How my brain works

I just put this blog through Wordle and came up with this. I'm really not sure what this says about me...

Recently Discovered Earth*

* (c) Liam Herringshaw 2008


Well, where to start? I appear to have completely lost my mind. I am giving up a well-paid job to move to a country where there is 10 months of winter and 2 of summer, and very few job prospects for an archaeologist.



My other half has been given a two-year post at Memorial University in Newfoundland and, after nearly 3 years of frequent visits up to Aberdeen I've had enough of killing the environment with my frequent flying. Commuting to Canada for weekend visits is a step too far...

To cap it all I'm moving over in mid-January, which is possibly the stupidest time to go, given the pack ice, sleet, and general arctic nature of the place. I think this excerpt from the current Provincial anthem sums it up nicely:

When spreads thy cloak of shimm'ring white,

At winter's stern command,

Thro' shortened day and starlit night,

We love thee, frozen land,

We love thee, we love thee,

We love thee, frozen land.

When blinding storm gusts fret thy shore,

And wild waves lash thy strand,

Thro' sprindrift swirl and tempest roar,

We love thee, windswept land,

We love thee, we love thee,

We love thee, windswept land.

Of course there's every opportunity for things to go a bit wrong: I don't have a job lined up properly or a work permit, but these are mere trivialities and I won't let that get in the way of my excitement. Come February I may still be in the UK and regretting handing in my notice but fingers crossed this won't be a problem. I have more things to worry about once I get there:

1) permanent frizzy hair due to sleet and wind
2) premature skin aging from adverse weather conditions
3) contracting hypothermia on landing
4) being mauled by gigantic Newfoundland dogs
5) having to tie down my house with rope
6) developing rickets due to Vitamin D deficiency
7) being attacked by Skraelings*

* see Saga of Erik the Red


I'm sure that many of these fears are completely unfounded... except the dog one ... ;o)

The Bikeability Neckwarmer

Ok, as promised, evidence of me actually knitting...

I've been cycling a lot recently and, as the winter months draw in, I've noticed a chill on the chest and a bit of wheeziness when it's cold out. So, to prevent premature lung-aging, stop me whinging, and generally for better wellbeing all round I decided a scarf was the thing. The problem is that I am so uncoordinated that normal scarves tend to flap about and get stuck in my wheels. Well, it hasn't happened yet, but knowing me...

Anyhoo, I've got an embarrassingly large yarn stash - I cannot throw *anything* away - so decided to use up some of it by making scrap yarn.

It’s the simplest thing in the world…

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• To create the yarn… tie together shortish lengths of scrap thread and pair two colours together to make it chunkier. It makes it more interesting when the colours overlap to get different colour combos. I used 4 colours which were paired differently every time and had different lengths.
  

• Cast on 22 stitches (though depends on chunkiness of wool/gauge)

• Garter stitch for about 62 rows or until it reaches approx. 52cm long then cast off. Try to knit in the ends as much as possible as you are going.

• Weave in the leftover ends using a crochet hook then snip to neaten off.

• The final scarf should measure about 16cm x 52cm.

• Add a toggle to secure it, et voila!

And here is photographic evidence:




And one of me sporting it. Please remind me to brush my hair next time I take a photo of myself to spread across the Internet... ;o)

On Social Knitworking* and Turning to the Dark Side

(* © David Brooks 2008)


I have a confession. I am an addict. I don’t think a day has gone by when I haven’t had at least one fix. Ravelry has taken over my life and is now starting to affect me in ways others are finding disturbing.

I have become obsessed with pattern searching and seeing what my friends are up to (whether it’s stashing yarn, queuing patterns, or uploading their project progress). The sheer number of free patterns is amazing, and the fact you can see all the patterns from published books before you buy means I will never buy a dud crafty book again. Amazon’s ‘Search Inside’ is rarely available for this sort of thing and, even if it is, often doesn’t show you all the designs. So, I’ve been caught on many occasions when a lovely cardie on the front cover hides a multitude of tack on the inside…

Amongst all this I have slowly come to the realisation that I am going to have to learn to knit. Yes. I said it. Out loud and in public. The hardened crocheter is finally giving in to the dark side.

I tried it first on Monday night and immediately threw it away again in disgust as I was shocked to find I wasn’t instantly brilliant at it. I could see it was going to be a hard slog getting used to being rubbish at something again. Still, I persevered and even took it to Stitches and Hos last night, where friends were shocked to see me sans hook. It was strange. It felt completely alien. I was used to being the one person doing something different at S&H and now I was doing what everybody else was. Suddenly I felt like I was jumping on the bandwagon, completely unoriginal, and I didn’t like it.

Still, I’m sticking with it. I finished my first ‘object’ last night which was strangely satisfying. Watch this space for evidence…



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Flickr Game

I saw this on Fearful Penguin's blog and thought I'd do some more work avoidance...

• Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
• Using only the first page, pick an image.
• Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favourite food?
3. What school did you go to?
4. What is your favourite colour?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favourite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favourite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name



***
My answers:
1. Helen 2. cheese 3. Langley Park 4. brown 5. Alex Kapranos 6. cider 7. Europe 8. trifle 9. archaeologist 10. music 11. distracted 12. goodhen

***

Festival Fun

I've just got back from the Hydro Connect Festival in Argyll, in the grounds of Inverary Castle (not a bad venue!), and it was a pretty top weekend. My run down of events was:

Friday:

• Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks: a bit disappointing, I'd expected better...
• The Breeders: as good as I could have possibly hoped! They played loads of The Amps and old Breeders stuff as well as the new tracks

• Sparks: good fun and utterly mental, though I wish they'd played more of the really early stuff. Ron Mael rocks!

Saturday:

• Firstly some disappointment as Joan as Policewoman was cancelled...
• Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band (random rants about being "from the United States of Fuckin' Americarr" (several times) annoyed me, and was accompanied by some fairly tepid music. Disappointing...
• The Levellers: despite not being even remotely trendy to like them, they put on a great show and much dancing was to be had.
  
• Friendly Fires: we didn't know what to expect and were pleasantly surprised.
• Black Lips: we were promised nudity, on-stage vomiting, and biting heads off live animals (maybe I made that last one up), none of which were delivered.
• Glasvegas: the music press claim that their album is "of national importance". I disagree.
• Grinderman: Nick Cave was awesome on stage. "Honey Bee let's fly to Mars. Bzzz bzzz bzzz!"

• Gomez: they played the "Bring It On Album" from start to finish for its 10 year anniversary. Brilliant!
• Gossip: I'd already seen them in a small gig and they were ace, but it just didn't work well at a Festival and I got bored... we then tried to go see Bloc Party and missed them :o(

Sunday:

• Young Knives: Pretty good! Again we didn't know what to expect but we really enjoyed them.
• Santogold: Not quite my cup of tea but some catchy tunes and the most awesome backing dancers I've ever seen!
• Elbow: Guy Garvey had some nice banter and the new tracks were good, but I'd already seen them earlier this year so nothing new here...
• The Coral: a nice mix of old and new that got us dancing about.
• And the pièce de resistance... Franz Ferdinand: Absolutely brilliant show, the new tracks are ace and they played plenty of the popular tracks. I danced my socks off whilst lusting after Alex Kapranos.

All in all a pretty good weekend, though it has higlighted my need for a better camera :o)



*

Curry Top

I had a small curry-based accident with a plain brown top I owned (see previous post!) and it ended up with some grease spots on it that just wouldn't come out. So, inspired by some other posts on Wardrobe Refashion (most notably the ones using the Alabama Stitch Book pattern) I decided to try out some reverse applique...

Here is the top with my design (plus visible grease stains...) with the new fabric inside being basted on.

Then I got busy with the scissors - a bit too busy in some places where I accidentally cut bits I didn't mean to. I had trouble folding the fabric under though, so instead I folded it outwards and sewed the edges roughly to give it a sort of leafy look. I know it doesn't look it but the thread is the same colour as the top... Also, the fabric underneath is shiny so it looks brighter than it actually is. It's really a darkish maroon.

And here it is, modelled in Staff House Bar (recognise the quality 'art'?), rescued from certain doom. I hope I don't spill anything else down it, there's only so many holes I can cut...