(3*36+66)/456*2/3

We have spent the last couple of days on Orcas Island in a beach house perched upon a bluff above a pebble beach with a stunning view out across Puget Sound and various other islands. Deer wandered through our garden as I sat on the deck in the moist misty morning and completed a few more rows on my Knitted Veil. That's where the maths comes in - I am a quarter of the way through!!

It was wonderful to get out of town although a bit stressful too with small children, especially making sure that there were enough changes of clothes to keep a certain little boy dry and clean (he stayed dry, not so clean but I've given up on that). Orcas Island was beautiful, as is the whole San Juan Islands area; just the ferry ride from Anacortes to Orcas felt like a cruise in itself. One thing that really struck Tim and I was the (to us) overwhelming private ownership of the land there, particularly the beaches. It just felt wrong. We had a private beach as part of our accommodation but were exhorted to not stray beyond the big white boulder or the pink survey tape. Pink survey tape? There may be some cachet in the exclusivity of a private beach but ah, not in pink survey tape.

I'm not sure whether I have written about this before but the main thing that has struck me in so many ways about the US since we moved here is the rampant individualism. I am currently sleep-deprived and a bit addled by a head cold/hayfever mix, so my skills of sociological analysis are not really up to the task of elaborating on this. I just eagerly await publication of E Unus Plures: American individualism and the shaping of the nation (I'm just making this up but in the event that such a volume does already exist, let me know!)

love of reading

Surprisingly enough, I couldn't find an appropriate 'technical' term for love of reading, not anywhere on the internet. Litteraphilia would perhaps do it? Litterophilia? Sounds too much like you love to throw your rubbish on the ground.

Anyway, I felt I did myself a bit harshly in the last post. I do actually love to read and certainly do a lot less of it nowadays because I am busy knitting. In the last three months though I have managed to read the following titles:

I really enjoyed all three of these titles. The 19th Wife is a whodunnit of sorts set on a polygamous compound in Utah intertwined with an early history of the Mormon faith. It turned out to be a bit heavier on the historical stuff than the whodunnit (I do like crime fiction) but I still found it very interesting and readable. 'One sect, many secrets ... and murder' - I mean, how could I resist?

The Lace Reader I picked up at Goodwill in Chicago (otherwise such a miserable thrifting experience) and bought it just because it appeared to be about lace. It was, partly, and also about memory and madness and family drama. I guess that it would fit into the psychological thriller genre. The plot was perhaps a bit patchy but I was so busy devouring it that I was happy to just read over the gaps.

And The Book Thief - a really big book. Long, full of big ideas and events and emotions. This was a wonderful read, I'm not quite sure that it was life changing as the back cover claims but it certainly has a great narrative perspective and the writing is evocative.

maud

There has fallen a splendid tear

From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near;'
And the white rose weeps, 'She is late;'
The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear;'
And the lily whispers, 'I wait.'

Maud, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I am not much of a poetry buff but this is one of my all-time favourite stanzas of poetry. There is so much magic and mystery in it. Not being a buff I've not read the rest of it, I'm just happy with this bit.

So, maud the noun, not the poetical person - Shandy has been kind enough to direct me over to Needled where Kate has written a post about a traditional Scottish wrap worn by shepherds called, wait for it, a maud. Unfortunately, I had already cut and sewn my fabric before I read about mauds but, nevertheless, that is now the name of my checked wrap.

A few details - the fabric that I bought is 100 per cent wool and 60 inches wide (apologies metric friends but when in Rome ...). The dimensions that I was aiming for were 22 by 68 inches and I decided to make my wrap, or rather my maud, from a double layer so I bought 54 inches (one-and-a-half yards) of fabric. I had thought to make the maud longer by attaching the extra eight inches or so to the 60 inch width but, alas, the checks are not square and didn't match up.

Instead I cut the extra eight inches into two equal widths and sewed one to either end of the maud. Then the unravelling began - some 90 by 8 inches of thread pulling. Unh, it took a while. The colours in the fringe don't line up with the checks either but for me this is ok.

I folded the fabric plus fringe in half and sewed it up, followed by some top stitching. What I have now is effectively a 60 inch tube of fabric with a fringe at either end. I had thought to run a few lines of stitching down the centre to keep it all together, and then I thought, well, why not a few lines of decorative stitching? and then I thought, well, why not some decorative surface embroidery? Where do these ideas come from? Topic for another post.

ps The portrait of Tennyson is by George Frederic Watts and is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

spooky

Well, scary actually. Scary the number of pre-fabricated, all-in-one costumes that so many children were wearing for Hallowe'en. Half the fun of costumes is putting them together - either making them or finding something in the back of the wardrobe or at the thrift store (although, disappointingly to me the thrift stores here are full of brand new merchandise at this time of the year in the shape of precisely the all-in-one suits that I'm complaining about).

Ok, so I rant a little; I do know that not every parent has the time nor inclination to make a costume but I think that it is a fantastic opportunity for children to do so themselves and to use their imagination. It also helps to make the occasion less exclusively about getting stuff. That said, there were a few hand-made costumes where we went trick or treating - an awesome rocket ship, a fabulous yard waste bin, a beautiful cotton woolly cloud.

Little miss bear wore a red corduroy cowgirl vest and skirt that was (apparently) mine as a child with a checked shirt from her wardrobe, a cowgirl themed t-shirt purchased at Value Village and her yellow gumboots. Yee-ha!

double double doily trouble

No, not really, no trouble at all, I just wanted to get that one last bit of word play* in (plenty of toil though). I have finished sewing together the doily quilt top - hooray! But I am left with somewhat of a dilemma. I'm not sure about how to finish it, that is, about how far to go with finishing it.

I thought that it needed some sort of sashing, even if just in the way of thin coloured ribbons, to divide the patterned from the plain blocks, and some sort of border to make it a bit larger, and they would really need to be from the same fabric and ... and the whole thing just started to get a bit bigger and more 'finished' than I think I ever really had in mind. You know the concept of 'matchy-matchy'? Well, I fear that there is the risk here of being too 'finishedy-finishedy'.

To just bat it and back it with a minimum of fuss and some stitch in the ditch may be just the thing and whatever size that ends up being is just the size that it is. Or maybe just a border, or just the sashing, or ... ok, perhaps a bit of trouble deciding.

* Could also have been called 'Houston, we have a quilt top'

a is for ...

... apple. But also for ape and artichoke and aegis and aisle and awl. What a versatile letter. I remember with quite some indignation how in beginners - my first year of primary school - Mrs Baxter refused to include 'a is for Amelia' because it wasn't the 'a' as in cat.

A is also for Australia. Guess where we are off to tomorrow?

oh swallow swallow

I've never been quite sure what this line from Eliot is saying. Is it 'oh swallow swallow' as in 'oh name-of-bird name-of-bird'? Or is he addressing the swallow with an imperative as in 'oh name-of-bird order-to-do-something'? Or even 'oh order-to-do-something name-of-bird'? If only it were written in Latin, this would all be clear.

Regardless, my Swallowtail Shawl - gulp - I finished it.


The Vital Statistics

Pattern: The Swallowtail Shawl by Evelyn Clark Designs.
Size: I did 19 repeats of the budding lace pattern and three tiers of the lily of the valley border (the pattern only calls for 14 repeats and 2 tiers respectively). My finished shawl measures 146 centimetres wide and 64 centimetres deep (57.5 inches x 25.2 inches).


Yarn: This is yarn that I bought at the Lake City Way Value Village here in Seattle. There were six balls of it, white, the only brand markings being 'All Wool Hand Knitting Yarn'. I dyed it with the help of my friend Valerie of Actual Size Creations - thank you! I joined three balls together to make one hank and dyed it like that - turns out that the middle ball took the dye differently which has produced an interesting colour variation. It's not a fault, it's a design feature.

I figured that it was laceweight but after recently inspecting some 2 ply at a yarn store I am leaning more towards calling it cobweb weight.
Needles: 3.5mm Addi Lace
Start to finish: 21 November 2008 to 23 March 2009. Only four months! It has taken me longer than that to knit a pair of socks! I'm very pleased with this timeframe, especially considering that there was quite a knitting pause in there while I got over my initial nupp shock.

Comments: Where to start? This is a lovely pattern but I found that the charts in the downloadable pdf version were badly laid out. I actually ended up cutting them out and rearranging them and sticking them down so that I could follow them. Nevertheless, when I went back to the charts after a few week's break, it took me a good half hour to understand them again.


This was my first real lace knitting project. I have done lacey knitting before but never to this scale and complexity. I don't think that a triangular shawl was actually a good place to start, the stitch increase each row just gives you one more thing to think about. I think the clue to keeping track of it all is to work out a method for recording where you are - with the use of markers, ticking row counts off on a list - and be rigorous about it. And count! It's easy on the non-patterned rows to just happily purl along but it is essential to count that there is the correct number of stitches in each repeat.

And the nupps- basically the nupps sucked. Yes, I got the hang of them but I certainly did not find them pleasant knitting. In future where nupps are called for I would consider making a bobble - same effect, less stress.

I was also saved, a number of times, by using a lifeline. I took a long piece of sock wool and, at the end of a repeat, threaded it through the stitches on the needle. I then continued to knit, leaving that length of sock yarn in place. This saves your life (or at least your lace) in the event that you discover a mistake and have to rip the knitting back. With yarn this fine and so many stitches, at a certain point to unknit is quite unbearable and if you rip back without something to secure the stitches at some point, you may well find yourself back at your cast-on edge. The lacey fabric is too wispy to hold its shape and it is very difficult to successfully pick up live stitches.

Verdict: While I hesitate to say that the shawl is perfect, I am very proud to say that the shawl is mistake free. There are no sneaky knit-2-togethers to deal with an extra stitch, or surreptitious make-ones when I fell a stitch short. I am absolutely delighted to have achieved one of my knitting aspirations. To knit lace is why I started knitting in the first place. So while the shawl itself only took me four months to knit, it has been about six years in the making.

I'm glad that I started doing this knitting thing. I may just stick with it.

pinking shears

I am really bothered by sexism. Perhaps it is because I studied English and Linguistics at uni that I truly believe that language makes our world. And that is why statements like this really piss me off:

Every seamstress? And what are 'seamsters' of the world supposed to use? Blueing shears? I'm thinking of renaming them in general my beigeing shears to get the right neutral tone.

A dear friend of mine was set up on a blind date with a guy, in part because the mutual friend thought that something that they had in common was that they both sewed (or that's how I understood the story). A romance, a marriage and a beautiful baby boy later I expect that the man in question's advice to his son on how to meet girls will be, 'learn to sew!'

Less sexism in the handcrafts world perhaps?

parents and their young

I bought this card matching game for baby bear at Goodwill the other day. I thought that the pictures were kind of cute and naming animals is a popular pastime around here and eventually we will be able to use it to play memory games.

But then I decided that actually, it really pisses me off. Not the cards so much but the name - why on earth does it have to be mothers and their babies? Granted, the cow has an udder so that's a mummy cow and her calf but otherwise - the cat, the dog, the elephant? - they could all be a daddy with his young. I suppose that the concept reflects the fact that children do spend more time with their mothers but it also promulgates a social value that mothers and children belong together and fathers are elsewhere. This notion not only robs mothers of the opportunity to be somewhere else (like work) but it also robs fathers of the opportunity to be with their children.

I'd be the first to acknowledge the 'special bond' between mother and child but I'd also be the first to question whether its special status just reflects social norms or whether there is actually a qualitative difference with the bond between father and child. Having never been a father it is impossible for me, or anyone else I think, to say.

Everywhere, including in the crafting world, I see and hear rampant gender bias - "It's a great first sewing project for a little girl". Rubbish, it's a great sewing project for a child, any child. At a shopping centre last week I heard a young girl tell her mother that she wanted a certain Lego set for Christmas. "No no, you can't. That's not a girl's toy", the mother replied. !!!. Yeah, and engineering and architecture and anything else requiring spatial abilities and creativity are not women's professions.

We are making every effort to raise baby bear with a wide variety of toys, books and activities. Yes, she has a doll house but she also has a great train set which she just loves. And she'll sit for a good half hour on her own playing Lego, totally engrossed.

So anyway, in our house it is only a mummy animal where physiology dictates; all the others are an even mix of mummies and daddies. One might think that a small child wouldn't be worried by the udder but yes, correct physiology does matter. Don't even get me started on the correct usage of vulva and vagina.

this is ... my favourite quote

Umm, I'm not really one for remembering quotes. I mean, every now and then I come across one which I think is great but there aren't any that spring to mind that I cherish or live by. But I do like this one:

In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.

Hope springs eternal, and I love the syntax.

This quote also appears in the book that I have been reading recently and am still very taken with - Art and Fear: observations on the perils (and rewards) of artmaking. Particularly the following:

You don't have to do anyone else's work; just your own.

(To paraphrase - I'm here and the book is in the other room.) How liberating! And at the same time what fatalism! Liberating in the sense that you don't have to paint like somebody else, produce designs like you-know-who, or have hand-writing like so-and-so. You don't have to produce someone else's work, which is great because that's their work and you can do your own thing instead.

It's just that you have to do it. That's the hard bit, the inevitable necessity.

So, onto handwriting - yes, this is something that bothers me. Have you noticed that architects and industrial designers and design people in general have this very graphic, sharp, often pointy handwriting? Any architects out there (and I know that there are a couple) - do they teach you that handwriting in design school? It took me a while to realise that I didn't have to have that handwriting, just my own.

kulta!

That's Finnish for gold (according to the online dictionary - if you're a Finnish speaker, please correct me). Yes, today I struck gold at Value Village - Marimekko!

Brasilia - definitely enough for some children's clothes.


Kioto - again, kids' stuff.


Lumimarja - my favourite, possibly enough here to make myself a dress!


I am absolutely delighted with these finds! (Can you tell?! Can there be more exclamation marks?!) I have a genetic connection to Marimekko (apparently there was a Marimekko shop in Melbourne in the 70s and that's according to my mum, who worked there) and I love their designs.

I'm also quite fascinated by Finland. I spent a couple of weeks there about 10 years ago (ten, already??) and really enjoyed it. I also really like foreign languages and would love to try Finnish. Did you know that Finnish has some fifteen cases (that is, form of a word to indicate its function in the sentence)? It's a member of the Finno-Ugric language family and is most closely related to Estonian. It is not a Scandinavian language which is why, I have heard, Finland is not part of Scandinavia. Again, please correct me.

il conformista

A day and a half without internet - ouch!

Anyway, another sneakily named 'this is ...' post. This is my favourite movie, Bernardo Bertolucci's Il Conformista from 1970. To begin with, I just love the way that the title rolls off the tongue. I can't even quite remember when or where I saw this film but it had a major impact on me - the storyline, the visuals, the narrative. I believe that this was one of the earliest films to experiment with splitting the narrative's timeline. It's a long time since I've seen it but the film plays forward from the beginning and I think from halfway through the story in alternating episodes.

I won't go into the storyline except that there is a real sting in the tail. A fabulous film!

(Quick note of linguistic interest - those familiar with the Italian language will know that words ending in the letter 'a' are most often feminine and preceded by the article la. Il conformista is an exception and this is because the word is derived from Greek rather than Latin which is the basis of Romance languages.)

In other film news, we went to the cinema on Friday evening. The first time on many months and the first time since we came to the US. Joel and Ethan Coen's Burn After Reading - a complete farce but very funny. I laughed a lot, out loud, along with the rest of the cinema which is a good join-in thing to do. But oh Brad - I'm sorry, you don't look so good.

Oh and a quick reassurance to my dear readers - I am completely not the Vegas type. Perhaps that's why I'm so excited about going. There will be no shows and no gambling, just the aquarium, some op shopping (what happens to those old costumes, I wonder?) and general shuddering at all the neon of it I expect.

Image details here.

snigger snigger

Whereas you conjugate a verb, in some languages (for example Latin) you decline a noun. For example, the declension for the Latin puer, meaning 'boy', is:

puer - nominative
puer·ī - genitive
puer·ō - dative
puer·um - accusative
puer·ō - ablative
puer - vocative
puer·ō - locative

From whence we get the English word 'puerile', an adjective meaning:

1. Characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys
2. Childish; trifling; silly.

Which brings us in turn to this:


Highly amusing.