Sunday, September 19, 2010

Lots of thanks for yesterday’s comments.

The link to Lucy Neatby’s account of Knit Camp, to begin with. I hadn’t been paying much attention, since my own failure to turn up. Clearly the story isn’t over. This is appalling – the workman is worthy of his hire, and it seems especially appalling when transatlantic transportation is included in what is not being paid. I hate the thought that even the money I forfeited by not showing has not gone to the teachers who earned it.

Donna Druchunas (whose class I didn’t go to) seems to have stopped blogging altogether. Is she Twittering elsewhere? Liz Lovick – she was a teacher, too, wasn’t she? – has written only of her utterly wonderful-sounding tour of Shetland. Annie M. hasn’t mentioned Knit Camp since she left Stirling, I don’t think. She’s recently back from teaching in Frascati, full of enthusiasm. Annie is almost always full of enthusiasm, with an undercurrent of terror.

I wonder if Lucy’s going-public will unleash the hounds?

Catdownunder, I would very much like to see your lace-yarn-stash-busting shrug pattern. I am pro-shrug. And I might add, in answer to the question on your blog, that here in the northern hemisphere where the whole thing got started, we are celebrating the winter solstice at Christmas. When religion (in Russia) and Catholicism (in Scotland) were ruled out by the authorities, the populations just switched their festivities to the New Year. The end of darkness and beginning of light is a big thing when one lives in proximity to the North Pole. The whole affair must be very odd indeed, for you.

Fuzzarelly, thank you for the wonderful link to Angus McDairmid’s book. The very thing, I thought, for a Christmas present for my husband. My geography is vague, but I’m pretty sure we’re talking about Perthshire. However, Abebooks doesn’t have it, and it would probably be very expensive if I did find a copy. I will try to hold the thought, however.

And before I get back to the topic of knitting – I think the Pope is doing pretty well. I have set the machine to record his Mass this morning, beatifying Cardinal Newman. Then, when we get back from Mass ourselves, I can fast-forward through the boring bits and hear the sermon.

When we lived in Birmingham, Newman’s Oratory was our parish church. His personality filled it still. I have read a fair amount of him, in the days when I was more mentally active. Pundits are saying that the Pope is trying to highjack him for ultra-orthodoxy. I wonder, having some respect for the Pope as a theologian.

I don’t know much about decomposition, but the story of the recent digging up of Newman -- a disgusting idea -- in order to use his bones as relics if he did be declared a saint, is very odd. There was nothing there except the brass plate from the coffin. Is that normal for Birmingham? It seems as miraculous to me as if they had found his body intact.

I have seen that little graveyard. Rachel and Ed were married at the Oratory. And I have left myself no space to write about knitting

9 comments:

  1. I will put up an extra blog post with the pattern on it for anyone who wants to use it - or play with it!

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  2. Dawn in NL10:41 AM

    Hello Jean,
    The Loch Earn book is available to download in Google books. You can download as pdf or epub and put it on your ereader. Here is a link:
    http://tinyurl.com/2dhcrov

    Edinample castle is near Balquhidder and Lochearnhead.

    Dawn

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  3. Here's another blog post about Knit Camp, this time from one of the chief volunteer helpers.

    http://hortihoney.wordpress.com/2010/09/18/in-which-i-finally-blog-about-knit-camp/

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  4. Donna still blogs http://sheeptoshawl.com/

    Her entries now are below the banner for her books.

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  5. There is talk, here on public radio, that they are moving Newman's body because he was buried on top of his long time companion, a Mr. St. John. Unseemly.

    The complete and awful book about Scotland, about which I wrote, is available free at Google books. One could possibly have it printed and bound.

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  6. Anonymous3:12 PM

    Jean, I thought you (and maybe some of your readers) might be interested in this re: Newman:
    http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/newman-sense-and-consent-faithful

    The National Catholic Reporter is a weekly in USA..begun during Vatican II by lay Catholics .. You'll see the range of contributors in the left sidebar.
    Elizabeth

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  7. So sad- I read the link that Spinningfishwife put up and Lucy Neatby's and it seems that Knit Camp was an unmitigated disaster. I imagine that things like this are very hard to run, but my goodness- not paying people- refusing to be in touch? Its all rather appalling.

    I understand how you feel about the stash. I actually donated two huge bins to charity ( a women's halfway house where they have a knitting program) and sold off another bin of odds and end on Ravelry to a member who knits scrap afghans. And yet I still have so much yarn!!! This isn't helped by the fact that it is so hot in Texas that I rarely want to knit anything besides socks (even though I have several sweater WIPS- I don't know when or where I will wear them.) I try to knit in cotton but I despise it aside for the occasional dishcloth- and despite all that stash busting I still have 10 bins of yarn!! And all of this is not helped by the fact that I have a very small apartment with no storage to speak of, and that I took up cross-stitch this summer (it seemed so much easier in the heat to stitch than knit.) Some days I am tempted to sell it all and start over again....

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  8. I too searched and found Donna's blog at the address given by carlarey. What caught my eye though was the mention of Donna - she has an excellent article in the current issue (Sept./Oct. 2010)of Piecework. Donna has written about the life of Rose Wilder Lane, the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Almanzo Wilder.

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  9. I am appalled by what I have just read about Knit Camp. Until then I had envied those able to go. Now I am glad I could not.
    I have put up the shrug pattern on my blog site and hope people can use it - if they want to. Hope you do not mind me advertising the fact here Mrs Miles! Unlike Knit-Camp I am not going to ask anyone to pay me anything for it!

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