gaughan in the foreground)...

... knitters at breakfast...

... and more knitters at breakfast... the number of handmade garments, shawls etc. was inspiring!

There were knitters at Marketplace (this is as it was closing down on Friday night, when I could get an unencumbered shot!)...

... including new stallholders Abstract Cat Crafts (who got all that lot to Stirling from Bathgate on public transport)

and The Sulky Cat (ditto, but from Leeds). More from both when I do my stash roundup in a few days' time!

There were old friends. Ellen (Ravelry name unknown) was there - I think we last bumped into each other at an I Knit event a couple of years ago, but we know each other from SkipNorth and its predecessor event in 2004! I also sat next to the lady on the left on the way to Loch Katrine, but have completely forgotten her name. Apologies; you probably won't be reading this but hope you had a good time in Glasgow.

Also from SkipNorth, the lovely Isabella aka spinningfishwife who I see has just blogged the Marketplace - she's local and was here for the day. Sorry it's such a rotten photo - I was wandering around with my camera round my neck and had managed to knock the focus from Auto to Manual and not notice...

And for the trifecta, the inimitable Woolly Wormhead, Hat designer extraordinaire and all-round good egg. Here, she's desperately trying to scoff a salad between her morning teaching and her afternoon marketplace duty. A nice person obviously wouldn't have pointed a camera at her at that point, but I'm me, and it had to be done...

... and here she is somewhate later, trying on an amazing mediaeval hat/scarf/cowl/headwear thing belonging to the couple from The Mulberry Dyer.

There were new friends too - Kel (tootsie2121) and Nic (talesfromthe plain) attempt, and record, Portuguese knitting with a knitting brooch

Barbara (babalor) reads while waiting for her coach onward to Shetland. Barbara and I had an International Snack Exchange going which turned, as these things do, into an International Yarn Exchange as well.

Here are the snacks - I've been wondering about Triscuits since they turned up on the 5th episode of The West Wing and they are very delicious, it turns out - halfway between cream crackers and salty Shredded Wheat... Underneath my room key there are also two little boxes of chocolate sprinkles from the Netherlands...

Because of my room number and the Triscuits, I mentally named this picture Triscuitdekaphobia. (Sorry).

More Shetland knitters - on the left is Jude (meherbie) and on the right Lydia (lydiajensen), and I know the lady to the left of Lydia is her sister Trudy, but after that I get a bit lost...

Anyway, yes. Thanks to the knitters and spinners and designers and tutors and all-round good people who were there this week. It was brilliant to meet you and I'm sorry I didn't take more photos.

More posts coming soon.

2010 books, #51-55

Trouble, by Jesse Kellerman. London: Sphere, 2008.

When medical student Jonah Stem goes to the rescue of a young woman who is being stabbed and causes the death of her assailant, he thinks his worst problem is avoiding a murder charge; until the victim, Eve Gones, visits him and they begin a sexual relationship. Gradually Jonah realises that Eve is not what she seems, and the depth of the trouble he's now in. This is a genuinely terrifying read at times, tightly plotted and unputdownable; and very different from the excellent books written by both Kellerman's parents.

The girl who kicked the hornets' nest, by Stieg Larsson [audiobook]. Read by Saul Reichlin. Rearsby, Leics.: Clipper, 2009.

A brilliant finish to an excellent trilogy; these books really do deserve the hype they've had over the last couple of years. The characters of Salander and Blomqvist (spelling? Having listened to all of them on audio, I'm a bit shaky on how everything's spelled) continue to be absolutely consistent and it's the audio equivalent of a page-turner - the 21 cassettes only took about 5 days and I was carrying a cassette player around with me throughout!

A blow to the heart, by Marcel Theroux. London: Faber and Faber, 2006.

I found this remaindered recently, which presumably implies it didn't sell very well; which is a shame because it's a cracking book, despite having a huge amount of boxing content, which would normally put me off. 32-year old Daisy's husband is murdered by a stranger in the street and a young man convicted; three years later she meets the killer again after his release and finds herself haunted by a need for revenge. Parts of this book are quite shocking because Daisy transgresses so many of the norms of acceptable behaviour, but she never completely loses her humanity or capacity for empathy. The supporting characters are interesting (and in one case genuinely frightening) and well-written and it's a real page-turner. The other reason I picked this up was because I was an exact contemporary of Marcel's at college, and I'd read one of his other books, A stranger in the earth, a few years ago and enjoyed it.

The arms maker of Berlin, by Dan Fesperman [audiobook]. Read by Jeff Harding. Oxford: Isis, 2009.

I suspect that if this hadn't been read by Jeff Harding, I mightn't have carried on with it - it's pretty slow to get going, and I'm not really that much of a fan of spy thrillers. I think I'll probably crib some of the blurb from the box...

At 1am in a deserted Pennsylvania library, Nat Turnbull's cell phone rings. His former mentor Professor Gordon Wolfe has been arrested by the FBI for stealing top secret archive documents dating back to the Second World War.

Coerced by the FBI into examining the archives for them, Nat finds intriguing references both to Wolfe's curious activities in an Allied intelligence office in Switzerland during the war and to a mysterious student resistance group in Berlin known as the White Rose.

Following Wolfe's cryptic clues to Europe, Nat uncovers a wartime story of love and betrayal which is reaching out from the past to destroy the present. Now Nat is in a desperate race to unlock the truth before those who will kill to stop the secret getting out.

Despite this exciting summary, it does lag at several points and there are a couple of apparent holes in the plot; but it was an interesting enough listen during the Tour de Fleece.

Death, destruction and a packet of peanuts: a rollicking pub crawl through four years of the English Civil War, by Chris Pascoe. London: Portico, 2009.

Another remaindered one... One man's year-long quest to visit the battlefields of the English Civil War, and also all the nearby major battlefield pubs. Accompanied by his friend-cum-worst-enemy, the perpetually inebriated or hung-over Pete, call-centre employee Chris visits the Civil War sites chronologically, frequently disappointed by the lack of signage, monuments and real ales. Half John-O'Farrell-style history, half Tony-Hawks-style insane-challenge narrative; extremely funny and I know a lot more about the Civil War having read it... Pascoe is obviously a total Civil War nerd of long-standing, but able to laugh at himself for his own obsession.

2010 books, #46-50

Sacrifice, by S. J. Bolton [audiobook]. Read by Vivien Heilbron. Bath: BBC Audiobooks, 2009.

Consultant obstetrician Tora Hamilton hires a JCB to dig a grave in her Shetland field for her favourite horse which has died, and instead finds the preserved body of a young woman, minus her heart; runes are carved into her skin. There are disturbing links with an ancient Shetland legend, and Tora's attempts to investigate the murder leads her into serious danger as all authorities seem to be ranged against her. There are some genuinely scary moments in this one, and Vivien Heilbron's reading is excellent.

Security, by Stephen Amidon [audiobook]. Read by Jeff Harding. Bath: Oakhill, 2010.

A strange slightly uneven book, this one, set in a small college town in Massachusetts. The synopsis on the box talks about a sexual assault allegation, although this takes place almost halfway through the book and the central characters seem to be a charismatic professor and the student he's bedding. It's interesting enough to carry on with as an audiobook, but nothing really stands out as a story - probably not an author I'll bother looking at again...

Out of the deep I cry, by Julia Spencer-Fleming. New York: St Martin's, 2005.

Another very, very good Clare Fergusson novel. This is different from the previous ones in that chapters happen at all times from 1930 onwards, and deal with both an ancient disappearance and a more recent one, Prohibition and modern medicine. The cast of characters is fascinating and the plot snakes around; and the relationship between Clare and Russ takes another step into forbidden territory. The quality of this series is sustained. (If anyone reading this is in Ely, Oxfam had all of the first four books for £1.49 each last weekend. Snap them up if they're still there!)

This night's foul work, by Fred Vargas [audiobook]. Read by Saul Reichlin. Rearsby, Leics. : W F Howes, 2008.

I really enjoyed this detective novel set in Paris and Normandy, with roots in the Pyrenees. Having spent a year in Paris, the geography was familiar, and the combination of slightly unearthly characters, as well as one of pure evil, works well. And there's a very good sting in the tail.

The city and the city, by China Miéville. London: Macmillan, 2009.

A re-read, first reviewed here. I really enjoyed the re-read, and the discussion at Kniterati last night; I'm still not entirely sure I understand it all though! Very glad, as I was a co-suggester for this one, that most people enjoyed it...

2010 books, #41-45

The 19th wife, by David Ebershoff. London: Black Swan, 2009.


A book group book, and another very good reason for joining a book group. Actually, I got a recommendation for this one from someone at the library whose opinion I respect, but I had way too many books out at the time, and had forgotten both the author and the title until it turned up on the "possibles" list.

I wasn't entirely sure about this one at first - it dots about between historical documents, a contemporary narrative, a historical narrative and back again, and has a myriad unreliable narrators. After a hundred pages or so though, it settles down, or maybe you just get used to it... It's set in both the heady early days of the Mormon church, and the contemporary world of the Firsts (those members of the church who still live in polygamy in isolated pockets). There's a murder in the present-day story - the resolution of this is weak, but it's almost irrelevant by the time you get to it; and both of the stories involve a 19th wife (in the 19th century, a wife of Brigham Young and in the present day, a wife of a modern-day First). Harriet Beecher Stowe is invoked (and apparently, writes a foreword), and the 19th century narrative certainly brings back the polemical writing style of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

I think what I liked most about this book was that despite the horror both contemporary and historical voices have for polygamy, there's little condemnation of faith in general and a great deal of compassion; as an example, while one character has been expelled because of his sexuality, he gets onto the Internet and finds a new church which will accept him (described by the very cynical modern narrator Jordan as "the Vegas LGBT-friendly ex-Mormon church two miles off the strip [try saying that real fast]").

The more uncomfortable aspects, as a Catholic, were twofold. The first is that polygamy in the Mormon church seems to me to be a parallel to the paedophilia which seemed (possibly still seems) to be institutional in pockets of the church, to the extent that serious investigation is really only beginning to happen. The second is the idea that a church can evolve away from believers and force them to accept things they find repugnant in the context of their faith; in the case of The 19th wife, this is the revelation of polygamy and the impact on existing marriages; in my own life, papal encyclicals have contradicted so many of the things I was brought up to believe.

It made for a really interesting discussion. Most of us had some form of religious belief or heritage, and I hope none of us managed to tread too badly on other people's sensibilities... Given that the book is about both sex and religion, I don't think we did too badly.



A fountain filled with blood, by Julia Spencer-Fleming. New York: St Martin's, 2003.

The second of the Reverend Clare Fergusson mysteries. I enjoyed this possibly even more than the previous one; another book you basically just inhale rather than reading. Clare and Russ are great characters, and we also get Russ's quite extraordinary mother. This one includes gay-bashing, environmental pollution, greed and an absolutely hair-raising helicopter sequence. There's some sympathetic treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, and UST between an Episcopalian priest and a married police chief.


The Janus stone, by Elly Griffiths. London: Quercus, 2010.


Another excellent book by Elly Griffiths; definitely one to read after her The crossing places though! Archaeology and detection in North Norfolk, with some genuinely scary bits thrown in. Unfortunately I'm reading these much faster than she's writing them, and have now caught up! I'm waiting for the next one now...


The devil's punchbowl, by Greg Iles [audiobook]. Read by Jeff Harding. Oxford: Isis, 2010.

One of Iles's Penn Cage novels; set in the world of riverboat gambling and dogfighting. There are some pretty gory moments in this one, and some really quite frightening episodes; it's pretty tightly plotted and contains a cast of characters you genuinely care about, with the city of Natchez almost appearing as an additional character.

Transfer of power, by Vince Flynn. London: Simon and Schuster, 2000.

This is almost a period piece - a terrorist drama written before 9/11 with Iranians as the villains. However, it's a gripping piece of work. The President and a hundred other hostages are trapped in the White House, while the Vice President and his staff are thinking more about their political image and future than the fate of the hostages. There's a lot of the military=good, politicians=bad stuff that there was in the last of Flynn's books I read, but not all the politicians are venal in this one, and some of the military are also taking the political angle. There's also a lot of technology in this one, but it doesn't overwhelm the plot. One criticism though - the ending is surprisingly weak because something we've understood to be catastrophic throughout turns out not to be so...

Catching up...

It seems like an awful long time since I posted, and lots of things have happened!

Towards the end of April I had a birthday, which stretched over three weekends, one in Cambridge, one in Chester-le-Street and one in Hove. The Actual Weekend started with a trip to the V&A Quilts exhibition (highly recommended) with Yvonne (ditto, of course!), a showing of The Ghost and a visit to GBK with Sue, and finally some knitting over an extremely nice Sunday lunch in the pub, with Cath and Avril (both knitting lace, you can tell by the expressions...)

Jackie

Lorna (with mystery test knit which I'd just dyed and blocked the day before...)

and Lucinda.

Rosie was also there - you can see her elbow in the top picture but the photo I took of her was so comically, heroically bad that it seemed safest not to include it...

Many of the knitting-related gifts, oddly enough, were purple...

We had Dissolution, and the election, and then a very strange and extremely busy post-election period.

Summer has wondered, repeatedly, whether to arrive. Yesterday morning was absolutely beautiful; last weekend was really cold and miserable; and today can't work out what it wants to do, but Test Match Special is on the radio, cricket is happening and it's pretty exciting this afternoon as England demolishes Bangladesh's batsmen (could do with less Geoffrey Boycott and more everyone else, but you can't have everything - at least Blowers, Aggers and Tuffers are all on...) I've potted up my chili seedlings today and put them in the greenhouse as hostages to fortune, so I can get rid of the heated propagator I've been falling over in the kitchen for the last couple of months.

I've had three shifts at the village library, which is where I started this post; the morning was notable for a lovely ten-year-old boy who's only had his library card for a week; when I told him he could have up to 12 items out he beamed so widely you'd swear it was Christmas morning...

Knitting has been done. The main project I worked on between then and now was a wedding blanket for Katie and Neil, assembling squares produced by members of the Archers board on Ravely, from all over the UK and from Canada - Katie blogs about it here and it's great to know she loved it. I now have absolutely no fear of picking up stitches from edges, having picked up 24 from each edge of each square! It was lovely seeing everyone's squares and good wishes, and people were wickedly inventive with the Archers-themed blocks.

I also knitted a shawl (as yet unblocked) and a cardigan (can't decide whether I like it or not now it's finished!) which I'll blog another time.

Not much progress on the spinning, but thanks very much to Isabella for her comment on my April 12 post, which has narrowly averted disaster; in future I'll either dye the fleece or the finished yarn rather than trying to dye singles before plying. I really need to sit down and read the spinning book I bought last year to get these technical details right!

2010 books, #36-40

Third book review post running! I promise some knitting content in the next one...

In the bleak midwinter, by Julia Spencer-Fleming. New York: St Martin's, 2002.

A completely new-to-me author, and sent to me from Canada by the friend who also gave me the Christine Poulter book from the last batch of reviews. I realised why she was new to me when I went hunting in the library catalogue for the second one in the series - we don't have a single one of her books anywhere in Cambridgeshire libraries (and now Borders has gone, probably nowhere in Cambridgeshire bookshops either). Which is a great shame. The protagonist of this book, the first in a series, is Clare Fergusson, Episcopalian priest and ex-Army chopper pilot - it's a tribute to the author that she actually makes this a believable combination. A newborn baby is left on the doorstep of the church, bringing Clare into contact with the local police in upstate New York. It's a very good combination of action thriller and exploration of church politics and general human nature; and there's a lot of chemistry with the other main character, the local (married) police chief. I always enjoy a thriller where a character with religious belief doesn't turn out to be either a psychopath or just a sad weirdo - I like Faye Kellerman's Peter Becker for the same reason. Chai sent me books 1 and 3, so I've just ordered 2 and 4 secondhand on Amazon...

The pyramid, by Henning Mankell [audiobook]. Read by Seán Barrett. Oxford: Isis, 2009.


Some back-stories to the Wallander books; I can't remember whether there were three or four, but all from different time periods. The first is set in the period before Wallander and Mona are married and you do wonder why they ever bothered; there's more light thrown on the relationship between Wallander and his father. Although there is a crime in each of these stories, Mankell is more interested in the characters involved. Another very good reading by Seán Barrett.


Losing ground, by Catherine Aird. London: Allison and Busby, 2008.


A chance find at the library; I think I read one of hers a couple of years ago, set around a psychiatric hospital. This is one you inhale rather than read; and even though it includes a rock singer, it's very compelling. An 18th-century painting is stolen and the manor house featured in it goes up in flames on the same night; the cast of characters is nicely quirky, and the plot is a good one, even if there is a bit of a rabbit-out-of-the-hat at the end.



Killing the fatted calf, by Susan Kelly. London: Allison and Busby, 2001.

The second of the Gregory Summers novels and a good follow-up to the first. Kelly combines a very private plot (the reunion of an adopted son and his birth-family) with a general social issue (illegal immigration into the UK) and manages it very skilfully, and with some humour on occasion.

Death watch, by Jim Kelly [audiobook]. Read by Roger May. Oxford: Isis, 2010.

On the 18th anniversary of the disappearance of his twin sister Norma Jean, the remains of Bryan Judd are found in the chamber of the hospital incinerator he managed. There must be something in the water this year - Peter James and Jim Kelly must both have been writing books about human organ trafficking at the same time. This one has a more cheerful outcome, and there are some interesting characters along the way. Jim Kelly is Ely-based and this one is set in King's Lynn; I tried reading his first book and didn't get all that far with it but on the basis of this one I'll go back and try again. Quite a nice reading from Roger May, although I was slightly predisposed against him - he's also the voice of the dastardly James Bellamy in The Archers.

2010 books, #31-35

The brutal art by Jesse Kellerman [audiobook]. Read by Adam Sims. Oxford: Isis, 2008.

The third member of the Kellerman family (son of Jonathan and Faye) to write thrillers. This one is a curious book - you really don't like the narrator all that much, particularly in the beginning; it's in a strange milieu, being set in the art galleries of New York; the art in the centre of the plot is very strange and somewhat unpleasant. But starting off from the point of view of an unreliable narrator, telling a biographical plot, is a stroke of genius; it's oddly compelling. I was listening to this on the train, and I may have missed the vital moment which connected points A to B, because somewhere in the middle I think there's a hole in the plot. But that may just have been a fault in my listening... I was prepared to dislike this, in the same way I'm always prepared to dislike a second-generation politician, or rock musician, or whatever; but Kellerman fils is definitely striking out in a different direction... Sims's reading is pretty good, too

The night of the Mi'raj, by Zoë Ferraris. London: Abacus, 2009.

This time's Kniterati [Ravelry link] book. I'd put off reading it until the last minute because I wasn't sure I'd enjoy something set in Saudi Arabia - I'd somehow missed the fact that it was also a detective story, possibly because the library seems to have it down as General Fiction, which is really quite weird. It's not the best example of a detective story, and the dénouement is pretty weak, but the atmosphere and environment are very interesting. I know nothing at all about Saudi society, so I have no idea how accurate any of it is, but the pride and prejudice displayed in this book were fascinating, and I look forward to the discussion.

The girl who played with fire, by Stieg Larsson [audiobook]. Read by Saul Reichlin. Rearsby, Leics.: W F Howes, 2009.

A blindingly good sequel to The girl with the dragon tattoo. Larsson is the same sort of dangerous narrator as Jeffery Deaver - there's no guarantee that even major characters will survive; and none that they'll be honest, or innocent - there are no innocents in this novel. You have a feeling that he's prepared to do literally anything - and in this one, he actually does, while leaving himself enough rope for the final novel in the trilogy.

Murder is academic, by Christine Poulson. New York, N.Y. : St Martin's Press, 2004.

This is one set in Cambridge; an academic turns detective after the death of an English department colleague. It has some very nice characterisation, and the plot twists and turns well. Its sense of the geography of Cambridge is also very good - sometimes this can be totally exasperating in books about places you know well. There's the occasional "huh??" moment when she talks about University procedure (but maybe it's changed...) and I think there's one loose end in the plot which is never tied up (I lent this to a friend immediately on finishing it so I'll have to go back and check that), but it's a very engaging quick read.

The crossing places, by Elly Griffiths [audiobook]. Read by Jane McDowell. Bath: Chivers/BBC, n.d.

Another one set in my general area, in North Norfolk; this was originally recommended by a member of the Archers group on Ravelry when we were talking about Woodhenge. Another academic (this time an overweight archaeologist living with her cats) gets involved in detective work after bones are discovered near the henge site; these turn out to be Iron Age, but she's gradually drawn in to a more recent murder hunt. The depiction of the landscape around King's Lynn is very good, and the plot is gripping, with some genuinely terrifying moments. I'll be looking for anything else Ms Griffiths has written...

2010 books, #26-30

Ford County, by John Grisham. London: Century, 2009.

A collection of short and longer stories: Grisham seems to get better and better in his non-crime work. The blurb inside the book cover describes the subject matter as well as I would: A mercy mission that is hilariously sidetracked by human weakness; a manipulative death row inmate with one last plea; a small town divorce attorney who suddenly hits pay dirt; a man that sets out to break a casino to revenge a broken heart; a kidnapped lawyer who is confronted with one of his previous cases at gun point; a conman who preys on the rich and elderly; the boy dying of AIDS who finds mercy across the tracks in downtown Clanton. Grisham has a wry, humorous perspective which is never cruel, and particularly in the final story, an enormous compassion. His affection for the place in which he grew up, and continues to live, is obvious, despite the venality of some of its inhabitants.

Blacklist, by Sara Paretsky [audiobook]. Read by Barbara Rosenblat. Rearsby, Leics.: W F Howes, 2004.

I first read this when it came out in 2003, and although it's a very fine detective novel I was most struck by its also being a howl of protest against the depredations of the USA PATRIOT Act. Reading it again 7 years later (and with the benefit of Barbara Rosenblat's wonderful narration), I'm struck again by the parallel narratives - there's a modern day anti-terrorist secnario overlying a long-hidden secret from the HUAC hearings in the 1940s and 1950s, which has poisoned three great families and led to the death of an investigative journalist. Even if you don't like detective fiction all that much, this is a fascinating read and Paretsky at her finest.


Term limits, by Vince Flynn. London: Pocket Books, 2008 [originally published in 2000].


Brilliant, fast-paced US political thriller - the strapline says Taking America back, one politician at a time. One of the reviews said Vince Flynn is like Tom Clancy on speed - but thankfully it's way better than that (I've always got very annoyed with the amount of technical detail in Clancy's novels). Someone is killing unscrupulous and corrupt senators and congressmen as a way of demanding a return to non-partisan politics. The wheeling and dealing of Washington DC is very well done; the action heros aren't too unrealistic, and the plot rattles along at high pace. There is quite a lot of technology - I can understand the Clancy analogy - but it doesn't take the whole book over.


Dead tomorrow, by Peter James [audiobook]. Read by David Bauckham. Rearsby, Leics.: W F Howes, 2009.


The fifth Roy Grace novel, and probably the best so far. Someone is killing teenagers for their organs and dumping them at sea; meanwhile, the daughter of one of the dredgermen who recover the first body is in desperate need of a liver transplant. The stories interweave, and questions of legality, morality and ethics clash; parental desperation comes up against the law, and otherwise honest people commit criminal acts. I can't say much more without spoiling the ending, which explodes on you. Probably not one you'd want to read if you were too close to the situation, though. The day I finished reading this, the public consultation on organ donation began.


The mind readers, by Margery Allingham. London: Vintage, 2008 [originally published in 1965].


An Albert Campion story, but Campion is curiously absent in this story. Halfway between a COld War era spy thriller and science fiction, this is extremely dated but still bears reading. An island research station is experimenting with ESP, but then two schoolboys turn up in possession of devices which can achieve telepathic communication, and powerful interests will kill to get hold of them. Stylishly written, and a period piece, but very enjoyable.

Big red wolf

Well, Monday turned out to be more interesting than planned; despite my forgetting my travel pass and having to go back for it, when I got to the station, the 0804 was still there in the platform. And stayed there, for the next hour... At 0930, when I realised there was no way if we even set off at that second I'd be able to make it in for the 11am meeting, I phoned my boss and arranged to work from home for the day. And it was all extremely productive.

I'm not the best worker-from-home, to be honest; I get distracted; the PC's in the middle of the living room, and there's just way too much yarny stuff about and things I'd rather be doing. So today, to focus my mind, I decided to work for an hour and then do something else for half an hour. Mostly, that was spinning - the work stuff was absorbing enough that after an hour, taking half an hour off for the sort of mechanical activity which leaves big bits of your brain free to think creatively, was perfect, and I got loads done (and still finished an hour earlier than I'd have got home on a normal day, due to only having spent 1 hour travelling rather than nearly 4). Wish I could have a wheel in the office!


I'm spinning Jacob, still; this is likely to go on for quite a while as I have at least another couple of carrier bags of it. It's proving surprisingly good fun, despite the amount of vegetation there still is in it - I'd say that I'd be pickier with my picking another time, but these sheep were pets from the next village, rather than animals raised for yarn, and the amount of straw and moss in the fleece was pretty extreme - this is not going to be a yarn for garments. Having said that, a fleece for £5 including delivery is not something you sniff at (previous years' shearings had been burnt or used for mulch). This is the second bobbin; I wound the first one off yesterday:

I think I'll wind the spun bobbins into cakes for the moment (unless anyone who actually knows what they're doing has a better suggestion, of course! please post in the comments), and then skein, wash, dye and ply them all at once, at which point I'll work out how much there is, and what it wants to be. I ordered a WPI tool along with an impulse sock-club purchase (the club is getting to the end of its life so they were allowing you to buy one month at a time); the package won't arrive until sometime next month, but that's OK - I spin glacially slowly.

To whit - this is the rest of this year's production. Not Jacob. Merino, and Blue-Faced Leicester, and much, much prettier.

The roving for the skein in the middle was a very kind gift from Franklin when he was here in the autumn. The colourway is Rufus lupus (which translates as Red Wolf, hence the title of this post); the dyer is Sakina Needles, who doesn't seem to be in business at the moment. Oddly enough, when I was trying to track down the name of the dyer (I couldn't find the card attached to the skein but could remember the colour name), I found this Etsy listing - the spinner is SO much more competent than I am, but her skein seems more pastel. Mine reminds me of the colours of Venice and the mosaics in San Marco, so the Latin name is even nicer.

I'd spun this by Textiles in Focus in February, and took it with me, hoping for something to match it. And needed to go no further than the lovely Alison at Yarnscape (she has links to her shops at Folksy and Etsy, but I think most of her production is going into shows at the moment; and Ely Yarn Shop has some of her batts and dyed yarns) for a couple of plaits of BFL which would absolutely do the job. On the left, Rosewood, and on the right, Denim. It was definitely one of those squee moments - the pinkybrown-ness was just perfect, and the blue was exactly the right colour, too. It was also one of those weird and serendipitous things where yarn given by a friend from Chicago, and yarn dyed by a friend from Cambridgeshire, worked together so perfectly.

So, I have 450m/200g of DK-ish weight yarn; pondering what to make... I might do something geometric-y to reflect the San Marco mosaics...

Big irritation

I pay good money to McAfee for virus protection... and you'd think that would give you protection? Hmmnnn... Turns out, not so much. Spent most of yesterday researching something called XP Defender, which had sent a little message-thingy out onto my computer which was popping up every 90 seconds or so to convince me I needed to download a programme to check for viruses... So did a little bit of research and found out it was malware, made sure my McAfee was up to date, and got it to do a complete virus check, and after 4 hours it came back and said "shiny! all clear!"...

Managed to find a detailed set of instructions for removal, but this did involve editing the registry, which isn't something a non-techy person attempts without Extreme Trepidation. Thankfully, I used to be married to someone who is a techy person, and who very kindly came over yesterday evening and sorted it out. But I do wonder why McAfee didn't spot it.

In a continuation of foolishness, managed to set out this morning and got halfway to the station before I realised I'd left my season ticket in my other bag. So I have a few minutes to rant about viruses before the next train!

Also, a couple of pictures. I should really have chopped this japonica and this berberis before now, but it'll have to wait until the flowers-and-leaves combination is less breathtaking.

And in a Bug update... Outside, therefore happy...

Not a big surprise...

... for anyone who's read this blog for any length of time; but if you were to characterise my general approach to life, it would probably be mostly chaos, with small pockets of hyperorganisation. So although I have stash Absolutely Everywhere, the stuff that ever makes it into the storage system upstairs is meticulously recorded on a spreadsheet; as are the Christmas presents. And my CDs and DVDs are alphabetised - the DVDs by title, the CDs by artist, as in the library.

Well; the CDs that are actually in the bookcase that holds them, anyway. Problem is, at the moment said bookcase is in the next room to the CD player, and behind various fibre-related impedimenta; so every now and then I end up with something like this to sort out.

Didn't realise how long it was since I filed any of these, but there are at least 3 Christmas compilations in this stack, so presumably quite a while...

2010 books, #21-25

Not a particularly cultured selection: a lot of my library reservations came in at once. I was meant to be reading The elegance of the hedgehog for book group, but I couldn't really get into it...

Gone tomorrow, by Lee Child [audiobook]. Read by Jeff Harding. Whitley Bay: Soundings, 2009.

A rattling good story if you can stand some quite extreme and gruesome violence; and taught me a fair amount about the Russian/Afghan war of the late 70s and early 80s. Jack Reacher is an... interesting character; ex-military policeman, loner, homeless and deeply amoral, except when he isn't. If you're happy with the Jeffery Deaver books, you'd like this one. And Jeff Harding's reading is as ever impeccable. (I get a kick out of his saying "Whitley Bay" when advertising the other Soundings recordings because it just sounds so incongruous....)

Blindman's bluff, by Faye Kellerman. London: HarperCollins, 2009.

Another Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus book; a good plot, and it chugs along solidly. I do tend to prefer the ones where their being Jewish comes into play in some way, which it doesn't in this book; but if you like these characters, well worth reading.

The girl with the dragon tattoo, by Stieg Larsson [audiobook]. Read by Saul Reichlin. Rearsby, Leics. : W F Howes, 2009.

Absolutely brilliant; and very disturbing. Having read the book, I don't want to see the film; maybe it's just me, but reading graphic violence is very different from watching it; and I have a mental image of several of the main characters I'd rather keep. A cracking thriller with additional elements; and while the characters are dysfunctional and strange, you do really care about them. Wonderfully well-plotted and -investigated; and I'm glad I know this is a trilogy because I really need to know what happened before, and next... Extremely well-read, too...

The vanished man, by Jeffery Deaver [audiobook]. Read by Jeff Harding. Oxford: Isis Audio, 2003.

The combination of Deaver and Harding works its magic even if you're "reading" the book for the second time. It's fiendishly plotted, and the development of the relationship between Rhyme and Sachs is always worth reading for.

Fever in the bone, by Val McDermid. London: Little, Brown, 2009.

One of McDermid's Tony Hill books, this one quite brilliant. The plot twists and turns like an eel, but McDermid's great talent is in making you actually care about the characters and situations. The relationship between Hill and DCI Carol Jordan continues to be fascinating. One of those books you close and just sit thinking wow...for several minutes.

Big sulk

Not that I blame it. It gets bitten, then it gets hurty, then it gets manhandled into a basket, taken to the vet and stabbed with a syringe, and then it gets shut in and forced to use.... shudder... a litter box. (I think it's more fed up with the final point than any of the others, frankly; but we go back on Saturday morning and maybe they'll lift the curfew then...)

The Bug is better today, though (limping rather than hopping); thanks for good wishes expressed on the blog and at I Knit this evening! And yes, Katie - my manager was very cool and I am grateful for that. Over two and a half years, I've not had to take a day's leave at less than a week or so's notice, including for things like funerals; so while yesterday was pretty inconvenient in business terms, I think I'd built up a reasonable record for reliability and she did realise that as far as I was concerned it was a genuine emergency! I'm sure being a cat-owner helped with the understanding, too, though.

This morning at work was fun - met with a fellow taxonomy specialist and had a good natter about common problems; it's always good to know you're not alone (or just a lunatic); and to remember how good it is working in an organisation which takes information seriously. The afternoon was less fun, getting to grips with the new Parliamentary constituencies ahead of the election, and recording what the boundary changes/previous constituencies were - surprisingly complex.

And talking of constituencies, I was leafleted-in-person by one of the Parliamentary candidates for mine at the station in the village, at 6:56 this morning as I headed in hoping to catch up with my e-mail before my meeting. I can only commend his industriousness.

Big alteration...

... in the plans today; last night the Bug appeared after a day or so AWOL (not totally unusual this time of year but she usually comes in for food), and wasn't putting weight on one front leg; when I looked more closely there was a rather unpleasant oozy hole in her leg... So I put the cat flap on "in only" and e-mailed work to say I'd be in late because I was going to need to take her to the vet's in the morning.

At which point I made that crucial mistake of forgetting that actually she's quite a bright cat when it comes to escapology - so when I got down this morning there was no sign of her. At some point in the night, she'd worked out that if she got a claw caught in the edge of the flap, she could pull it towards her and flee; I should have set it on "no entrance or exit". GAH!

So in the end, I took a day's emergency leave; and waited (and waited) for her to show up. I asked the neighbours if they'd seen her, walked round the block repeatedly, called for her, you name it. At noon or so (by which time the day had seemed endless) she hopped in for some dinner and I called the vet; a few hours later we were home with the inevitable week's course of antibiotics, an injection of anti-inflammatories and a diagnosis of a bite-induced abscess... Thankfully a friend offered to take me there and back... And the Bug already had an appointment for Saturday morning, supposedly for a blood test which might or might not happen depending on how quickly the antibiotics kick in... So she should be fine in a few days; and tomorrow I need to catch up on quite an important work seminar which was meant to be the main point of my day.

I'm very glad my manager is also a cat-owner - she realised all I could do was wait, was great about the fact that I was going to be missing a catch-up meeting and the seminar, and suggested that I could work from home for part of the day if I wanted to rather than taking the whole day as leave. But my concentration was completely shot...

While waiting, I could have put in some quality knitting time, but again, the concentration just wasn't there. Luckily, I unearthed this: a sock started at the folk festival last year, which was then lost in one clear-up and found in another... When I abandoned them they were about halfway through the broad yellow stripe, so a fair amount of progress was made while I was listening distractedly to audiobooks while waiting for the noise of the catflap!



These are my Nymphadora socks, knitted in the Tonks [warning; Harry Potter spoilers under link!] colourway from Opal's Harry Potter range, now sadly discontinued... for this reason alone, I think I might be keeping these for myself. Tonks was a favourite character even before I discovered the library/shapeshifter connection... I bet JK Rowling was aware of it though - it's just too good to be a complete coincidence.

Big announcement

SO, they're finally off! The announcement that even the PM admitted was unsurprising has happened and the phony campaigning can finish.

And the question of the moment - which genius decided that rainbow plastic knitting needles would form the BBC's election logo??

Despite all the election hype or possibly because of it, I think my favourite quote is in Sam Wollaston's Guardian review of last night's University Challenge final - "The dude is Wikipedia with a pulse".

Oh, there was some knitting, too. My Dad had a birthday on Sunday, and socks were knitted. I'm very pleased with these. They're the Maze socks [Ravelry link] from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks and they were very good fun to knit. The black yarn is Hot Socks, bought in Vienna for a song last year; the self-striping is Kaffe Fassett (of course...). I used just under one 50g ball of the self-striping and just over one 50g ball of the black. The leg is mosaic-knitted, and the foot Fair Isle pinstripes.


And apparently he really likes them.

Great start!

Well - I managed the daily blogging thing for 2 days... Oops.

It was a busier weekend than I'd anticipated - on Saturday I was working in the library, went knitting at the Devonshire Arms (lovely venue!) and had a friend over for dinner. On Sunday I had other friends for lunch (which ended at 5:30pm or so) and then spent the evening tidying the place up... Today, the same friends picked me up and we wandered around Ely. One of the things I picked up was a fearsome pruning saw to replace the one I borrowed last year and really need to return. When I went out to the garden to use it this afternoon, I found a wonderful thing - the dwarf tulips are flowering! (I have done nothing at all to this photo - they really are that bright!)


I totally hadn't expected the yellow centres - the picture on the bulb packet was the same as the one I linked to above; absolutely gorgeous... If you click to embiggen, there's a very happy and almost entirely pollen-encrusted ladybird in the top one...

I also have some narcissi flowering, and I hope that the others I planted in the same area, Professor Einstein, will be following suit soon... these are February Gold. The tulips were also meant to be February-March flowering, but it's been a cold winter, and I only planted them on 9th December! (And thankfully I took photos, because I can't find the packets, and had no memory of what they were!)

Inside, some knitting has been done - this is a test-knit for a friend... I'm not sure how secret this is so I'll refrain from giving the details. This was the first attempt...

in Helen's Lace, in the Get Knitted colourway. It's lovely stuff to knit - but with this pattern, it pooled horribly, so after the first 30 rows I ripped it out and have just got to that point again with a new yarn. This is Cherry Tree Hill Merino Lace in Peacock and it seems to be responding nicely...