Beautiful madness

Pigwotknits not only did the meme, but asked me about the church photo, so I can do that as a first Canada post. [Future posts may be slightly less photo-heavy - I managed to lose my camera, including its lovely new four-day-old case, on the train back from Toronto to Montréal, and nothing turned up at the bureau des objets trouvés. I trekked to Argos on Friday lunchtime for the equivalent model...]

This is the Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal: also known these days to locals as l'église où Céline Dion s'est mariée - I was told this once by my hosts before going in, and overheard a guide telling a party about it while in the church...

Not that impressive from outside; but the Rough Guide went a bit mad about its Victorian Gothicness - moth, flame, etc...

So I went in; and as I'd just got off the bus from my friends' house in Brossard, I sped through the church pausing only to ooh and aah, and headed straight for the very nice loos at the back, so this post will give you a somewhat odd idea of the geography...

The basement-to-ground-floor windows were impressive to start with - the glass was made up of rough-cut chunks about an inch and a half thick.

The Wedding Chapel/Sainte-Chapelle right at the back (which was actually not où Céline Dion s'est mariée - they had the main church, apparently, as there were so many guests) was stunning. I couldn't work it out until I'd read the guide, because the reredos was so modern:

while the rest of the chapel was so Gothic.

Turns out, though, that although it was built in the late 19th century to the same style as the rest, it was destroyed by fire in 1978 and reconstructed between 1979 and 1982 - while the rest was rebuilt according to photos, the bronze reredos was a new work by Charles Daudelin, cast in England in 32 pieces.

Another couple of photos of the Sainte-Chapelle...

Here's a view from there down into the main church:

and here's a side chapel.

I've a nasty feeling the statue here is an Infant of Prague. I thank the rest of the decoration for not alerting me to this sooner... Don't know why I don't like Infants of Prague, as I have a reasonably highly-developed tolerance for other statuary - they slightly creep me out though... So - look at the pretty architecture!

While we're going for imagery though - here's Ste Marguerite Bourgeoys, first woman Canadian saint (canonised 1982) - two rather different biographies here

There were several altars to her in different churches, and she seems to be dispensing pearls of wisdom to representatives of various First Peoples in each one of them...

But here's the main attraction - the general view is pretty spectacular:

Maybe la Dion knew what she was on about in this matter... (And it's not her fault that the thing I hear every Friday night in life when I leave work is the busker in the Tube station playing My Heart Will Go On on a harp... ) According to this, Pierre Trudeau's state funeral was here, too, which is something they don't mention quite as much...

A bit of history. This was designed by an New York Irish Protestant called James O'Donnell, who subsequently converted so he could be buried in his own creation. It was largely constructed between 1824 and 1829 but the towers were built in the 1840s (the East tower is called Tempérance, for any Kathy Reichs fans out there...) and the interior decoration was completed between 1874 and 1880, by Victor Bourgeau.

It was only about 9:30 on a slightly grim Monday morning at this point, so there were very few people around, which was fabulous. There were so many beautiful details to stare at, like this paintwork on pillars

and ceilings...

And as with seriously good Victorian Gothic, everything was all-of-a-piece including the exits (apart from the illuminated "SORTIE" notices, of course...)

I think this is quite the most beautiful church I've ever been in. And I've been into lots of churches. There are various photos of my brother and me as teenagers sitting sulking on steps outside churches all over France, but we did go into many, many more...

Next up, Vieux-Montréal, and some yarn!!

Back home

In the last month, while I've not been blogging I've been a) going through the somewhat labyrinthine annual reporting cycle and doing lots of other things at work; b) knitting - photos sometime... c) preparing for going to Canada d) going to Canada...

But I'm back now. The cat has decided she's still speaking to me (bringing her back two rabbit-fur mice may have helped there...)

First, a picture taken inside the most beautiful church I think I've ever seen... As a complete Victorian Gothic junkie...


But while I was away, Lixie tagged me with this... (I've seen it in various versions but this is the one passed down to me...)

The Rules

Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What I was doing 10 years ago

Indexing official publications in my old job; starting my City and Guilds qualification in Embroidery and feeling completely lost at it; learning to dye, a transforming experience...

2. What 5 things are on on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order)

Empty suitcase; order new printer cartridges; phone lost property office at Montreal railway station again; finish baby jacket for Baby A; declutter entire house. The last item has been on a standing list for at least the last 10 years...

3. Snacks I enjoy

Cashew nuts (roasted salted)

Macadamia nuts (ditto)

Cold pizza

Salt and vinegar crisps (which ought to be in a blue bag; anyone remember Tudor crisps?)

Rainbow Drops

4. Things I would do if I was a billionaire

Pay off the debts of family and friends...

Travel around the parts of the world I've always wanted to see...

Buy a flat in Nancy; a cottage in Northumberland; a house by the beach in Toronto...

Open a shop which would sell beautiful yarn and handmade pieces by people who could charge what they ought to, and still get buyers...

Bend public transport gently to my will, so it becomes possible to travel everywhere without driving...

I guess I'd also leave my job - a year ago that would have been top of the list...

5. Places I have lived

Whickham, Gateshead

Chester-le-Street, County Durham

Cambridge

Paris

London

Loughborough

Waterbeach

5-6 people is ambitious, given that most of the blogs I read have already done this: so, tagging.... Diviknitty and pigwotflies, but only if you're up for it and haven't been tagged a gazillion times before...

Why Voting in Person Is Fun

I love this sign, seen outside my local polling station this morning at 7:45am when I went in to vote. It seems to sum up the combination of great earnestness and very slight incompetence which has always been the hallmark of the British polling station... I was slightly disappointed that the rickety plywood booths had been replaced by some rather smart modular ones; but the pencils were as awful as ever, so that was all right...

The contest in my home area is somewhat overshadowed by the contest in the area where I work. Only a Boris supporter has actually attempted to sticker me against my will, but I've had all the leaflets, and do hope that the people who do actually have a vote have got out there and used it. I'm going to follow my usual practice and ask any Londoner who whinges in the last four years who they voted for; anyone who didn't put a cross in any box (or indeed, two, if they felt like it... or voted for RON*, or drew a picture of a starfish...) has no voice afterwards, as far as I'm concerned...

I have all sorts of other things to blog including some fabulous yarn; but I get a bit irrational when it comes to elections. If I ruled the world and were to make anything at all compulsory, it'd be voting. If only to save the irritation of listening to non-voters droning on and on about the awfulness of "the system"...

Here endeth the rantette...

*I'm not sure how widespred RON is - but it used to stand for Re-Open Nominations in student elections. Occasionally RON would win...

Edited to add: Another reason elections are fun is the tremor of excitement in the voice of James Naughtie as he contemplates three hours of speculation and local results, and calculation of whether the results in Sunderland South or Little Snoring, if transposed to a General Election, would mean a landslide victory for the Mackem Party or Residents against the Eco-Town... he is the David Attenborough of election coverage, endlessly fascinated, endlessly amused, totally gobsmacked to be doing this job...

Back again...

Long time, no blog; once I got back to work after Easter it was full steam ahead there for the last couple of weeks before recess, and I was spending evenings getting ready for a long weekend away at my folks' - for my nephew's baptism and to visit my lovely cousins in Hexham. Here's a pic of my brother, sister-in-law and Baby A in the church - the shawl was much admired by the ladies of the parish. Baby A himself was so unimpressed by the whole business that he slept straight through his baptism, but woke up to observe a huge buffet and a beautiful cake... [At the precise moment this picture was taken though, he'd discovered the pocket in his trousers, which was obviously much more interesting than the cake his Auntie Catherine had decorated so well...]

Not a lot of knitting was done last month - but I did get one very long-term present finished. Over the last couple of years I've completely lost the urge to stitch, but I started this for my cousin Kevin's wedding to Kate which, as the observant will note, happened just over two years ago...

So long ago was it, in fact, that they've been way more productive than me, and now have this little chap, Baby O... in a hat knitted by his mum (who's on the waiting list for Ravelry...)

We had a lovely couple of days mooching around Hexham (despite having to shelter in the bandstand because of hail!), and a very nice lunch at Bouchon - Baby O got breadsticks and pieces of pepper while we ate duck gizzards, sea bream and Toulouse sausages...

All the knitting I'm making progress on is for other people, and secret - or in the post to its destination... Except this:

Embossed Leaves sock by Mona Schmidt, from Favorite Socks, in the current Rocking Sock Club yarn (STR mediumweight, in "Lucky") - I've been looking for the right yarn for this pattern for a while... For the first time ever, I may have SSS with this pair - my brain and hands find the cast-on extraordinarily difficult, although the result is very good. I'm going to have to take it on my daily commute - if it's the only thing I have to knit, I'll get on with it...

I haven't been completely hermit-like after work though - the lighter nights have perked me up somewhat, as usual, so my colleague B and I have been over to IKnit a couple of times - last Thursday night's was so busy that Gerard borrowed my camera to document the sheer number of knitters ...

including a couple of familiar faces...

It was great. Am hoping to be there again on Wednesday, at Ely on Thursday and in Hove on Friday - have yarn, will travel...

The easy bit done...

Sunday, 8:30 pm

The painting's done; and the furniture (barring the rest of the chairs, the spinning-wheel and skein-winder) is back in. And I really, really like the plain coloured walls at the moment. However, the point of losing the stripes was to make more of the stuff on the walls.


The sampler above the fireplace (to be found in detail here - I liked it so much I did it exactly as specified!) will stay. Other non-negotiable pieces are the piece of felt I made at Wingham 5 years ago on their big machine, which will go back where it was at the right of the door.


And this one, which has been languishing in a bag since it came back from an exhibition in Munich two Christmases ago: I spent 190 hours on this for my City and Guilds. That's destined to be the sole occupant of the wooden wall on the left (partly because pieces on that wall seem to hit the ground quite hard and with regular frequency when there are guests...)

Being able to put up this Christmas-present pastel from E-J was also a major reason for the redecoration.

But there are also these:

and a Nicholas Barnham winter-apple-tree which seems impossible to photograph... The painting was certainly the easier bit!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone! I'd take a picture of the daffs I had in the garden yesterday, but their little yellow heads are all flat and snow-covered...

Sunday, 8:30 am




Second coat of yellow going on...

And - knitting!! Not the greatest of photos - beads don't show up too well in daylight... But here's the first end of the Flutter scarf with beads...

The reveal....

Yes, it's going to be yellow again... But without the stripes...

And as you can see, I've not done a lot today. The lurgy came up and hit me overnight, so having spent most of the night blowing my nose, hacking up green gunk and being generally completely unable to get warm enough, I did my library shift this morning and went back to bed at 1pm for a short nap. I woke up at 6 when the street light outside the bedroom window came on! Oops.

I'm intending to get the rest of this coat of emulsion on though - it'll need at least one more coat to cover the remnants of the stripes and the Polyfilla... I'm using a paint pad, which is quick but gives quite a thin coat.

Tomorrow, the reason for losing the stripes... Otherwise, it's a bit 'move along, nothing to see here...'

I may also get my Flutter scarf cast off - the first half, anyway. It's taken about an hour to cast off so far, because I'm beading every stitch using the crochet-hook method, and it increases to around 180 stitches towards the end... Probably utter insanity, but looking damn good, though, and the usual really easy-to-follow Mim pattern - written and charted directions. Photos when that half's done...

Almost invisible progress...

Friday, 10:30 am


Polyfilla in [note to self: Magic polyfilla in a tube is a stupid idea. Not so much the 'magic' bit, which turns the polyfilla from pink to white as it dries and lets you know it's ready for sanding, but the 'in a tube' bit. Which of course makes sure you don't get one of those nice little spatula things. Thank goodness for the City and Guilds hoarding habit - still had one in the printing/stamping box...]

Friday, 12:30 pm


Polyfilla sanded, all the walls and the floor sanded and washed. Lunch time!

Friday, 8:30 pm

And at that point, progress gets incremental... You can't tell from this photo, but the ceiling has had two coats, and the side wall has gone from the yellow of the stripes to the cream of the background... I had a guest for dinner last night, so no more progress was made between 8:30 pm and this morning; I'm blogging from the library on my Saturday morning volunteer shift...

With any luck, this afternoon there'll be some actual visible progress...

First progress pic

Friday, 8:30 am

Room cleared and swept, furniture out (apart from the table - which will move halfway into the kitchen); fasteners removed from doors... Alll looking very grubby and cobwebby...

The weekend project

I'd like to think this was putting up pics of the very wonderful KTog 5th birthday get-together on Wednesday night - and I'll get to that on the KTog blog this weekend too - but there are a lot of pictures to crop strategically...

But no, it's finally getting round to painting the dining room. To this effect, if you've not got completely cheesed off with the irregularity and non-knitting-content of this blog over the last few months, please cheer me along. I'm intending to take a pic every 12 hours over the weekend; at 8:30am and 8:30pm; and to blog on progress once a day...

So here's the first shot - as I walked through the door this evening at 8:30pm.

Thursday, 8:30pm



Most of the pictures are down, but that's about it. There's still a very large pile of yarn on the table, and on the floor... You will note the resentful feline apparition by the door at the left. This door is not often closed and is generally wedged open. It took approximately 20 seconds - the time taken to slam the door quite hard to get it to shut, walk through two not-very-big rooms, turn round and aim a camera - for Amelia/Bug to shoot through the cat-flap from the garden at the sound of the door, notice the Problem and start doing the distraught-cat-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-closed-door thing. You'd think she'd been locked away for weeks... But she's a creature of infinite curiosity and extreme patience... always a bad combination...

More tomorrow... if the lurgy that's been stalking me for a week or so doesn't get me first, anyway...

Tomorrow - sugar soap! and Polyfilla! (and does anyone know how to glue stray flaps of ceiling paper back down/up again?)

Around the block

There were signs of spring in the village this week:

Daffs at the Hall (thanks, Kate and family for planting those; they're really cheery for everyone walking past, and you can't see them from the house...)

Across the road, blossom on the tree by the church:

And some forsythia.

And here's some more forsythia on the same day, in a slightly different setting: the pods at the top aren't seed-pods - they're the topmost people-pods of the London Eye.

Wandering along the South Bank, you do see some strange things: yes, it is indeed a "living statue" in Charlie Chaplin/Hitler make-up, a policeman's uniform, a tutu and a truncheon...

Or Big Ben seen through the legs of a semi-skeletal Dali elephant...

And a photo I've been wanting to take for a long while - Boudicca, implausibly dressed in diaphanous robes, by Westminster Bridge and Portcullis House.

She looks great - three storeys high... Until you see her from a distance, and realise her relative size in the landscape. Which is, I guess, why the Iceni never stood much of a chance.

There's an urban myth that Boudicca is buried at Kings Cross; it's a nice metaphor for the hopelessness of trying to get from East Anglia to London on mornings like last Monday, when the process took 5 hours... A chariot with knives on the wheels would have been seriously welcome; and quite possibly quicker...

Writing in an Age of Silence

by Sara Paretsky. London; New York : Verso, 2007. ISBN-13 978-1-84467-122-9.

I don't normally do book reviews, but this was just tremendous. It's been a very, very long time since I read a book in one or two sittings, finished it and then started at the front again for a longer read.

I've loved Paretsky's stylish detective/private eye novels for a long time; I've waited anxiously for the next one to come out for the last 15 years or so - but knew nothing about the author apart from the fiercely liberal opinions she's given her character VI Warshawski. In the last couple of books, written since the events of 2001 and the US administration's reaction to them, Paretsky has nailed her colours to the mast more clearly, but in this collection and elaboration of five lectures - part (sometimes startling) autobiography, part polemic, part literary theory - she explores voice and voicelessness, and does it brilliantly. She presses all the familiar buttons - the Civil Rights movement, Roe v. Wade, the USA Patriot Act; but she brings her personal experience to bear. And she introduces some slightly surprising elements to the arguments - Laura Ingalls Wilder, Natty Bumppo, Beth March*...

You don't need to have read a Paretsky novel to enjoy this book - she's a fierce, compassionate, feminist, literate, liberal American voice at a time where such are scarce - but I can't imagine finishing this book without wanting to read one...

*and the arrest of Joshilyn Jackson, author of the wonderful Gods in Alabama and Between, Georgia...

Normal knitting coverage will be resumed shortly.

Phew, and gah, and ooh....

Phew...

The baby sweater is done. And is very pretty.

The dyed yarn for the sleeves works pretty well, and there was just enough to make the neckband and seam up... I've attached the sleeves using my favourite waste-yarn finish (like a machine knit finish), and found some buttons which were just right, from an old dress of my mam's... so I'm enjoying the famous-knitwear-designer-meets-make-do-and-mend combination...

Here's another picture of the pretty that is Mr F's colour combination:

I love the way he works with such unlikely combinations....

Gah...

I was hoping to cast on my Flutter scarf in the pub at the KTog this evening - unfortunately my formerly delightful 3.25mm Brittany needles had a bit of an accident on the way home, and one of them snapped about 3" from the top... They were already the short size - I'll probably try chopping them off and doing a thing with a pencil sharpener and some sandpaper at the weekend, but they were very beautiful...

Ooh...

There were lots of new people at knitting this evening, and some welcome returners, and it was all very lovely. The experience was enhanced still further by the Blue's adoption of Gwatkin's Foxwhelp as their dry cider of choice (no URL, can't find it on draught anywhere else!) - blimey, that stuff's strong; but very nice... And people were knitting beautiful things...

When I got home, I found my consignment of these had arrived, a calendar week after I ordered them from Texas...

I'd been ordering from Ana's Etsy store, but then found (via Ravelry) that she had a bigger store of her own. I've raved about these before, but there's just something about the combination of the beauty and the completely functional which is incredibly attractive.

See?

Mother of invention...

So having planned out today (trip to Peter Jones, morning meeting, productive rest of day) I then spent the first half of the night throwing up... No work for me today... Gah!

Which also meant no emergency yarn trip to Peter Jones - I work earlier on Tuesdays so I can get to one of the KTogs a month, and have a lunchtime meeting...

Once I'd woken up again around lunchtime, I had a rummage and found two-thirds of a ball of 4-ply Matchmaker in a leaf green which, while still Clearly Wrong in colour,

didn't look as if it was going to be impossible to tweak to being a right colour. Into the dyepan with a smidge of dark brown it went; then into the tumble-dryer after its rinse (wrapped in tulle and tied several times... Et voilà. I was quite pleased...

Being around and still feeling generally crappy meant I got quite a lot of knitting done. I'll have to pull out about 3" on the sleeve I've done most on because of the way the self-patterning yarn was wound - if I'd realised I'd be using a solid colour for the tops of the sleeves, I'd have waited until the front and back were both done - but it's getting there. And I have lots of odds and ends for the neckband...

While I was winding this yarn and yarn for an Etsy order (thanks, Heather!) I thought I might as well see how much cashmere was left on the cone of denim blue "heavy laceweight" I used for my Hanging Garden stole. Turns out there was about 540m before washing - so that went into the dyepot too. I think it's going to be a Flutter - but I'll be adding some matte raku beads to it too as I bought two tubes for another project which didn't in the end need them...

Another possibly lunatic project...

... Feeling liberated from the demands of knitting for a stand at a show, or for samples for a class, I suddenly realised that I'm meeting a friend's 10 month old daughter for the first time on Wednesday evening, and that I was such a bad keeper-in-touch that I didn't know baby K existed until a few weeks ago... So of course, she needs a sweater... I went back to Tadpoles and Tiddlers, because it's great for a good basic sweater pattern... And found a 4-ply pattern which was crying out for Kaffe Fassett sock yarn. (The Landscape one, in Fire)...

So I have been sitting, knitting, reading a couple of superb books - Stuart Maconie's utterly wonderful Cider with Roadies which has had me crying with laughter and recognition, even when he's adulating bands I really couldn't stand at the time, and another I'll blog when I've finished it - and doing way too little of the enormous amount of tidying up around here... And catching up on sleep... Anyway, the back and three-quarters of one sleeve has been done - and I am definitely going to run out of yarn - I was hoping the extra yardage on sock yarn, as opposed to the Rowan 4-ply botany in the original pattern, would help me out, but I'm going to be about 10 grammes short. Despite the size of the Stash, there's nothing machine-washable in 4-ply which will do for the top half of both sleeves - none of these are colours I usually go for, apart from the dark pink, but as ever with Mr Fassett's combinations, together they're fabulous...

I'll be the one standing impatiently on the pavement in front of Peter Jones when they open at 9:30 tomorrow morning then - please keep out of my way - I'll be a woman on a deadline; my first meeting's at 10:15...

And as a PS - I do have one photo of last weekend - Caroline, who runs the really excellent White House Arts, wearing a drop-stitch scarf I was very pleased with; made of Patons Baroque (thanks, Jan!) and Louisa Harding Sari Ribbon. Not a good photo - but the one with flash was far, far worse...

Cheap music...

So; I got up unfeasibly early this morning to do some work before my training course. Put it this way, I was already fully awake (for me) by the time David Cameron was saying nice things about my local MP on Farming Today...

Anyway. It did mean that I got a leisurely stroll down to the course, and despite having no camera, I thought I'd go round the outside. Which meant I walked past the somewhat distracting spectacle of someone who, from the back, looked exactly like Josh Lyman (in Tuesday-suit, bouncing-on-the-balls-of-the-feet-and-full-gesticulation mode) leading a bunch of students. As I got within ranting range, it transpired the guy was Italian; which gave me full licence to listen.

[Warning: if you speak a foreign language I understand and love, and are within my hearing, I'll be listening to everything. Even the details of your sister-in-law's mother's Doberman's gynae operation, frankly... ]

This was Civil War stuff. But they were just by this statue; and the guy threw out both arms in expositionary mode and said "Olllllliverrrrrr Crrrrrromwelllll". [Photo of Citizen C taken on previous occasion...]

So - conjunction of this (favourite/famous actor), that (statue) and the other (italiano)... I've spent the entire day at my training course with the phrase "Oliver Cromwell's Waiting (Talking Italian)" going round in my head... Thankyou, Bananarama, and goodnight...

Keep meaning to say...

I'm greensideknits on Ravelry. (Knittingonthegreen was just too long for their name limit!) A few people have asked recently...

Textiles in Focus 08

I'm tired, but nowhere near as tired as I usually am, at the end of this weekend.

I'm sure this is due to Sue, Rosie and Jackie who were amazing over the weekend; helping set up, helping break down, bringing lunch, titivating the stand, and sitting knitting/crocheting... You were amazing, ladies. Thanks. And due to not having a lot to do with the competition, which I've done the admin for over the last few years... Thanks to Pauline for that!

And it was, as usual, a total pleasure to spend 3 days talking to Gill; and obviously a serious hardship to be sitting next to a selection of the stock from Woolly Workshop... Purchases were made.

I was a Bad Blogger (again) though - no photos... Sorry!