Drop Stitches Not Bombs

I sat at my father's grave and knit

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:57:00 +0000

November is for remembrance; I decided to visit my father’s grave. In my poppy-red jumper, with my bereavement-grey shawl to knit on the way, I set out. The train trundled fast through the Ligurian hills, close-crowding like the flanks of an affectionate, green poodle, and on inland into austere Piemonte, where the hills keep an aloof distance and flat fields spread out between them. I knit nupps to nix my nerves.

From the broad boulevards of central Turin to the coniferous curves of the mountain road, the taxi driver alternated between local history and compliments.

‘At one point of course there were a lot of witches around here– they used to have black masses in that square outside the Gran Madre. How come you’re not married? You’re so sunny! It’s too cold in Scotland, maybe Scottish men have cold souls. Find yourself a nice Italian man. Do you know the population of Turin has dropped from 1.3 million in the Fiat golden years to…’

Half-remembered houses clinging to the hillside hurtled past. We asked for directions, took a steep street under an old brick arch – there was the nectarine-yellow church where the funeral was – and up, up in the mist at the very top of the hill, there was the graveyard. He wished me luck and undercharged me.

It must have been – Jesus, ten years? Maybe more? Since I’d been. We moved to Scotland, and my grandfather left the North for a lonely corn on the toe of the Italian boot: our trips to the peninsula became games of connect-the-dots between Edinburgh and a constellation of Southern airports. I had forgotten the hill-cool of Piemonte. I had forgotten a lot. Nevertheless, my feet carried me to exactly the right spot in the graveyard.

There can be a kind of competitiveness to these cities of the dead. ‘Oh, you’ve got a little plant pot there, have you, hmm?'

'Well, I’ve got a manicured shrubbery.’

‘Oh yeah? I’ll see your shrubbery, and raise you an enormous alabaster mansion, where me and my descendants will recline in style for all eternity.’

I find it all a bit tomb much. Still, nothing had quite prepared me for the sorry state my father’s grave was in. Some unknown hand had pity-littered it with fake flowers, now faded, and a small evergreen, now a nevergreen.

The desultory, dateless stone, only ever meant to be temporary, stayed in place during wranglings about whether and whither to move him, and at some point gave up, fell backwards and cracked into three pieces. The very ground seemed tired and saggy.

I didn’t think it would matter to me – the cemetery wasn’t a place I associated with him, after all, with him alive that is. Anyone who has ever seen a dead body will attest to how weirdly little they retain of the person-that-was: whatever your views on the afterlife are, something has definitely departed. Besides, it had been a long time – way past ‘recently bereaved’, past even ‘delayed reaction’ and into, I don’t know, ‘wistful smiles and fond remembrance’. After seventeen years surely the clawing wildcat of fresh grief should be tamed to a tabby that can be trusted not to spray sadness all over the furniture. Standing at that poor, abandoned grave, though, I must admit I lost my shit.

I thought of all the mountains of stuff I would like to talk to him about. As I took photos of the place, I wished I could ask his advice about proper cameras, about f-stops, shutter speeds, light metres, tripods – and in return share my largely useless knowledge of Hipstamatic. I listened to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the U.S.A.’, an album he had on heavy rotation in his car, and thought of all the cool new music I bet he would have liked. I thought of how funny he was, and all the jokes we could have shared. I thought of all the places I’d been, people I’d met, and things I’d learned since I was ten that he knew nothing about and never would.

Then, partly because I needed a repetitive, mechanical thing to do to get myself together, and partly out of an urge to show him one of these things I had learned, like child-me might once proudly have shown him a gold star earned at school, I took out my knitting. I unfurled the tangled shawl-creature, smoothing out the charts on the marble top of a neighbouring tomb. And there, at my father’s grave I sat, wept, knit, until the rain came down and it was time to go.

Beatnik Beats

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 15:07:00 +0000

[With apologies to Jack Kerouac and other Beat types]

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked apart from some damn fine knitwear.

In the bar I told Dean, ‘Hell, man, I know very well you didn’t come to me only to want to become a knitter, and after all what do I really know about it except that you’ve got to stick to it with the energy of a benny addict, and that circular needles are probably easier on the wrists.’

I left behind a big half-finished shawl, folded back my comfortable home sheets for the last time early one morning, and left. I was on the road again, this time with a big, red cabled sweater to keep me company in planes, rattling trains, and pick-up trucks as I moved from place to place. Somewhere along the line I knew there’d be girls, visions, Estonian lace knitting, everything; somewhere along the line the purl would be handed to me.

I finished Beatnik in Santa Margherita, a little town by the sea way out west. Late at night, I dunked it in the kitchen sink, and hung it on the radiator, as there was no other way a great, thick thing like that was ever going to dry otherwise. The radiator branded a ridge across the neckband where I wedged it in place. I took some awkward selfies on a day too warm to wear it.

I dug the sweater. It's the kind of sweater that, even though you’re on the road alone and far from home with only five Euros and three stitch-markers in your pocket, will wrap itself around you, and make you warm: wool-warm and red-happy.

This chart is a set-up!

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 14:31:00 +0000

You… you gotta believe me, honey. I wouldn’t do a thing like this – I told ya, I’m outta the knitting game: I promised you I wouldn’t touch a filthy needle again, and I meant it.

This is a fix! I never even heard of this Elizabeth Freeman broad, I swear to God. Ae – Aeo – Aeolian, what is she testing out all the vowels on her keyboard – I can’t even pronounce that. I tell you, sweetheart, some knithead’s set me up! It's a set-up! This is a… [repeats as police car drives away]

Me-Made-May'13: I'm in!

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:02:00 +0000

Honest to goodness, no word of a lie, last night, I dreamt I was in a Rolling Stones video for a song called 'Top-stitched Girl'. Er... I think I've got to get sewing!

'I, Giulia of Drop Stitches Not Bombs, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I endeavour to wear a self-made garment or accessory at least four times a week, for the duration of May 2013'

This may be May madness, but by golly, I WILL NOT LET THE MOTHS WIN! Thank you very much for the solidarity in the comments section, by the way - it seems fellow blogger Mikhaela is going through a similar trauma.

I read this really interesting article in the Guardian about finding the time to do creative stuff, and am feeling quite inspired. A lot of my fear of sewing stems from a perfectionist streak that is so disappointed every time I sew a wonky seam, or fail to fit something flawlessly to my body, that I just give up entirely - but then in giving up, I don't get the practice I need to get better. So I hereby give myself permission to make some imperfect things, and indeed to make the time to make them. I mean, if I were to sew for six hours a day.... what couldn't I achieve?! Let's see!

Moth-erfucker

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:15:00 +0000

A while ago I hinted coyly about the one wearable sewing project I had completed, but not blogged about. It is the Phoebe skirt from Cal Patch’s wonderful book, Design-It-Yourself Clothes. I might write more about it another time, but for now suffice it to say that this was a good skirt, made in a soft, drapey woollen fabric, in a neutral colour that goes with everything; pockets deep and properly useful, lined in a red Liberty floral; a red silk lining so that it glides easily over tights: a very good skirt.

Good enough to….

… eat?

Fucking. Moths. Much of what is written about them is couched in very aggressive terms – ‘we are fighting A WAR on moths!’; ‘there is a BIBLICAL PLAGUE of moths!’; ‘MOTHS ATE MY KIDNEYS!!’, etc., and it’s easy to empathise with the rage. I felt very angry indeed with these insidious insects: a special, fearful, panicky kind of anger that comes from having a collection of several tens of thousands of yards of wool, and several drawers full to over-flowing with handknits. My skirt was not the only victim: they also destroyed Elphaba. She may have defied gravity, but she was no match for Tineola bisselliella.

The thing is, it’s my fault, not theirs, and that makes it all the more frustrating. It seems I was unwittingly creating a mothy Valhalla. With my central heating, I gave them a warm and inviting year-round breeding ground – a mothy Shagaluf. With all the stuff lying untouched and unworn at the back of my cupboard I provided a nice, quiet nursery for the pernicious progeny of all this uninhibited moth sex. And with the little bits of sweat or grime that I was too lazy to wash off, or too cheap to dry clean, I nourished those chomping larvae: I fed them with my own body, like, well, I hesitate to say ‘a gross mothy Jesus’, but effectively a gross mothy Jesus.

I’ve been a vegetarian since I was nine, and I try to stick up for all God’s creatures – even the unpopular ones. Pigeons? I love the graphic quality of their wing-bars, and the iridescence of their neck feathers. Seagulls? I like to watch the dazzling display of them eviscerating a bin-bag in mid-air. Mice? I think they are cute, and I admire how plucky they are, enterprisingly making a living on things like cardboard and washing powder (I once opened a box of cling-film, to find that a mouse had made a nest in it, and died. Perhaps one day I shall make it into an animated short, entitled ‘Clinging to Life’). Foxes? I enjoy how bushy their tales are, the soft russet of their fur, and their ability to imitate vocally a person being brutally bludgeoned to death (I like to think they are all engaged in a protracted game of Wink Murder). All these are models of resourcefulness, skilled adaptors to an urban environment for which they were not designed, and I find beauty in them all.

Moths, though? I know it wasn’t out of malice that they feasted on their favourite woolly delicacy. I know they were merely fulfilling their mothy natures. I also know that I hate those moth-erfuckers with my whole being from the tips of my knitting fingers to my woolly-socked toes, and that I will continue to wage a wearisome war against them with the only (ineffective) weapon available: tedious housework.

Have you ever been moth-ed? Do your clothes bear the battle scars? How do you combat the evil little destroyers?

On Parting With Hand-Knits (Farewell, Liesl and Coraline)

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 00:51:00 +0000

I have just given away two of my hand-knits to charity.

Coraline, originally blogged here (check out the first comment on that post... pretty loopy, right?!).

Liesl, originally blogged here.

These had lain dormant in drawers for some time, and I decided to clear them out to make room, hopefully, for new and better makes in the future. I bid them goodbye partly for stylistic reasons, but maybe more because of the niggling technical issues that both suffered from. Coraline's thread button loops frayed and splayed...

Furthermore, the neckline was just a little too high, so that when buttoned it felt a bit like an alpaca garrotte (when unbuttoned, it looked like it should be buttoned). The whole confection - the sweet pinky-purply yarn, the heart-shaped pink buttons, the picot edging - was rather sugary for my tastes. It was sort of the cardigan equivalent of a fruity sweet bedecked with rainbows and ponies, and aggressively marketed at the under-five market.

As for Liesl, the hooks and eyes I sewed on in place of buttons always annoyed me in their wonkiness; what is more the yarn I made it out of pilled IN HEINOUS CLUMPS. This was entirely predictable, and my fault rather than the lovely yarn's - I would never make a jumper out of a loosely spun, single-ply wool/silk blend nowadays. But still. HEINOUS CLUMPS.

CLUMPIER THAN THE PHOTO MAKES OUT.

I absolutely don't mean to do down my own handiwork; I don't have a problem with the things I make looking handmade, or indeed homemade, I just think my skills and my taste have moved on from these particular two knits. Both of these were made at the heady height of the button-at-the-yoke-only cardigan craze - I even bought myself some Manos Wool/Silk to make a Moch Cardi, so utterly in love with that style was I*. Like bell-bottom jeans, or shoulder pads, though, that kind of cardigan such a distinctive look that once it goes out of style it seems extra dated. I mean, feel free to disagree in the comments section, but I think the button-at-the-top cardigan is over; most recent patterns I can think of button firmly at the bottom (unless they are drapily open à la Nanook).

I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that there are passing fashions in knitwear just like in other garments... I must confess, though, that sometimes, when I'm knitting, the word 'heirloom' flits across my mind, and I imagine my descendants (probably wearing space-suits, probably driving hover-cars or at the very least jet-packs) reverentially unwrapping my creations from yellowed tissue paper to run their fingers over the stitches... and coming away with a handful of HEINOUS CLUMPS - no, it was definitely time for these cardigans to go.

Despite the clumps, it really was a peculiarly emotional experience giving them away. Moving them out stirred up a whole dust-storm of memories, about the dank basement room I was living in when I made them (around the corner from my friend Patrick with his nifty camera), about the guy I was with at the time, the party I worked on Coraline at, the audiobook I listened to as I finished Liesl, the fraught decision over Coraline's hem, and how long it took to whip-stitch down every one of those live stitches...

Anthropologists talk about objects having a social life, and I think that is especially true for the clothes we make ourselves, which integrate themselves deeply into the fabric of our existence. That in itself, though, shouldn't be enough to stop us getting rid of them if they get old or shabby, or no longer fit in with the rest of our wardrobe. It's time for these two cardigans to start a new social life, and I really do hope it will be full of pleasant adventures.

What do you think? Have you ever given away, or thrown away, a garment that you've made? Do you violently disagree with my controversial statements on the button-at-the-top cardigan? Let me know!

*incidentally, any suggestions on to do with 900 yards of Manos Wool/Silk would be very much appreciated!

Follow Me on Bloglovin'

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:13:00 +0000

As you may have heard, Google Reader is in its death throes, so I'm switching over to Bloglovin' - if you would like to join me, Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Me-Made-May... could I do it?

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I have been debating whether to sign up to Zoe's Me-Made-May '13. In terms of knitwear, it wouldn't be that much of a challenge for me, as I already wear at least one hand-knit item everyday, and can often be found swaddled in a veritable yarn cocoon of shawls and cardigans. For sewing, though, it would be an enormous undertaking, as I only really have one self-stitched item that I wear regularly (and I've not even blogged about it - I must rectify that). I do, however, have a moderate stash of both patterns and fabric, a lovely sewing machine and a sincere wish to become better acquainted with it.

Also, although I do have a lot of me-made knitwear, when I imagine displaying it again on this blog, I have to admit that some of it is looking a little tired; perhaps it is time to sift through my collection and make way for some new additions. Speaking of which, I am finally making some progress on Beatnik, which has been waiting patiently, sometimes in the freezer to protect it from moths.

Ugh - red is so hard to photograph. As you can see, I'm nearly finished with the front and the back, and just have to knit two sleeves and a neckband - and seam the whole darn thing together, of course. I cannot remember why I decided to knit this in pieces, but I heartily regret that decision.

Is anyone else thinking of joining the Me-Made-May madness? Do you think it's a crazy idea on my part? I'm currently trying to formulate exactly what goals I would set myself... It's been quite an interesting exercise just thinking about what are the most gaping gaps in my wardrobe, and which of those I could conceivably fill with my limited sewing skillz. Unofficially taking part in NaKniSweMoDo* back in 2009 was a real boost to my sweater collection - I feel like I need just such a challenge to kickstart my garment sewing. Oh, and I'm finding The Great British Sewing Bee quite inspirational as well - has anyone else been watching?

*National Knit a Sweater in a Month Dodecathon!

Green and Fragrant

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:05:00 +0000

I think I mentioned visiting Yumchaa in Soho the other day? I enjoyed the exotic green tea ('Regent's Park') I had there so much, I got a packet to take home with me. How pretty does it look decanted into a glass jar?

It looks like a sort of magical forest terrarium, I think, and it has been scenting my mornings with sweet papaya and strawberries in a cup.

Brooding over my hat fail, I cast on some green socks, which will be my companions on another pitiless ten-hour Megabus journey tomorrow.

Also today, I went to see From Death to Death and Other Small Tales, a fantastic free exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

Here's me amid my favourite piece of the exhibition, Ernesto Neto's 'It happens when the body is anatomy of time' - great, crazy lycra tubes weighted down with spices.

The whole room is an olfactory sensation. I'm sorry to keep comparing everything to a magical forest, but that is exactly what this feels like: an enchanted glade of sweet-smelling, elongated elephant's legs. Highly recommended.

Vile Worm (or 'A Warning')

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 15:19:00 +0000

It happens. You’ve been knitting a few years, you think you know a thing or two about colour choice, about the particular qualities of different fibres, about the behaviour of stitch patterns. You know all about gauge, about swatching; you are familiar with the inner workings of Ravelry; you can cable without a cable needles like it ain’t no thang; you are so confident in your ability to matchmake a pattern and a yarn that you occasionally daydream about setting up an internet dating service for the two (‘more couples happily knit together than any other site!’). So you choose a hat pattern, choose two contrasting colours, choose to unfurl your knitting smugly on public transport.

If you recognise yourself in any of the above, then Reader, BEWARE, because if my example is anything to go by, your knitterly pride is heading for a nasty fall. These are the perfect set of circumstances for you to create a TERRIFYING CYBER-CARNIVAL-SPACE WORM HEAD-EATER!

AAAAAAAAARGH!!!

Now, I don’t mean to denigrate the pattern: the designer’s photos of the hat look perfectly lovely, and Saz’s version of it (ravlink) is beautiful, but my version of it sucks! Oh my goodness, I can’t remember the last time I created anything so vile. The sturdy garter stitch means it doesn’t slouch down like you’d hope a beanie would, but stands straight up, for a cone-head effect (seen above); my colour choice, which I envisaged looking cool and urban, somehow turned out garish and childish: in short, it’s just a vortex of wrong. I acknowledge that the lack of slouch might get better with blocking, but I’m not going to block it. If Sci-Fi has taught me anything, it is that when a mad stripy space-worm tries to eat your head, you do not give it a scented bath and leave it to repose upon a towel, you DESTROY IT, screaming ‘DIE, VILE WORM, DIE!'.

So knitters, have a happy, but vigilant, Easter. Make sure that hubris does not creep into your stitches. Check yo selves before you wreck yo selves.

Pointless

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 20:41:00 +0000

Despite my mother's early attempts to encourage me in the art, I never could see the appeal of cross-stitch. The patterns available were unfailingly twee - kittens frolicking amid damask roses and the like - and the end results seemed a bit, well, pointless. Making things, any things, takes a lot of time, but at least with knitting or sewing that labour is directed towards a practical purpose: this thing that I'm making will keep me warm, save me money, make me less dependent on flimsy shop garments, etc. Cross-stitch seemed to have no such purpose to recommend it. I mean, what could you DO with a bit of cross-stitch? If you like to think that you're too young to be tricking out your lavender sachets with natty needlework, what other options are there? Make a teeny tiny cushion for fairies to lean against? Frame it? Somehow a mass-produced cross-stitch design didn't seem worthy of the high honour of a frame - it would be like framing a paint-by-numbers painting, or a completed jigsaw puzzle.

I think, though, that I may have been missing out, and missing the point. The point is that needlepoint doesn't need a point. There is a quiet beauty in pulling lengths of different coloured thread through fabric that doesn't require a functional end result to justify the doing. And, I have to admit, following one of the mass-produced patterns I was so sniffy about is pretty satisfying. I took the above photo in Yumchaa, Soho, and I could barely put it down to finish a tasty apple and apricot cake. I think I might get back to it right now, in fact!

Knitting a Tube, on the Tube

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 11:36:00 +0000

I have been working on my Here and There Hat (scroll down), in a manner suggested by its name: this is a hat that seems to ask to be knit in little captured bits of time, here and there. Stacking rows of spongy gold upon vinous purple, pulling udon-like strands of Malabrigo from the centre of my squidgy yarn-cakes: it's a pleasant business.

Since arriving in the capital, I have largely eschewed the tube. I prefer to use my two wheels and two quadriceps, and zip about on the face of the city, rather than tunnelling around under its skin. This means that every time I do take the tube, it feels like a bit of a treat, especially when my tubular hat-to-be coordinates so beautifully with the yellow poles of the Northern Line.

Now if I can just perfect the art of knitting while cycling...

A little bit Loopy

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 19:57:00 +0000

Let me lay some background on you: I have moved to London, on a semi-demi-permanent basis. As I haven't got a place of my own yet to stay, I brought virtually no possessions, just a couple of books and a capsule wardrobe. Well, 'capsule wardrobe' might be overstating things: I brought all t-shirts, pants and socks clean at the time of packing, and a motley mess of jeans and skirts. Anyway, the past few weeks have revealed two terrible gaps in my small collection, making my capsule more of a crapsule.

Gap #1: Any footwear vaguely appropriate for snow.

I feel like an under-equipped 19th-century Polar Explorer, tramping about Arctic South London tundra shod in a pair of pitiful plimsolls, alternately dodging snow foxes and frostbite.

Gap #2: Any knitting stuff. Any at all. I went without a wip, nary a needle, sans a single skein.

But why? A couple of reasons: the yasteroid has taken up residence in a Chinese cedarwood chest in Edinburgh, and it looked so cosy in there it seemed a shame to disturb it. Also, the creative dry-spell I've mimbled about on here before is not entirely over, and I am still disorientatingly less enthused about knitting as I once was; it makes me a little sad to look over my blog archives and see the volume of woolly goods I used to churn out.

Since being here, though, my chilly fingers have been itching for some stitching, and it seemed foolish not to capitalise on the capital's treasures. So it was that I found myself inexorably drawn yesterday here:

Loop might well be my all-time favourite yarn shop. It has such an awe-inspiring selection, spread out over two floors, of lots of stuff that is difficult to get elsewhere in the UK, as well as supremely tempting notions, and the best button collection I have ever seen (which reminds me that I need to make a pilgrimage here one day, if I'm ever in York). Its embarrassment of riches always makes it embarrassingly hard for me to choose: I really would have been happy going home with any one of their yarns. So I bought two:

Yarn cakes fuelled by cupcakes

I think part of me thought I might transmogrify into a brand new 'London' person upon moving here, casting off (ha) all former interests and suddenly starting to seek out underground 'gigs', and art exhibitions in abandoned tunnels. As Socrates keeps telling me via tube posters, 'the unexamined life is not worth living', and there is much about being in a new place that has made me question several old certainties.

Equally, though, there is a great comfort in doing familiar things in unfamiliar surroundings, and super-squishy Malabrigo Worsted has to rank as one of the most comforting yarns in the world. At the moment, pulling loops though loops of wool from Loop is a great help in stopping me going loopy.

Snow snows

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 14:34:00 +0000

Like divine dandruff, snow snows outside my window, sometimes in lazy, downward spirals, sometimes in frenetic horizontal streaks, sometimes in whirlpool swirls and curlicues. It is distracting me from all I meant to do today, and is a right white blight on my plans for another two-wheeled London adventure, but it’s so pretty I don’t mind.

Also, now that I have followed them southward, I am free to wear the mitts I knit whenever I can get my hands on them (and in them).

From Edinburgh Mitt Love

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 00:15:00 +0000

I have just finished these fingerless mitts and sent them off to their southerly recipient (with some regret, as it’s starting to get proper Baltic here in Edinburgh). I started them on one of the grimmest bus journeys imaginable, and these little guys kept me company through ten toiletless hours. The basic pattern was this one by the Purl Bee, but I quickly tired of the 2x2 ribbing. Perhaps I should have been alerted by the name ‘the purl bee', that this was a bee who favoured the simple pleasures of the purl stitch above fancy fripperies; who, indeed, may not have been capable of designing far beyond the basics of knit and purl, being a bee. On the other hand, what if the bee could hold a tiny knitting needles in each of its six insect-y legs – what then could it not do? Anyway, I decided to throw in a little freaky free-styling with cables and slip-stitches. The challenge then was to try and match said free-styling on the second glove – a challenge which I absolutely failed at: these are some mismatched mitts. But then, hopefully that just lends them a charming hand-made uniqueness? Yeah? Yeah.

I made my mitts in Dream In Color Smooshy in the colourway 'Chocolate Night'. I highly recommend this yarn (which I think I got here) - the yardage is fantastic, it comes in a number of beautiful semi-solid colours, and is a real sturdy workhorse. The one downside for the British knitter is that as an Australian merino dyed in America, it’s far from virtuous in terms of yarn miles, but as an environmentally-unsound treat, I think it’s ok. The colour is pretty similar to the colour in the Purl Bee photos, and indeed to that I made my Evolution Mitts in all that time ago (which seem to have gone missing. I suspect my mother - the hand model in these photos. I swear that woman is building some sort of a woolly fort with ill-gotten knits of mine). I really was sad to see these hand-warmers go; I’m writing this in a charmingly petite French café in Stockbridge, and imagining that these might be just the sort of mitts that Amélie Poulain might have worn to ward off the Parisian chill. Perhaps I shall make another pair for myself, and magic loop ‘em both at once to ensure identicality. Hmm.

What’s on your needles, readers? If there are any readers?

Well, hello there

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 16:45:00 +0000

It's been a while, hasn't it? Ah, blog, you have been gathering sad cyberdust, while I have been falling in love, dropping out of my PhD, moving back home, trying to stop my mum ironing my pants, cutting my hair, getting tattooed, going on medication, buying bigger pants because they are so crisp when they're nicely ironed, repeatedly trying to read 'Moby-Dick', learning to ride a motorbike, and, indeed, doing a fair bit of knitting...

I think it's about time we became re-acquainted.

A Close Secret

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:08:00 +0000

I love the windy closes that extend away from Edinburgh's Royal Mile like veins on a leaf. Their unassuming, dark entrances provide no clue as to what treasures lie beyond. I chanced upon this one on a wander while on the phone.

Dunbar's Close garden, off the Royal Mile

I had to draw on powerful reserves of altruism in order to blog about this peaceful plot of orderly vegetation; perhaps a secret garden should by definition be a private pleasure, lest it become, simply, a known garden. Not to be confused with a gnome garden.

Anyway, I highly recommend Dunbar's Close for those weary of foot or spirit - or those who entertain fantasies of being a seventeenth-century lady, taking turns about the garden before finding a sunny patch to do some stitching.

Salisbury Crags

A little while down the Mile, the landscape in front of the Parliament ('here for tae represent aw Scotlan's folk') is provides a more dramatic background to my knitting. As for what I'm working on - that is a close secret too, for the moment.

A Day at the Museum

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 11:21:00 +0000

The entrance hall - note the sad lack of fish! The coin-dodging carp that used to take up much of this space were the main attraction of the museum for me as a child.

The National Museum of Scotland reopened this summer after a three year refurbishment project. As far as I can recall, the last time I visited it was on an ill-fated semi-date: the guy was a smoker, which I disapproved of, so I playfully hid his cigarettes in the Ivy Wu Gallery, which he disapproved of. Luckily there was no awkward games of hunt-the-tobacco when I went yesterday with my friend Alice - just lots of marvellous creatures and wondrous objects.

A massive prehistoric deer

A glowering T-Rex

An astronomically interesting room...

... replete with astrolabes and other other-worldly paraphernalia for measuring other worlds

A giant trilobite scuttling up a wall

Ptiny pterosaurs flapping overhead

There were details I'd forgotten I remembered from the museum's previous incarnation, like these beautiful Victorian radiators wrapped around columns.

It was a super day; I will have to go back when I am less cold-y and more able to take everything in. Have you had any exciting days out recently? Leave a comment and let me know! In the meantime, I plan to curl up, drink cinnamon tea and knit my snuffles away - I hope you're all having lovely Sundays.

Plenty of fun to be had in the gift shop.

Creak

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 10:11:00 +0000

It's been such an horrifically long time since I last posted, I feel like the only news that would justify the silence would be something along the line of, 'I gave birth to twins, won a sea battle, and was additionally elected Pope'. Instead I have nothing of real interest to report- I've just been rather down over the past few months, and haven't felt much like knitting. Actually, that's not quite true - there have been a couple of abortive projects that I might share with you - but in general, I've been going through a real creative dry spell. This morning, though, I turned up 24 hours early for a breakfast appointment, and thought I might gear up the creaky cranks of the ole blog machine. I'm using my unexpected solitude to swatch for Vitamin D by Heidi Kirrmaier (not sure how to do the link on my iPhone).

Edited to add photo.

Brooching the Subject

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 10:54:00 +0000

I thought of a pun; I took some photos of some brooches. That is all.

Not Just Any Tam, Dick or Harry

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:38:00 +0000

... a very special Snapdragon Tam, in some very special gift yarn.

I am really enjoying the pattern so far, and indeed knitting in general - I hadn't realised just how much I'd missed the soothing, soul-salving stitching.

Boo's Attic Yarn

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 12:27:00 +0000

A friend and I paid a visit to the Made-It Market (Facebook link) yesterday. It was a fairly small affair in the Guildhall, with tables sporting cute cards, cool anime accessories, handmade chocolate, and a stall of those meaningful words ('love', 'friend', 'feelings') in a typewriter-y font glued onto stones. There was also some rather exciting yarn, from a local dyer who doesn't seem to have a website yet, but who can be contacted at boosattichomeATgmailDOTcom. I couldn't resist this one-off skein of laceweight - it's not the softest yarn I've ever stroked, but the colour is mesmerising: a dark, sensuous, velvety claret (the colourway is 'Cherry Valance'). I think was is the first time I've met a dyer in person, and it was most interesting to hear how she achieved this intense shade by dyeing over an oatmeal coloured yarn.

Also, how adorable is this little key charm included with the skein?!

Spring Sprung

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 18:33:00 +0000

The trees are bearing boughs of blossom, chicks are chirruping outside my window, and I have been experiencing a flowering or rebirth of interest in things stitchy. I went through something of a creative dry spell, and it was difficult to keep up a craft blog while I wasn't making anything to post about. There's nothing like a real, pressing need to do some work on my PhD to make me engage in a variety of displacement activities, from knitting, to running, to putting together outlandish outfits, to emptying my penny jar (it contained £1.58).

The weather was truly glorious today, so I dug out some crumpled summer clothes and took myself off on a promenade to soak up the Cambridge. I found my sandal-ed feet inexorably drawn to this fine fabric shop, where I managed to resist the temptation to buy, but did daydreams about handmade sun-dresses. I'd dearly love finally to befriend my sewing machine... perhaps this will be the summer of sewing.

Handmade Fashion Photoshoot

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 23:15:00 +0000

Myself and some of my knits are to be featured in a spread on 'Handmade Fashion' in Varsity Newspaper. It did mean hauling the yasteroid around Cambridge, which has grown considerably since I first documented its existence, and is now about the size of Malta. I almost took along my current project - a jumper knit in the round on circular needles - but I was worried that wouldn't look like knitting to most people, so rustled up a pointless garter strip to use as a prop. I'm rather pleased with the photos, taken by the talent Edward Quekett - this one features my Irtfa'a shawl, and Forecast cardigan. I can't wait to see them in print!

Posting

noreply@blogger.com (Drop Stitches Not Bombs) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:18:00 +0000

Gosh, it's hard to get back into the swing of blogging after a break! I feel like I should have something really momentous to say to justify the silence, but I don't, so here is a picture I took today of a postbox, as a reminder to myself to keep posting.