Second sleeve started 

Pressing on

I've started Mungo's second sleeve, as you see, on dps.

We are going to Kirkmichael tomorrow, where attention will shift of course to an attempt to knit a ribwarmer in the Debbie Bliss homespun yarn "Maya" which I bought recently. Full report on return, Tuesday or Wednesday.

I had what I think might be called an epiphanic moment the other day. I had been thinking of knitting myself a cashmere sweater from the yarn at www.handknitting.com -- they have a wonderful range of colours and they claim that there are slight unevennesses in the dyeing, an attribute I like. But the other day I was surveying my sweater drawer in which already lie several cashmere sweaters, presents from my son and daughter-in-law in Beijing. They are wonderful. I love and wear them regularly (and will certainly have one on when we head north tomorrow).

But they're awfully warm, and the Edinburgh winter is as often damp and mild (today) as it is briskly cold (yesterday). Do I really need another cashmere sweater? Wouldn't I prefer a Koigu of my own, like Theo and soon Mungo?

Hmmm.

The yarn is now available in Britain, at a price which makes even me hesitate. It might be better to order it from the States and take a chance on paying customs duty. By the time I finish Mungo's sweater my Koigu stash will be seriously depleted.

Mungo's sleeve 

December!

I always feel much better when we actually get to December. Sure, it's still getting darker -- but not for much longer. I have something of the opposite feeling on the 1st of June every year. This is wonderful, but it'll soon be over.

As you see, Mungo's first sleeve progresses, and may well be finished today. I'm not greatly enamoured of the two-circular method, but I'm making it work. I suspect I will leave this sleeve behind on one of the circulars and switch to dp's for the other sleeve.

The new "Knitter's"

However, today's great excitement has nothing to do with either of those matters. I had a look at my favourite Blog last night (www.queerjoe.blogspot.com). Queer Joe was giving his opinion of the new Knitter's Magazine. Better than many issues recently, was his conclusion.

But the excitement stems from his reference to one of the patterns he liked -- a hat by Janis Witkins! She's my friend! (Not to be confused with the other Janis, my cyber-friend.)

I have met several designers at Stitches events, and I rank Candace Eisner Strick as a friend, too. (www.strickwear.com) But she was already an established designer when I met her, at Camp Stitckes in 1999. Indeed I already owned her first book.

But Janis W. is different -- she's what might be called a private friend. In 2000, I went to Camp Stitches again. It was on beautiful Lake George in those days. After Camp, I wanted to go visit my sister and mother at the mouth of the Connecticut River. I consulted timetables on-line, and the conclusion I reached was that America was simply not set up to transport people from the Hudson Valley to the Connecticut Valley. You had to go to New York and back out. So I appealed to the Knitlist, and Janis responded. She was at Camp, too. She lives in Old Lyme (famous for Lyme Disease) and it would be perfectly possible, if a bit strenuous, to walk from her house to my sister's, on the other side of the river.

We had a grand day driving down, including a stop at Webs. Later, on a subsequent visit of mine, Janis and her husband came to supper at my sister's house. I cooked, and didn't make the chilli hot enough. Since then, we've kept in touch by Christmas card. And now she's in Knitter's!

That magazine is the slowest of my subscriptions to make the journey across the Atlantic. It will probably be January before I see it.

Dies Atra

No pic today, although the sleeve in fact progresses well.

Today is the darkest in the calendar for me (despite St Andrew's cheering presence), because of a grim family event 45 years ago.

Two years ago, the anniversary picked up some extra baggage.

We were in Kirkmichael. Walking back from the village in the morning, I met a friend who told me that our nearest neighbour had cancer.

Relations with the neighbour's family had not always been easy. They were already there when we bought our house, Burnside, in 1963. There was -- is -- no access to Burnside except over land owned by the N. family. Well, I suppose we could buy a helicopter. In retrospect, the lawyer who acted for us on the purchase should have attended to the matter of access, but he didn't.

All went well for 20 years or so. Then the old generation of N's passed away and the new ones began objecting to our driveway. We were happy to make a new one, entirely at our expense, out of sight of their house. Even so, it had to cross a field of theirs.

It is hard to remember now how this situation could lead to years of expensive bickering, but it did. Finally we got our new driveway.

Then a couple of years after that, our water supply failed. In order to connect to the village water, a pipe had to be laid across that same field. Our contractor dug a trench along the line of our old water pipe. The N's were furious -- the trench should have followed the line of our new driveway. They kept us without water for a year while we bickered some more.

But I had always liked I., the woman who now had cancer. I think she was sorry about what had happened, which was the fault of her brother (driveway) and her husband (water). So I resolved to knit her a chemo cap.

That afternoon I slipped in the dank grass, fell and broke my right arm rather badly just below the shoulder. An uncomfortable winter ensued. I was able to knit again in time to knit I. her chemo cap in February or March. She liked it. She died in June.

We hoped her husband would move away -- hey! we might even be able to buy that blasted field. But he's still there, and indeed we are going to a little drinks party this coming Sunday up there, hosted by G. and his new bidey-in. Should be interesting.

Gorey's "Fruitcake" 

Fruitcake

I got a fair amount done on Mungo's sleeve last night; if all goes well, there should be enough for a picture tomorrow.

But today's illustration is of a favourite Christmas card, sent me a few years ago by my oldest friend. We were college roommates in 1950. I love it -- I already loved Edward Gorey -- and now it is the earliest of my Christmas routines, to take it out and prop it up on the table in front of me as I start to write the Christmas cards. And I did start yesterday -- five done. Half an hour lost to knitting.

The finished Wallaby 

Miscellaneous

Here's a picture of the Wallaby. It's still unblocked, but I think I will do that at some point soon. I am pleased with the result. Those are balls of Koigu for Mungo's sweater in the background.

Chinese knitting revisited

I got this message from "alltangledup" last night, a propos yesterday's Blog entry: "chinese isn't all that peculiar, but men are.. especially when it comes to buying yarn. " I laughed out loud -- not a conventional Internet lol -- I laughed out loud.

I have been corresponding with Janis, who sent a corrected title for the book about Chinese knitting. It's "Patterns from China" by Judith Gross. Here's the URL:


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0442203993/qid=1101610311/sr=1-8/ref=sr_1_8/002-3911491-8459222?v=glance&s=books

but if that doesn't work, you could just go to Amazon and do a search. Despite being 20 years old, the book still seems to be available. I'm going to order it, and will eventually report further.

Current knitting

I didn't get much done on Mungo's sleeve last night, but the two-circular method seems to be working well enough.

Travel socks 

Back to Knitting

The picture above is the promised record of what was accomplished during the week away -- hosband's socks finished, daughter Rachel's first one nicely started. Last night I finished Mungo's Koigu sweater up to the armpits, and started the first sleeve -- on two circulars. I think I got the hang of it, after a few struggles.

I heard from Janis yesterday, so we're back in touch. I hope she won't mind my quoting part of what she said about Chinese knitting, since comments don't seem to show up on this Blog:

"There is a book that was published when China was just opening back up again (late 70's or early 80's) with the creative and original title "Knitting in China" It is a lovely but now outdated book. It tells how it is very popular to knit for children in China. At the time the book was published, knitting supplies were not that easy to come by. Inexpensive wools and synthetics were available at "the People's Department stores" and handwritten knitting stitch patterns were posted on the wall and people would copy them down. Patterns for garments were not common. Knitters would sometimes unravel garments and remake them to be thrifty or in order to obtain a new supply of yarn."

I'll have a look on Abebooks today for "Knitting in China".

And here, since I'm in recycling mode, is part of what I said to Janis once I got her email address:

"Our son James is the Economist magazine's Beijing correspondent. He speaks fluent Mandarin -- when he worked for the BBC he used often to broadcast in that language. When we were in Beijing last year I visited several LYS's which were found by paying attention as we moved around the city -- not a technique which would work in Edinburgh or London or even New York. In one, I bought some lovely near-cobweb-weight black yarn to knit a lacy evening wrap for a granddaughter. I had knit her mother the one from Gladys Amedro's book "Shetland Lace" for her 40th birthday, and now Helen wanted one too. I tried to sell her on some of the coloured lace yarn in my extensive stash, but no, black is clearly the new black for London's teenagers.

I knit the wrap -- it came out slightly larger than her mother's one, but the yarn was infinately more wonderful to work with than Jamieson & Smith cobweb-weight. I have more than half the purchase left over, which I may well use to knit the thing again for my sister's seventieth birthday in '06.

Anyway, I asked James to tell the shop assistant that I was going to knit a lacy wrap for my granddaughter, and he shrank back in horror; he didn't know how to say it, he claimed. I haven't studied French since I attended Asbury Park High School (later made famous by Bruce Springsteen's attendance) more than 50 years ago, and I certainly can't speak it, but I could have made a stab at that. "dentelle" "grande-fille" and some miming. Chinese must be a _very_ peculiar language. "

A postcard I found in London 

Home Again

We're safely back from London, very tired. I have much to report in the way of grandchildren met, art viewed, Christmas shopping accomplished -- but for today, the illustration is of a postcard I found in a bookshop there.

Janis (who wrote to me about knitting in China): of course I remember you, but alas haven't kept your email address and your message came to me as one of those blasted anonymous Blogger comments to which I can't reply. I am jean@jeanmile.demon.co.uk -- just send me your email address. I want to write to you. I must get this comment/email thing sorted, too.

I finished the then-current pair of travel socks soon after we got there, and started a pair for the daughter we were staying with. She likes 'em short, and has small feet, a pleasant change from knitting for gents I'm not far off finishing the first sock, in a jolly Socka Color yarn, white with little flecks of green, blue, yellow, and red. Rather Christmassy, in fact, in an unobtrusive way. Picture tomorrow.

It is always nice to come home to Edinburgh from London. When we get there, we still have nearly an hour's journey to whichever house we are staying at, most of it through pretty ugly terrain. When we get to Edinburgh, we have ten minutes' walk home, through this lovely city, beautiful even in darkness.

Dr Who

Here I am in London, where all is well. The new grandson, still nameless, seems a nice baby. We've seen lots of art, with more to come.

On Sunday we saw an episode of "Monarch of the Glen", generally eschewed in Edinburgh as it bears no relation whatsoever to Scottish country life as we know it. The actor Tom Baker turned up in Sunday's episode -- he who used to be Dr Who.

When we knitters speak of a "Dr Who scarf" what we really mean is a "Tom-Baker-as-Dr-Who scarf". Several other actors played the part before and after TB. None of them wore scarves.

I knit one at the end of '03 and the beginning of '04, in the dark of the year, and found it very soothing to do. I was inspired by a fortuitous picture in the newspaper of Tom Baker in his glory days, wearing his scarf. I'll write again one day soon on the subject of Comfort Knitting. Last year's one is on my website, www.jeanmile.demon.co.uk.

Baker, I am sorry to say, has grown stouter with the passing of the years -- he's not the only one --but the wonderful voice is still there, and he still conveys the delightful sense that the role he is playing is utter nonsense so let's ham it up.

To London...

We're off, for nearly a week. I ought to be able to post some un-illustrated tidbit while we're there, but normal service will be suspended. (The difficulty is to find a moment when (a) 18-year-old Hellie is not on the telephone and (b) her sister Lizzie isn't playing with the Sims.) I hope to come back with many pictures of the nameless boy, perhaps even wrapped in his shawl.

I finished the Wallaby last night. Actually finished-finished, underarms woven, loose ends dealt with. I may or may not block it when we get back. The digital camera is packed with the London stuff, so the final picture will have to wait, too.

Rachel, knitting 

Knitting in China

That's a more cheerful picture, surely, than another orange Wallaby one.

My granddaughter Rachel lives in Beijing. Not to be confused with her aunt, my daughter Rachel, who lives in London. I haven't done very well at starting the next two generations on a knitting career, but I did teach Rachel when her family was here in Scotland in the summer, and she took to it with enthusiasm.

When they left, the knitting was left behind by mistake and a number of other things deliberately, in a last-minute panic about whether the luggage was overweight. I was pretty slow about bestirring myself to pack things up and mail them on, and the post offices involved were then remarkably slow about actually making the delivery. But they finally arrived yesterday, and Rachel has been reunited with her knitting -- happily, it would appear.

The Chinese are knitters, so Rachel's nanny ought to be able to keep the flame alight.

I have high hopes for Rachel and her younger sister Kirsty -- there is a book to be written about knitting in China, and maybe they could do it. Rachel speaks pretty good Mandarin, and Kirsty (now four) was brought up with it as her first language.

We were there for a very happy fortnight in April of last year. I saw lots of people knitting, and bought some yarn. The most interesting sighting was on the day when we drove out into the country to visit the Wall. Our son enjoys seeking out bits of it other than the famous spot where Queens and Presidents are photographed. In one village, with substantial remains marked with a "national monument" plaque, a youth told James that we were the first foreigners who had ever come there.

In that same village, we saw a group of women sitting by the roadside, knitting. We asked if we could take a photograph but they didn't like the idea -- shyness, I think, rather than hostility. I wish I had gone home that evening and made careful notes of what I had seen. One of them, I remember, was knitting an all-in-one small (but not baby-sized) garment in dense grey wool. She was using long sharp-looking double-pointed needles, some of which had been left behind holding stitches while she worked on one of the limbs.

Well, I want Rachel and Kirsty in 20 or 30 years' time to go out into the countryside and find out about Chinese peasant knitting. And yarn -- we weren't far from Beijing, but I doubt very much if those women ever went there to visit an LYS.

Maybe, of course, there is such a book -- they are the Middle Kingdom, after all; we're the periphery. In that case, Rachel and Kirsty can translate it.

I brought a couple of Chinese knitting magazines back, provided by a kind friend, but they were a disapointment -- western-style patterns throughout.

Mungo's Koigu, again 

Back in Edinburgh

...after an energetic weekend in the country. The weather was kind, which cannot be guaranteed in Perthshire in November or indeed any other month, and we got a lot done outside. The deer have been down, but contented themselves with eating the tops off an unsuccessful brassica called "Romanesco" and left my successful kale. Kale has never yet made it past the winter solstice -- we shall see.

My dear vegetables are fenced against rabbits, and when I win the lottery I'll get deer fencing.

I didn't get quite as far as hoped with Mungo's Koigu sweater -- it still lacks ten or more rounds to the armpits. I brought it back here, and will resume as soon as I finish the Wallaby. I reached the neck ribbing on that last night. I think I'll do two inches or so, and double it inside.

If I'm slightly worried about the Wallaby being too small, I'm also worried about Mungo's Koigu being too large. And the fault, for once, has nothing to do with gauge. For Mungo, I measured a loose-fitting sweat shirt when he was here in the summer. For Fergus, I'm aiming at the dimensions given for "child, small" in Vicky Square's book, "Knitting Great Classics".

Well, as with the kale, we shall see.

I doubt if I'll have Mungo's sweater finished for Christmas, and I'm not going to obsess about it. It'll be finished a lot sooner than it otherwise would have been, now that it's goingt to be an Edinburgh WIP. The Debbie Bliss yarn and the Ribwarmer pattern will go to Kirkmichael next time.

We're going to London on Thursday for a strenuous week of art galleries -- all weeks in London are strenuous in that respect -- and, of course, of meeting the new, nameless baby. I should finish the current pair of travel socks while we're there (currently, turning the second heel) and perhaps start the next one.

Alexander knows a lot about things, and could theoretically help with the two major outstanding problems on this Blog -- how to insert an "email me" button and how to fix comments so that they're accessible to all. But he is also a very hands-on father, and he now has two sons on his hands, so I doubt if such mundane matters will be worthy of his attention.

Nearly done