Dear All,
I have just returned from a 10-day trip to Canadia! The boy and I went to Ottawa for a conference, and spent a couple of days in Montreal afterwards. We had a great time - but not a lot of knitting got done.
I'll tell you all about it soon - but first I have to mark a large batch of essays, all due Monday morning...
I'll leave you with a picture of the Canadian Parliament:
Dear all,
Autumn is icumen in. I have been busy, mainly with thesis work. I was away at a conference in the Fatherland last week - much fun, and some knitting, was to be had:
The orange thing is a chequered jumper I'm making for P. He is very tall, and the jumper is taking me quite some time. I'm also knitting on my own brown cabled jumper, which is missing two half sleeves and a yoke.
I started teaching again, Old and Middle English this time. We've spent the last three weeks on The Dream of the Rood and are moving on to Chaucer next week. Next week is also essay time - I have a week to grade my stack of essays (just under 30, but they're not that long) before I leave for Canada two weeks from today, to go to another conference. This one is particularly exciting: it is on the 18th century, and focused on the 50s; I know at least three other people who are going (including P.); I'll get to meet a bunch of Northamerican academics that I've been wanting to meet for some time; it is in Canada. Canada in autumn sounds magical - I've never been out of Europe before and am really looking forward.
I recently put some other items up in my etsy shop: the chunky wristwarmers I made a while back. I'm offering them in several colours, but the green ones have been quite popular. I've had 4 sales in the last two weeks, which I'm terribly excited about. The first order came from olivebm, who lives in Maine in the US. She ordered a pair for herself and a matching pair for her wee daughter, and I'm delighted to say she liked them. I've just finished two more orders - a bright pink pair went out yesterday, and a bright green pair is waiting to be shipped. I'm getting another green pair ready in the next few days, but I think I'll have to delay shipping until next week due to the upcoming postal strike.
The warmers have proved very popular (which isn't really that surprising: I'm very fond of my pair and can be seen wearing it out and about quite a lot). I wrote up the pattern for it earlier, which, should you wish to do so, you can purchase through etsy or ravelry.
Dear all,
Question: Does owning a t-shirt that says 'Library' on it make one a librarian?
It's getting pretty cold here. It's supposedly 16C out, but I don't believe that's true at all. It's windy, and autumny. I've started wearing my thicker winter hats again, including this one:
I bought the yarn about a year ago, at Texere in Bradford, and I got a bright green and a bright pink ball as well as this turquoise one. (The hat now has a bright green ribbon made from the green version of it).
I suddenly rememberd I had never made anything with either the pink or the green. I knitted the green ball into a very chunky hat but ran out of yarn before I finished, and it's been sitting in one of my yarn boxes unravelled for a year now.
The other day I was browsing Etsy and saw all these lovely chunky cabled wrist warmers that people are selling, and I thought to myself that a bright green pair would be lovely. And then I remembered the yarn I had stashed away. Here is what I have come up with:
You can buy a pair here if you're so inclined.
Dear all,
Every since Kate blogged about her maud, and mauds in general, I've wanted one. Do you recall when I went to the Borders with the boy and bought some fabric? Well, after meeting Kate in person over tea in Edinburgh, when I asked her how exactly she made her's, I cut my fabric up (and the matching lining fabric I bought at Ikea that day) and sewed it all up. And then it got too warm to wear it. Now, however, as autumn is upon us once more, it is cold enough, and I have finally figured out a way to wear it that is both comfortable and stylish:
The triangular 'tail' hangs down the middle, and the two pieces overlap on the front. The longer piece is wrapped around my body and fastened to the shorter piece on my right hip.
I made the pin using my badge machine and some of the lining fabric. I rather like it.
See the lining? It is dark-blue and white checked - a tad table-clothy, but I like it.
I finally watched the first episode of Tweed last night. 'Troubled Looms' outline the decline of the Harris Tweed industry, due mainly, this programme insisted, to a Yorkshire businessman. Aptly-name Mr. Haggas saw a tweed jacket, travelled to Harris/Lewis, bought a mill and decided to produce only 4 shades - previously there had been over 8000! This is a staggering number - and the four shades he picked were boring blue, green, grey and brown, in herringbone. He produced 70,000 'traditional' jackets, in a dreadful boxy 80s cut, which he tried to sell to retailers at £300 each. They didn't sell - of course they didn't. The episode ended with the islanders debating what to do about this - and and American ex-pat sweeping in to save the day, and to save bright tweeds.
I'm very curious about the next episode. I have always liked tweed - the way it looks, the way it feels, the way it smells. It is so quintessentially British. I have been coveting this jacket since I saw it a few weeks' back (but I'm not prepared to spend that much money on it - I really need to learn to sew better):
I have a brown tweed skirt, inherited from my former flatmate, that I were almost all the time in winter, and a purple one I sewed from ends bought at Hinnigan's. I'm thinking this would make a nice jacket, the one on the left with the black bits across the chest and on the sleeves (except they'd be bright, not black). I'm thinking of this colour, with a bright lining - bright blue, bright green, bright turquoise, bright purple. What do you think?
---
Written on a silver MacBook. But obviously not mine. Mine is a pro, of course. But this is one is nice too.
Dear all,
I am ecstatic:
My new computer arrived yesterday. It is very shiny, and silver, and pretty.
Much nicer than the old one. Very fast, with a large harddrive. Transfering my data over was very quick and easy, and I'm just fiddling with different accounts to get it to be just the way I want it to be. I took it to the library today (my paid work over the summer is web-based, and I can do it on my own machine) and it works like a charm. Took a while to get it to connect to the internet there, but it's now working properly. I love typing on it, and am very much looking forward to finishing my thesis on it.
That is all. Knitting will resume when I'm done playing with it.
Dear all,
With the arrival of September autumn has settled in. For good, I hope. I like autumn - almost more than winter, and much more than summer or spring. The leaves turning red and gold, storms, rain, hail, sleet, darkness, candles and hot tea - autumn is all of these and more.
This is how I spend most of my time these days:
staring at this:
My current chapter, a draft of which is due on Friday. I say a draft, but it is going to be more of an organised, and readable, collection of notes. The proper draft is due sometime around the end of the month, or the beginning of next term (which is more or less the same thing).
Autumn, of course, is also the time when more and more handknits appear. Today it was cold enough to wear my tartan jumper with a long-sleeved shirt underneath - and if anything I was too cold, not too warm. I have a new energy-efficient lightbulb in my desklamp (s. first picture), and while I really like the light it gives off for work, I miss the heat of my old bulb. This one gets a tiny little bit warm, but to feel it you practically have to put your hand on it, and then you can't see.
I think tomorrow might be an Owl sort of day. If it is cold enough for Tartan, it is most certainly cold enough for Owls. Hoot.
The other thing I like about autumn, and this part of it in particular, is that it's the beginning of a new academic years. I think in school years, from September to September (whereby September itself is a greyish period that is neither part of the old nor of the new year. A bit like Christmas and New Year). The undergrads are starting to return, town is getting noticeably busier, Tesco and Argos stock up on household offers. There is, as Abba said, a sense of expectation hanging in the air. What will this year bring? A finished thesis, and a viva. Perhaps another term or two of teaching. Regular work in the library, which I'm looking forward to a lot. Hard work to arrive at said finished thesis - state. It feels like it is starting to fit together nicely; I think I can glimpse how it will work out. A couple of conferences, one in the Fatherland and one in Canada, both on thesis chapters. An article for a book to be submitted.
I'm going to enjoy this year - 21st grade is going to be good (but only 4th PhD year, 5th grad school year, and 9th year of university. Not that bad after all).
Dear all,
I'm still as obsessed with owls as I was earlier this year. I now sport an owl pincussion, a fabric owl that sits on my desk, an owl keyring and an owl necklace, as well as several owl pictures. For a while I've been eyeing owl hair clips and brooches over on etsy, and thinking about making some. Knitting seemed the obvious choice, and knitting tiny owls from Kate's owl cable even more so. I've experimented with several yarns, gauge, buttons and sizes:
(This is only a small selection. There is an evergrowing parliament of owls tucked away in the corner of one of my bookcases).
The heather one is my favourite, and also the most recent one I've made.
It is very owly. And slightly scared looking. I think it might be a brooch. Or a hairclip. Hmm. Or an applique for a hat?
Anyway, here I was, minding my own business and enjoying the owls, when, on reading all the blog posts I missed when I was away last week, I stumbled upon this this morning:
Ysolda, it seems, beat me to it!
I love her little orange owl. Nelson requested an orange jumper similar to one currently for sale in one of the shops in town, and I've been trying to find suitable yarn. I think I may go with King Cole merio superwash 4-ply in Copper.
Dear all,
I know I promised a knitting post. I was going to review a few books, and tell you about some exciting yarn.
But I never got around to doing that before I left to go on holiday.
An actual holiday this time: to Colonsay and Islay. Lots of hiking, lots of sunshine. Both are lovely - but very different. More about them in another post - this one is devoted to the majority of Colonsay's residents: sheep. They share the island with about 100 permanent (human) residents. The sheep were very scared, but also nosy. We didn't get close enough to pet them, but they enjoyed having their picture taken. And we learnt that if you make a noise that's sort of a cross between an old-fashioned telephone and the one you make to calm horses - a semi-high-pitched 'brrr' sort of sound - they will look at you. Worked every time.
Now, the sheep:
This little sheep has pretty eyes.
This little sheep has very nice horns.
This little sheep was very nosy.
This little sheep was also nosy, but also a little afraid.
These two sheep like to graze together.
This little sheep has lovely brown yarn on its back.
This little sheep was very friendly.
This little sheep (no doubt related to the previous one) escaped the last shearing.
This is the Laird's sheep. It is mighty. It owns the island, and the other sheep too, I think.
These two sheep are distinguished.
This little sheep is tired.
They were fabulous. Funny little creatures. Made us laugh out loud sometimes, when they waddled, or bounced, or gallopped off into the heather.
