A Little Birdie Told Me...

More birdies! These from the lovely knitters at the Wednesday Night Knitting (or WNK, snigger) Christmas Partay on, predictably, Wednesday Night at Pham Sushi (mmm, crunchy tuna rolls are now in my favourite sushi list, along with these from ThinkGeek).

Lotta made us all pairs of über-cute little birds from fabric scraps and buttons, stuffed with lentils and lavender. So clever! Can't decide whether they should go into the underwear drawer for scent, or stay out on show. Here they are with some yummy-sounding ginger cordial from her too:

Generous sweetheart that she is, she also bought me this gorgeous necklace in the shape of a peacock feather. Not sure of the maker but they are at Spitalfields apparently. Love love love it.

She also made this card out of lilac and silver leather scraps:

My WNK Secret Santa turned out to be Gail, and this is what she got me:

A lovely diary with fab, almost Art Deco birds (see, I am crazy bird girl already), and posh chocolate. I especially like the shiny blue bull on this. I don't believe in astrology at all, but if I had to pick one of the signs to be, I'm quite glad I'm a Taurus because I really like cows. If I could choose to have one physical feature from an animal as some sort of weird hybrid or Egyptian god effect, I'd want to have big spreading horns like a Highland cow, which I could brandish for effect. When people annoyed me, I'd toss my head and snort. If I had them, I'd probably get a nose ring too to complete the look, as I've always thought that would be a cool piercing. My darling would prefer me to have a fluffy squirrel tail or twitchy llama ears, but perhaps that's TMI...

Talking of which, my no-longer-Secret Santa gift to Ting was, in part, sheep stitchmarkers from Yarnimals, and at the same time I had to get myself a pair of squirrels. Here's an action shot of the "skwerls", as I like to call them, assisting with my nearly-finished Christmas knitting.

Yes, that's a top-down sock, but the skwerls are making even gusset decreases bearable. Look at the cute white tummy! Love them!

And finally, not animal-related but softer than a squirrel's belly fuzz, lovely wristwarmers from Jade Sapphire Cashmere 8-Ply in Berries & Cream. Mmmmm... Pauline and Lotta enabled me on this in Loop about a week ago, not that I needed a great deal of persuasion - they didn't actively dissuade me is all.

They also suggested and helped pick the buttons. Took me much frogging to decide on what stitch pattern would best show off the yarn without eating too much yardage, and after all sorts of slip- and herringbone-stitch swatchs, it ended up being the seed-stitch that won out. Just like the sample in the shop. How boring of me.

They are soft and lovely although I think they will pill like a bastard as soon as I dare to hold anything. I will love them regardless.

Finally, anyone for tea?

Book Club

I saw this meme on Stash Haus' blog earlier in the week and coincidentally on a couple of others on the same day, so I thought I should give it a go. I was a bookish child and so got a lot of reading of the classics done then; now it's limited to commuting but that does allow me to motor through at least one novel a week and so I have done rather better than the "average" six (I know!). The below is actually quite useful in identifying what I should be reading in 2009.

Convention:

1. Look at the list and highlight in bold those you have read.
2. Italicise those you intend to read.
3. Place * after the books you love - I did try to keep this to top five, but I think I've ended up with ten.
4. Post your list so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read six and force books upon them.

The list:

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen * (A girly choice of favourite, but I was an impressionable 14-year-old when Colin Firth was getting his britches all wet and it has stuck with me.)

2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (On an ill-fated holiday in France which we decided to share with another family, with whom we had nothing in common whatsoever. Thank god for Tolkein in that situation.)

3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (I remember failing to read this at school and still managing to make up the right answers for a test on it.  But I've read it properly since.)

4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible (From cover to cover, even. I just thought I should. I feel this means I can make an informed decision that it's utter bullshit.)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell *
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy * (I adore how nasty Hardy is to his characters. Also, they're all set around where I'm from, in Wessex.)
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (I've started this a couple of times.  No idea why I haven't managed to finish it.)
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (What, all of it? Seriously? Even the poetry? I've had a good stab but can't claim to have read the whole lot yet.)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (Made me cry on a long flight to Bangkok, but then that may have been a side effect of being squished into a middle seat with no seat-back entertainment.)
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (One day...)
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams * (My absolute favourite book(s) of all time.)
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (Why is this duplicating #33?)
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (Hated it, as it happens.)
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (And others by Mr Brown, I'm ashamed to admit.)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood * (So good I had to re-read it last week. I love dystopias.)
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert (This is a book? I have been forced by my darling to watch the film a couple of times.)
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (Ooh, shocker, what with all the knitting. Must correct over the hols I think.)
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley *
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov *
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy * (Even more harrowing than Tess above. Great.)
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks *
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams * (Just wonderful.)
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (So is this in addition to having read The Complete Works? Do you have to read it twice?)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I think that makes a round 60 I've read, so I am ten times better read than the general population.  That makes me feel very smug indeed.

Oh FFS

Even the news services are in on it now...

Firstly, the least annoying of the two and the most recent: this article on the BBC News website yesterday. Apparently we must crochet or knit presents for everybody because homemade presents are the way to survive the financial downturn.

Er, no. I mean, OK, the person who is advocating the cashmere wristwarmers is knitting from stash, so that's cost effective at least, but if you're the kind of person who already has a stash of cashmere yarn, you probably already know that making wristwarmers is an option and are either well on the way to finishing them or have rejected the idea. Anyone else? They're going to have a heart attack if they bound out to any of the London yarn shops in search of the required materials - if the price of the cashmere doesn't do them in, learning to knit on the recommended 2.5mm circs certainly will.

And ha ha, yeah, crochet makes nice, practical gifts. Not sexy or wanted, practical. Oh dear.

That reminded me about the second item, something I meant to blog about last month but forgot: an article in thelondonpaper (non-Londoners: this is one of the free ones and you only get spaces in your titles if you're paying for them) which I saw on my way home and had saved to scan and post as a picture, but it seems you can cleverly read it online, and zoom in and everything. All together now, ooooohhh, get you!

Go here and have a read, then come back to me, if your head hasn't exploded.  If the reader doesn't show the right page, you're looking for the 17 November 2008 issue, page 13.

OK, deep breath.

I shall ignore the fact that this is written by the faintly annoying DJ Johnny Vaughan.

Let's take the opening section by dear Johnny. Where do I start? So we're "Yappies" now: "young aged pensioners" because we like crafts. How patronising is that, both to those of us who are in their 20-30 year old category, and to actual pensioners, who, it seems, are the only people who are supposed to like crafts but for this recent turning of society on its head. We don't go out much, clearly. I should probably be watching TV right now, but, oh dear, I don't have one. If I'm feeling really really brave, I guess I could leave the safety of home (because crafts = agoraphobia?) and "venture out" to a "so called 'stitch and bitch'". It'd have to be at a "knitting nightspot [insert shriek of incredulity here]" and apparently there are loads of these! Funny, I've never seen one. We just go to bars and cafes like normal people but I guess we are just even weirder than the Yappies in the article and should be shunned and driven back to our acceptable special knitting venues, or preferably home, where it's nice and warm and safe, after all.

Then there's a whole heap of shit about cardigans and Pyrex. Oh please. When have people ever not worn cardigans? And Pyrex is fairly useful but I'm not excited about it as such. Silicone bakeware, maybe, but that would imply that I'm actually fairly cutting edge, and that wouldn't fit with the jam making, would it? (No, I haven't made jam, yet, but I've asked my grandma for a book on it for Christmas.)

It's OK, though. Johnny says "there's no shame in it", so I won't kill myself over being outed.

Then! Then there's the actual box about knitting itself. If anybody ever said to me anything about being "26 not 86", they'd feel the sharp end of my needle, I can tell you. And "the money I save" - ha! At least this person bucks the normal trend of knitting = cheap by admitting that this might not actually be true. "Yarns of wool"? Who says that?

I could live with all of that, you know, were it not for the last sentence here. She wants to convince her friends that her FOs are from a "pricey boutique". For the love of god, why? What's wrong with being proud that they're not from a fancy, expensive shop, being proud that you've made them yourself, showing off your unique and beautiful crafts? Wazz writes about this kind of thing far more eloquently over here (in the context of the execrable Janet Street-Porter), whereas I can scarcely type for fury.

I'd better go and have a fish finger sandwich for dinner, or else the modern world might frighten me so much that I can't sleep tonight.

Happy Yapping.

Wool in the Wild

Just a couple of random photos to pass the time:

Another shop window with a knitting theme - here we have cones of yarn at Benetton, I think, on the corner of Oxford Street and Regent Street. No apparent reason other than that it's cold and people might be encouraged to buy woolly things, I guess.

Startling knitwear seen in Ping Pong on Great Marlborough Street, whilst unsuccessfully waiting for a table after the Liberty cardholder night. Thanks Mel for posing so that I could surreptitiously "take a photo of your hand".

From your roving (ha ha) reporter.

It's that time of year again...

Yes, it's Shoppingmastime again. This year is even worse as the increasingly desperate retailers practically fall to their knees in front of us and offer us sexual favours if we'll only buy some stuff! Please!!! Our Darling Chancellor thinks that knocking two and a bit percent off everything by cutting VAT will help. I doubt it. The massive discounts at the shops will though, and you'd be a fool to buy anything at full price at the moment - there's bound to be a sale on somewhere of pretty much everything. What the hell are the January sales going to be like - free?

So, I got most of mine done with the magical power of the internet but did briefly venture to the high street for a couple of the big discount days at the department stores. Selfridges, for once, was very disappointing, with their 20% off promotion really not applying to very much at all once actually in store - not food, not drink, and only 10% off in beauty - and that was all the bits we wanted to buy. Oh well.  Liberty was much more satisfying with one of their regular cardholder evenings with free drinks and 20% off, including in yarn, including stuff ordered on the night (I wouldn't know of course, ahem). There was 50% off in the more fashionable departments, not that I ventured in. This was the scene in handbags:

Pauline, you in there?

The nice ladies in the knitting department really do need to be allowed to check the rest of the shop though. I found this knitted cardigan mislabelled as crochet in the Gaultier section:

And vintage DPNs being sold in sets of two, because, yeah, that's useful:

Outside, giant snowmen were bouncing down Carnaby Street:

And there were some fantastic metal sculptures of animals in the windows of an office on Great Marlborough Street:

More esoteric shopping was to be had at two, yes two, craft fairs at the same time on Saturday. No idea why the organisers held them in competition - some of the stallholders expressed displeasure with this scheduling clash as well. Luckily (sort of) they were both very small, though good, so could both be done in one session, but one bigger one would have been far better.

Because it opened earlier, I went to the We Make Christmas (by We Make London) fair first. There was a nice professional, colourful sign:

But this one was more suited to a craft fair in a church hall, really:

Here's the scale of the fair:

I'll go through what I bought at both in a moment, but this one was mainly good for cool greetings cards, and at the back on the stage was an awesome cake stall from Simply sCRUMBlicious. I need to work out the recipe for the banana and chocolate marbled cupcake I had, perfectly moist with milk chocolate chunks, buttercream icing, a dried banana slice and drizzled chocolate on top. Marvellous, especially as I'd had no breakfast. There were a few stalls selling knitted goods, but I didn't partake as I can do my own.

Then it was on to probably the bigger of the two, the Bust Christmas Craftacular. I arrived just before the official start time of midday, to find posters:

And a queue! To get into a craft fair!

Most likely because the first hundred people got goody bags. I was one of them but wasn't all that impressed - really the only things in there were a free copy of each of the sister publications Yarn Forward and Sew Hip, neither of which I would buy. The We Make Christmas goody bag was actually much, much better, with badges, sweeties, postcards, and even earrings (I don't have pierced ears but they'll be good for a present at some point) and a knitted flower brooch. Learn, Bust, learn.

Inside, this one was also tiny, but much more packed and very hot:

Whereas outside, it was so chilly that someone had decided the lampposts needed crocheted cosies:

So what did I buy? Well, it was mainly (a) necklaces and (b) things with birds on, including one necklace by Jess Turnbull that was both, like a Venn diagram but with plastic swallows:

Incidentally, I should take this opportunity to show off the silver, rosewood and mother of pearl necklace I got from Amy Bengtson recently, not at Bust:

I then picked up this necklace from Eclectic Eccentricity. I am kind of tempted to take the rose off, but not yet sure:

And then I saw this one by Me Me Me at Hannah Zakari, and knew I must have it:

It is insanely smooth and tactile and makes me think of the Black Rabbit of Inlé from the animated film of Watership Down. I can't wear it, it looks ridiculous, but I own it as some kind of talisman. I can't explain it. After the show I had to go to her website and buy the other, cuter and more wearable, ceramic sitting bunny, which is on its way to me now.

Bunnies are great, they so are, but a bird will win my heart every time, and, unfortunately for my wallet, they were everywhere. On tote bags:

(Goody bag at WMC decorated with a felt and button birdie from My Aphrodite, pictured with a very cute diary from Fur Will Fly.)

(Printed tote from Mr Wingate and purse from notes.)

And on paper goods:

(Notebook actually from Liberty on the cardholder night, and inspired gift tags with international bird stamps by someone whose name I failed to get at Bust but I think it was one of the cake sellers.)

I am going to get a reputation as the crazy bird girl soon.

And a rather cool thing left until last. I was buying these gorgeous padded leather brooches from a stall called Love from Hetty & Dave:

I was paying by cheque as at most of these things, they don't take cards and I never have quite enough cash. Asking the name to make it payable to, I realised that the owner "Zo Zo" was in my year at school back in Bournemouth! And now she's all famous as Amy Winehouse wears her tattoo-like brooches, and she has given up the rat race to craft full-time. Great to see a local girl made good, and best of luck, but I am soooo jealous. Sigh, but I suppose the rate race lets me buy this stuff. Must keep buying those lottery tickets...

Rubbernecker Redux Swap

Another swap questionnaire answer post which will be totally boring to all of you except my swap partner.

What form of fiber manipulation do you prefer? (Particularly, do you spin / would you welcome roving in your swappypack?)

Knitting and spinning. I'd like to crochet but I'm veeery slow at it so can't be bothered to get faster. My spinning is also slow but I'm getting a wheel for Christmas so that should improve.

What fibers do you prefer?

All of them. I'd rather not be using 100% acrylic but a bit of man-made stuff in a blend is fine.

What yarn weights do you prefer?

I do have a weakness for lace and sock yarns, but then when it comes to projects the ones I actually get around to knitting are the bulky instant gratification ones. So all of them really.

What colours do you prefer?

Most strong colours throughout the spectrum, and blacks, whites and greys. I'm not a fan of pastels, partly because they're just not forthright enough and partly because they make me look washed out. I don't like muddy greens/browns/yellows although the clear/bright versions of those colours are fine. Oh, and having collected a vast amount of variegated sock yarn, I'm more inclined towards shaded solids now for a bit of subtlety.

Would you be amenable to noms in your swappypack? Any allergies your buddy should know about?

Absolutely. No allergies, but a strong dislike of coconut.

Do you have a wishlist? If yes, where can it be found?

I do have one here at The Loopy Ewe for yarn, and also here at Amazon for books.

Do you have a blog? Where?

You're here!

Is there anything else you collect?

Other crafty stuff eg beads, ribbons and buttons. I've just started making soap but I guess I'm more collecting inspiration than physical items for that. Recently I'm having trouble resisting notebooks and letterpressed stationery, and anything with birds on or anything scientific.

Any books, yarn, patterns, or needles that are out there that you are dying to get your hands on?

Apart from the stuff on the wishlists above? Well I was fortunate enough to get some Knitpicks Bare for dyeing in my last swap but I'm still curious about the rest of the range from the-company-which-will-not-send-here. I'm also curious about those needles with a square cross section.

Thank you!

Look what I've got

I collected this today:

No, don't worry, we haven't eloped, that's a certificate "for" not "of". Effectively a marriage licence. That means we've given notice, and nobody objected in the period allowed, so we are good to go.

It is valid for a year, but actually you can only use it on the specified date at the specified venue (with the specified people, obviously). I think we are allowed to shift the time without getting a new one, but that's about it.

If that seems inflexible, try getting the thing - the registrar's office is only open for truncated office hours, closing at 4pm, on weekdays, at the town hall. And no, they won't post it, and no, of course they won't take the next step of actually sending it to the place where we're getting married - that's our job. I feel a rant growing with phrases such as "despite all the council tax we pay" and "how much did we pay for this certificate".  At least I'm the sort of person who likes admin, and, well, seeing it and sending it off myself appeals to my control freakishness in that at least I'll know it's done.

However it does seem rather unfair that, to get married in this country, the absolute minimum seems to be the ability to take at least two afternoons off work to do the admin (once to apply for the certificate and once to collect it) and at least £400 of fees for the legal niceties in our home and wedding districts. Surely if "they" wanted to promote marriage, and generally when people say that they mean to people on lower incomes (and that probably goes hand in hand with less flexible jobs than mine), they should make it a damn sight cheaper and possibly ask registrars to keep more sensible hours - even one person there to hand out certificates that are ready until, ooh, 5.30pm? Bloody local government, defining bureaucracy since the Domesday Book...