Saturday, November 17, 2018


Scotland lost an exciting rugby match to South Africa. They are perhaps the world’s best, at the moment, and we didn’t disgrace ourselves. I got a bit forrader with the final complete OXO on the Calcutta Cup vest.

I also, today, initiated my project of working my way through Fuschia Dunlop’s book “Every Grain of Rice”. The first recipe is for “Smacked Cucumber in Garlicky Sauce” and I wasn’t entirely pleased with the result. Did I not smack the cucumber hard enough at the beginning? Was it too wintery a cucumber? I will make a note and press on. The next recipe also involves cucumber, but this time cooked. The Chinese don’t go in much for raw food, I have learned from FD’s delightful autobiography, “Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper”.

The new Interweave Knits turned up today. I’m not entirely impressed with the overall gimmick, “The Science Issue”, but there are patterns that interest me. The one I like best, I think, is the one called “DNA pullover” but I was absolutely horrified by the caption which said that it was inspired by “Rosalind Franklin’s work to decipher the elusive structure”.

Watson? Crick? Wilkins? They were all, of course, men, and white. Clearly, two categories to avoid. They all got Nobel prizes, and she didn’t –  not because the Nobel committee had anything against women, but because of their prejudice against an even larger group of people, the dead. The Prize is never awarded posthumously, and Franklin died appallingly early of ovarian cancer.

Perhaps the caption-writer would have done better if she or he had had more space. But as it stands, I am outraged.

Today's Kate Davies' hat greatly resembles the stripey hat sold by Loop of London in kit form. I ought to have enough Milarrochy to do it. I am not quite clear (because I haven't been paying attention) whether the pattern is available or whether we have to wait for the book.

8 comments:

  1. all the info is here
    https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2018/11/13/november/

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    1. it seems the club is a different project not this book. see this reply on a comment on that post

      '....– the Heids book and the club are two completely different things – please email us at info@katedaviesdesigns.com if you need more information'

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    2. each day starting nov 16 (my bday!) KDD is releasing the pattern on ravelry but no option to purchase - you have to pre order or wait til it is available.

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  2. The thing that struck me about the stripy hat was that it uses all the available shades - 13 is it? If you were starting from scratch, that would be a costly item - of course, you could make more than one.

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  4. Why outraged? Watson and Crick could not have developed their model of the DNA double helix without Franklin's crystallography data--and Watson has said as much. She did work on nucleic acid structure, and she made critical observations that, if I remember correctly, were not fully appreciated at the time even by Wilkins, her supervisor.

    And the cables on that sweater suggest a pretty good double helix (at least the major groove seems to be there!)

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  5. I grew up on Long Island in Oyster Bay Cove. The church we attended for a short time was in Cold Spring Harbor, the town in which Crick and Watson's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory continues to this day. We were very proud of them. I share your feelings, Jean!

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  6. I've been following your blog for years but this is the first time I've been inspired to comment, with respect to your views on the DNA Pullover.

    As far as I can tell, the designer said that she (I assume a she) was inspired by Franklin's work. There is nothing wrong with that statement, surely? This is not a documentary on DNA research; this is a description of what one person found inspiring.

    If I worked on a pair of mittens because I felt inspired by Marie Curie, I would hope that you would not be "absolutely horrified" and "outraged" that I did not mention Pierre?

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