Project 60 - Nos 18 and 19

Yes, this time it's two for the price of one, as they are quite closely related, and to do with finishing pieces of knitting nicely.

Now years ago when I was a girl and my mother struggled unsuccessfully to teach me to knit (something which was achieved ten years later by a fellow student at University) there was only one way to cast on and cast off. Actually that statement is probably  objectively untrue but, as far as anyone who we knew who knitted was concerned, and in those days that would be just about every woman you met, you cast on using your thumb and you cast off by knitting two stitches and then passing one over the other, repeat to end.

 

When I started knitting again a few years ago it was borne in upon me that in actual fact there are many different variations on these simple operations to start and finish your knitting and it was said that some are more fitting for certain types of knitting than others. I didn't pay a lot of attention to be honest. I carried on using my thumb and doing the pass one stitch over thing, and as far as I could see there was no great detrimental effect on anything I made.

 

However I recently made a small shawl and the instructions on the pattern for that were adamant; you must use Jenny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off or you will not be able to block the points on this shawl properly. Well the points were half the point of making the thing, if you'll pardon the expression,  and the designer seemed certain that they needed this surprisingly stretchy cast off method so without donning a bonnet I betook myself off to the internet* for a tutorial on how to do it.

 

* I doubt anyone will get this reference but I couldn't resist it since it is a bit of a family saying and very funny. It's based on a sentence in a book by that mistress of romantic purple prose Ethel M Dell and the original sentence reads 'She donned a bonnet and betook herself off to the raspberry bed'. My mother and I both found this hysterically funny and I adopted it because you can use it in all sorts of situations - give it a try, you'd be surprised.

 

Anyway it didn't look too complicated , although it did look quite time consuming, so I used it and I suppose I could say that I now know two ways to cast off knitting, except that here we are a week later and I can't remember how to do it. However if I ever need it again I  know where to look it up. I don't know that I would call it surprisingly stretchy, but then I'm not Jenny the Inventor and I suppose she is allowed to call it what she likes. Here is a picture of the cast off edge

 

 

and below is a picture of the blocking process. For those of you who are not knitters and are still with me blocking is the thing you do after you've finished knitting to get the piece to its required size and shape. There is a whole mystique around blocking; whether it's necessary, how best to do it, whether you should do it before you sew a garment up, or after, but the one thing that everyone agrees on is that lace knitting definitely needs blocking otherwise it looks like  a scruffy mess. I do not do a lot of lace knitting, because I am not very good at it. I think myself that knitters fall mainly into one of two camps; they knit lace or they knit cables, and I'm a cable kind of a gal. However this shawl thing had a lacy edge and if I wanted people to see that  clearly after I put a lot of effort into getting it right it needed to be blocked. So I sent off for the appropriate technology - thin springy wires and some evilly large and sharp T pins and did it properly. For the first time in my life. And as I said, here is the picture to prove it. And by the  way if I thought Jenny's Surprisingly Fiddly Stretchy Bind Off was time consuming that was as nothing, nothing I tell you, to the time it takes to stretch and pin out a shawl with a pointy lace edge.

 

I have to say though that at the end of the day it was, surprisingly, worth the effort.

 

Home Alone

or at least, the only human in the house. The OH has Gone South abandoning me to life with three demanding cats and an even more demanding dual fuel stove and I really rather wish it was summer and he had taken the cats with him!

When I say south I mean really really far, like all the way to Devon, where he is visiting his mother. Originally it was just going to be a quick work trip to Leeds, dropping son no 2 back in Glasgow on the way, but as his mother had been in hospital for a few days just before Christmas (and don't get me started on trying to get any sense out of any of the hospital staff on where she was, what was wrong, what they might be doing about it) and has continued to feel unwell off and on ever since,he decided to carry on and see how the land lay for himself.

 

This has meant me being on my own for a week and it's been a mixed blessing. I have no problem with being solitary. I do have problems with the cats thinking I am at their beck and call every minute of the day. I am afraid that the OH's 'on demand' feeding system for household animals has been abandoned in favour of a strict feeding timetable. This means that I don't have to be constantly checking their dishes, their expressions and their general demeanour to see if they need/want more food. This in turn reduces my stress levels considerably and also ensures that I don't fritter away the day in a constant round of cat pandering.

 

Of course the stove is another matter entirely since it brings the uncertainty principle into play and uncertainty is something I find difficult to cope with. At least I know if I put down a plate of cat food it will get eaten and I can be fairly certain that if I put down three plates of cat food all three cats will eat although not exclusively each from their own plate. Heaven forfend that they should conform to all the veterinary wisdom about how cats need their own dishes in their own separate places and won't share or eat in the same place as other cats. . OK, sharing maybe isn't the name of the game, more a case of grazing in case the third plate has something better on it ( a word to the cats, it really doesn't!) . The stove however is a different thing. I can follow the same basic procedure to light it, or indeed to keep it lit overnight, every time  and sometimes it will co-operate and sometimes it won't. I find this troubling and baffling in equal measure. It also makes me loth to try since if it fails it becomes retrospectively a waste of my time to have tried.   Now, it's true that if I weren't trying to light the fire  I wouldn't necessarily be doing anything earth shatteringly important with the time; establishing world peace or fixing it for Son no 2 to get his big acting break e.g. , but I could be doing something more interesting or useful or enjoyable than scrabbling about filling coal scuttles and heaving them about the house.

 

Anyway it's not for much longer as, DV and the ferry company willing, the OH gets back late Wednesday which only leaves me three days and two nights to struggle with the stove and face down the cats.

 

And in good news this year's trip to Australia gets closer by the day*

 

*I realise this would be true whatever date  we had chosen to go, so to that extent it's a meaningless phrase but in fact, all other things being equal we leave on 12th next month. I would be looking forward to it even more , if I weren't peering at it from under a thesis chapter that needs writing before I go!

Adventures in Glasgow Part 3

I am well aware that it is taking me longer to blog abut our pre-Christmas visit to Glasgow than it took to make it, but fear not dear reader, we are almost at the end.

I should mention that I managed to grab lunch with my Glasgow dwelling Ravelry friend A again; we eschewed the sweet treats  of The Yarn Cake and went somewhere where we could have some coffee and later some soup for lunch. In the event the soup of the day wasn't the best I've ever had, being a bilious green in colour with an aftertaste to match. That said, I was there for the company not the food, and there was nothing wrong with that.

 

I also managed to drag the OH out to do some quick sight seeing. He does tend to stay manacled to the work laptop on these flying visits to Glasgow which is frustrating as there are so many interesting places to go in the area, but I do realise that Work Comes First. However it being a passingly nice day weather wise, we did something we've been meaning to do for ages and went to see The Kelpies.

 

For those who don't know, The Kelpies are the recently constructed tallest-in-the-world equine statues, although I think myself Equine Statues is pushing it a bit for the description since they are just  heads. They look like this

 

and this is a close up of the construction.

 

They're set in a piece of reclaimed industrial land which has been turned into a leisure park called The Helix - more information here

It may have been December, but as you can see it was a bright day of blue skies and even a little sunshine so we enjoyed our walk round the statues and along the canal. The café was OK, and the gift shop was fantabulous, picked up a couple of Christmas presents as well as the more usual postcards and fridge magnets. Well worth a visit, and lots more to do in the area - none of which we did because Work Called. But it was a fun time nonetheless.

 

Not featured in the pre-Christmas visit, but on an  earlier one I visited this exhibition, which was fantastic. Despite there being permission to take photos I didn't and I can't understand why - possibly I just didn't have my camera with me. Unusually arranged by colour rather than chronologically this was a fantastic exhibition - open until 14th February - and if you're within visiting distance and at all interested in textiles and costume you should definitely go.

 

So there you go. That  was Glasgow, fully blogged at last. Next up, some Project 60 stuff. Or some knitting, Or something that combines the two.....

Adventures in Glasgow Part 2

For a variety of reasons, with which I need not trouble you, we were invited to have a private tour of the Scottish Opera Production Studios, while we were in Glasgow. It was a chance not to be missed, and we even got to take Son No 2 along with us as well.

We met the Music Director, who was just waiting to do some auditions (we'd seen the auditionees all falling out of a taxi as we arrived), talked to a girl who was upholstering a bed frame for an upcoming production, watched someone struggle with the stiffening for a huge pair of comedy breeches for The Mikado, marvelled at the storage space in the paint studio, and all the stuff that was 'stored' inside it - think Massive Shed, for this one and creepily got to stroke some wigs made of real human hair.

The highlight for me was the wardrobe department. Miles of haberdashery drawers and  racks and racks of clothing, from generic 'peasant outfits' to really detailed and specific historical dress for men and women. I was really surprised by the weight of some of this stuff. I have a fairly high threshold of admiration for singers as it is; they have to learn words and tunes. the words are often in an unfamiliar language, they must remember their moves, do this all under hot lights, make sure their voices carry across a large orchestra and in addition I now know that some of the time they are carrying a lot of extra weight in  the shape of a costume.

The OH got to try something on

Sarastro's cloak from The Magic Flute. Sorry about the picture quality, I have been told it is over exposed and blurry, and it is  - maybe my hands were shaking with jealousy because I didn't get to try anything? Or maybe it was just a case of taking the picture  too quickly.

 

We finished our tour with tea and cake in the café; possibly we should have started there since the choice of cake was severely limited by the time we got there.

 

It was a wodeful experience and we were very grateful to be given the opportunity.

Adventures in Glasgow Part 1

So, it's more than time I wrote up what we did when we last went to Glasgow, as it's almost a month ago already and if I don't do it soon I shall have forgotten all about it. And half the purpose of this blog is to keep memories of good or interesting times.

The main event, and the reason for going, was so that I could take part in the celebration for the centenary of the birth of George Campbell Hay, subject of my Ph D. (Incidentally I am having huge problems with this just now as I grapple with the thought that I'm not actually going to be saying anything new. This objectively is rubbish, as there is very little work on him at all, so that almost anything I said would burst over the waiting world like a novelty firework, but logic often doesn't work at 5.00 a.m. I find)

 

Leaving that aside it was a lovely evening and I hope I fulfilled my own small part with some grace and joy. The OH, when summoned to pick me up, had to come up the stairs and drag me away, but he did get introduced to The Lovely Michel although I cant quite remember if he managed to encounter  friend-of-a-friend, The Terrifyingly Clever Geraldine'.

 

One of the highlights of the evening was the screening of some parts of a film that was made about Hay's life and work, many years ago by Paul Murton, mainstay of much of Scottish television. I knew of this but had never managed to see/acquire  it, so was delighted to have this opportunity to see excerpts.

 

However as is often the way of these things, when we got back to the flat we were flicking through the channels to see if there was anything to watch and discovered that the film was being shown in its entirety on BBC Alba. So we watched it, and through the wonders of modern technology even managed to instruct our TV in Orkney to record it via the OH's phone. Not only that but it is now available on YouTube (!) and here's the link in case anyone is interested.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWCkJEYuTag

 

It 'stars' a young Peter Mullan from before the days when he was the 'go-to' actor for middle aged Scottish menace. That is either an inducement or a warning, depending on your attitude to PM.

 

In other news I have not set foot out fo the house today, such is the general awfulness of the weather, but the OH heroically went to town to do a Tesco top up, since we were almost out of milk and the word on the street is that the barriers will be closed tomorrow. Also, and probably more to do with it, it gave him another chance to look for the whales - still absent sadly, although I have heard they came out to play yesterday afer we had given up and come home.

 

And a Happy New Year

Today we went out for a walk! This is not totally startling, we often go out for a walk on New Year's Day. We always kid ourselves that this will be the year that we go out for a walk every day, although it never is.

 

Anyway there  has been much excitement recently on Facebook about the fact that for the past couple of days there have been whales playing in the bay just round the corner from where we live so we decided we'd go and see if they were still there.

 

 

 

 

 

Sadly there was no sign, although we stayed for quite a long time looking, despite the very cold temperature, but we did see quite a few seals and lots and lots of gannets. Obviously the recent storms have blown huge shoals of fish into the bay, and the gannets, and the seals,  have followed. Not sure if the whales have followed the fish or been blown off course. Sorry we missed them though.

 

 

This isn't  the best of pictures, but hopefully you can make out some of the many gannets. You'll have to take my word for the seals, but they were there!