Celtic Memory Yarns

Maidens of the Northern Sky - And The Christmas Kitten

2011-12-27T11:07:00.020Z

We went up to Tromso recently. As far back as I can remember, to see the Northern Lights was a dream - as indeed it probably is for most people. There were enough vague attempts on different occasions - in the wilds of Canada, remote corners of Norway, in Finland - but it had never worked out. This year, it was going to happen if planning and careful calculation could have anything to do with it.

Gosh, North Norway, you do do the festive season well!

The streets of Tromso were snowy, the decorations were simple and heartfelt, and everyone was jolly and full of the spirit of goodwill.

Of course the yarn shops were visited, what do you think? Yes, despite the determined vow that 2012 will be The Year Of Using Stash And Only Stash, advice had been sought from dear friend Else, and armed with her list, each one was ticked off in turn. And turn about. And again. Isn't it lovely to go from one yarn shop to another and then back to the first and then think of something you saw in the third - or was it the fourth?

This window was crowded with the most wonderful handmade dolls, each and every one dressed up in hand knitted winter clothes! The lady in the rocking chair at the bottom right-hand corner is knitting on tiny wooden needles, while the rest of them are rejoicing in their warm jackets, caps, breeches snow suits, everything. Alas and alack, I only saw the kits for making up the bodies of the dolls after the shop had firmly shut for the night - but if any kind Tromso-ite wants to ship me one, I'll repay in full and then some!

At this time of year so far north it only gets to dusk-light in the middle of the day but that's no big deal. Or not if you're only visiting for a few days anyway. I can see that it might get a bit tiring if you have to endure several months of it. One man said that when they finally get a glimpse of the sun for ten minutes or so - around February, I think - they punch the air and shout 'Yes!!!' Makes our solstice seem quite a gentle affair.

Speaking of which, did you happen to watch the Newgrange solstice on TV? It was a bit of a non-event there this year, with cloud cover preventing the sun from penetrating the ancient structure, but I was watching it at my desk, with one eye on our own sunrise outside the window, and was rewarded with a ray of bright light right on to my keyboard. So, although Co. Meath didn't get the solstice sunrise, West Cork did. So there!

Up in Tromso, every toddler wore its own sturdy snow boots, and even small dogs donned suitable footwear.

Doesn't this little fellow look smart in his mackintosh and red boots? Despite the woebegone expression, he was the jolliest dog alive, giving us many greetings and welcomes to his home town. He came originally from Madrid, said his owner, but had adapted very well to the far north.

We took the cable car to the top of the mountain overlooking the town.

It was breaktakingly beautiful up there, with the wildness of the snowcovered hills all around, and, far below, the quiet fjord and the lights of the town, itself a remote outpost in this region of ice and snow. Around three in the afternoon you get a sort of after-sunset effect in the skies which is so lovely you stand looking at it for far too long, until you realise your feet are frozen and your hands are blocks of ice.

Worked even faster on the extra-long wristwarmers in a sumptuous blend of violet alpaca and silk (well all right, I didn't actually say I didn't buy any yarn, did I? It's not 2012 yet, is it?). And yes, I had to take my gloves off to knit. So not too much got done on the actual mountainside. More in the cafe where hot chocolate was temptingly available, and in the cable car going and coming.

It's at night that things get going in Tromso. For the locals, it's having a jolly time in bars and restaurants (I have to say, Norwegians, that the price you charge for beer can induce heart attacks in visitors from less prosperous countries, although I fully appreciate that you earn more, so it all evens out) but for those in search of the elusive Aurora Borealis, the normal going- to-bed time becomes the wrapping-up-and-going-out-again time.

A minibus picked us up and took us way out north of the town, into a dark and still world of snowy fields and fjords, with no city lights to pollute the natural skies.

There was a traditional tepee (the Lappish name is, I think, lavvo) where you could shelter if the cold got too much.

This picture was taken with a wide angle lens and a flash, but in reality it was a dark and incredibly cosy place, with the fire of birch logs blazing in the centre, and reindeer skins spread on the benches around the edge. You sat in there, with other faces just visible across the dancing flames, drank hot chocolate (well, what did you want us to do? Starve?) and realised, dimly, how many must have sat in such shelters across thousands of years, grateful for the warmth and the companionship of others while outside the wind howled and the snow fell. It was a very good feeling and one that has been tucked away to be brought out and re-lived at many times in the future, perhaps at night, when sleep is elusive.

But guess what occurred here in West Cork at the solstice! We'd just come back and were sorting things out by the car when we heard this pitiful cry in the hedge. 'Strange bird' said DH. 'Kitten!' cried I, dashing over and throwing myself down to look. Nothing could be seen, and the cry ceased abruptly.

Fretted about it all night. Next morning we heard it again and this time I burrowed deep into the hedge while DH went further up on the other side. And nervously, cautiously, it came out.

Not quite a baby kitten but a kitten cat for all that. Young indeed, still not fully grown, in excellent condition, with an unusually thick tail for a smooth cat. Huge golden eyes, and very very nervous. It cried, circled round us, and then bolted as we tried to coax it closer.

Cutting off DH's protestations even before they surfaced, I headed for the kitchen, warmed milk, snatched the feeding bowl from whichever dog had been unwise enough not to empty it, and placed offerings underneath the hedge. Coaxed again, but the kitten-cat stayed well out of reach.

Half an hour later, both dishes were polished clean. That evening, the next gift offering was placed slightly closer to the house, where we could keep an eye on it. She fell on it as though she hadn't eaten in weeks.

I put a box underneath the rocking chair on the porch, with a warm blanket in it, and hoped for the best.

Next morning, Christmas Kitten came running with cries of delight as I brought out her food. I stayed very still, and she actually walked around me twice before daring to rub against my ankles and utter such a loud purr that she vibrated all over.

It took three more meals before I could stroke her gently, but once that formality was out of the way, feline natural curiosity took over and The Cat Came In!

Now in a house of dogs this can create just one or two awkward moments.

Here is Mehitabel conveying her approval of the festive decorations. And there is the top of Sophy's furry head, advancing with malice aforethought.

Retreat of Mehitabel to behind a safe doorway. Advance of Sophy.

Sounds of crashing, thumping, bouncing and heavy breathing (Sophy of course - cats never get out of breath, had you noticed?)

Mehitabel decides that perhaps after all the garden is a safer place to be. (And yes, you're right, DH and his camera were enjoying themselves thoroughly. No pop star ever got the paparazzi treatment like Lone Christmas Kitten!)

For now she's roosting in a snug nest made of an old sleeping bag on the rocker in the porch. Meals are regular, and the amusement occasioned by suspicious dogs just enough to keep a girl on her toes. We do not know what is going to happen. It's like that with Christmas Kittens. They may have come just for a quick visit, they may be bored with their present posting, they may be passing through, they may need shelter and solace for a time. (well, now that you ask, some proper cat food was laid in as soon as the shops reopened).

I don't know if she's called Mehitabel. She may be Arabella or Fairycake or Lucy Clare for all I know. She hasn't seen fit to tell me yet. But I thought you would like to share the tale of the Christmas Kitten. And those of you who have lost a beloved pet recently (Chewyknits, for one, LilyMarlene another) I thought you might feel just a little better knowing that somewhere else in the world, a small stranger arrived in their place. It's not the same, I appreciate, but it's a reflection of the turning wheel, isn't it?

All right, all right! I heard you, way back up the page. Did I or didn't I see them? I was saving it to share as a solstice greeting. Up there they call them the sky maidens waving their mittens. I sent them greetings from all of you.

Twenty Thousand Projects Under The Sofa

2011-12-11T19:30:00.013Z

Seventy-six projects led the big parade,
One hundred and ten WIPs close behind.
They were followed by rows and rows of forgotten UFOs...

It's got to stop. One particularly gloomy wet day last week, I incautiously dislodged a bale of fabric from the elongated piano stool that does duty as gather-all in the upstairs sitting room. It was a double bale of fabric, in fact, several yards each of bright pink and dark navy cotton jersey which I'd picked up for a song somewhere, some time back, with some idea in mind, now forgotten. That isn't topmost in my mind right now.

What is topmost is the fact that in so dislodging the fabric, I toppled an enormous logjam (can you topple a logjam? What exactly do you do with a logjam? Stab at it?) of carrier bags, small baskets, project holders, loose skeins and patterns. A pair of unfinished socks, started in Iceland last July. The beautiful front of a cabled jacket in unbelievably expensive alpaca silk aran weight. One bright red Origami sock, with its fellow just started, barely past the toe. And so on.

Now most times I can deal with situations like this. The normal practice is carefully to replace the covering material and go away to cast on for something new, right? That's what The Big Book of Advice To Obsessive Crafters would say. But, as I mentioned, it was a gloomy wet day, just right for pondering the Meaning of Life and particularly The Meaning of Startitis.

Because these past few months have been pretty appalling on that front. If Startitis be a vice, then the Celtic Memory establishment has been a riot of debauchery. What was I doing? What was I thinking? Was I thinking at all? Is sheer self-indulgence all there is to the human brain these days? (Don't bother answering that one.)

The heart was heavy, but the soul knew there was only one thing to do. Gather up all the WIPs. All of them. Lay them out, photograph them in the totality of their sad unfinished states. And then (courage, mon brave) let all of blogger land see them. Be truthful. Maybe, just maybe it will cure you of this reprehensible habit for once and for all (who's that laughing at the back?)

The memories come flooding back as each one is hauled out into the light of day. This cabled jacket in alpaca silk aran weight is going to be beautiful. And the yarn was just too expensive for it not to reach completion! It's already been started as two different projects, but interest waned, and it was frogged for another try. Some of the rewound balls are starting to look tired and whine for a bath. Then they'll look different to their new, fresh, as-yet untried colleagues. They always do.

Ah the Brigit jacket. Using that ingenious design from Starmore, on gorgeously smooth rich wool tracked down at Pierre Loye et Cie in Provence last May. It was a total bargain this yarn in the Campanule shade, and the jacket will be unforgettable. As was the scent of the little apricot trees in the sundrenched yard where we parked the car and DH photographed black redstarts while I ran wild in the bargain shed. (Brought home the kernels from some ripe apricots which we sampled from those trees, and actually managed to get them to sprout. Annoyingly, a marauding rabbit found them and nipped off each lush little plant at the root. Will they sprout again or will they give up? They're in the greenhouse, thinking about it for the winter.)

Secured this navy chenille, beautifully plush and thick, at the same place as the Campanule. Hidden in the bottom of a bargain bin on the floor, at such a price I would have been insane to leave it behind. A delicious crochet waistcoat, with tiny fob pockets (you can barely see those), but will there be enough to finish the back? The chance of finding more of the same yarn is unlikely, to say the least. And I'm not planning to drive down around Provence any time soon (bit chilly this time of year anyway). But one could almost get the scent of the orange blossom, the sound of the cicadas just by handling it...

It's my own fault, I shouldn't have grabbed a couple of balls of the chenille to take on a trip for which the chosen project was a Jane Thornley lookalike vest. But there it is again - that overwhelming desire to begin with the new love, instantly, immediately, without a second's delay. I mean, taking yarn from one project to start another? What kind of behaviour is that?

Ah the Icelandic socks. I remember the evening well. We'd spent all day driving in and out of long inlets on the Westerfjords, distances which could have been covered in two minutes if we'd happened to have wings and could fly straight, and came in a grey evening twilight to a small fishing village. Yes, it was the very place we had breakfast with the sorcerer next morning, now I come to think of it. I got that overwhelming urge to be working on a pair of socks and rushed down to the tiny local shop. You couldn't have called it a supermarket, but yet, there among the potatoes and the tinned beans, the spades and the saucepans, was a rack of knitting yarn and needles. Got two shades of Einband and two circulars, and was as happy as Larry for the rest of the night. There are times when only socks will do. And there aren't that many countries where you can find the makings thereof at 9pm in the middle of nowhere, are there?

Gosh, I remember exactly where I got this divine tweedy Italian cashmere. It was in School Products, up several flights of stairs in a decrepit old building on Broadway, NY, NY, and while I was fingering it lovingly, Berta Karapetyan was telling me about her change of heart from crochet to knitting (because you get smoother more draping effects with knitting) and also how she found knitting machines extremely useful for doing the long plain sections, leaving her the energy and inclination to spend absolutely ages on the complex bits. And when I'd left Berta, I went way up Fifth Avenue and had tea in that divine Japanese shop where they have all the lovely knitting books. It's going to be a beautifully cosy cowl - but for which winter?

And speaking of winter, this is a bright red stocking cap, in the Finnish style, for a new baby girlfriend, and I am absolutely determined to get it done and on her little head this winter, no matter what. In fact, in the early stages of this appalling realisation of just how many projects there were unfinished, grabbed this and stayed up really late one night last week to get some work done on it.

And therein lay my downfall. Because I watched The Holiday on tv, didn't I? And Cameron Diaz wore That Jacket in it, didn't she? Dear heaven, lay awake until 4am agonising over the right kind of yarn to use for such a project - a light colour of course, to show off the cables, but not too heavy a yarn. Cameron's was light and almost fuzzy, as you'd expect from someone normally living in LA who goes to her favourite boutique on Rodeo Drive to enquire what one should wear in an English winter.

Eventually remembered all that unspun Icelandic I'd carried home from the summer trip and fell asleep happily at dawn. It's a nice silver gray, which is only marginally more practical for fireside wear than Cameron's pure white, but it's knitting up beautifully. Just right for adding a welcome layer of warmth.

Ah yes, warmth. Intending to hunt for the Northern Lights this winter at some stage, so thought lined mittens would be a Good Idea. My own hand-dyed cashmere/silk for the outer layer, possum wool for the interior. Put on the embroidery halfway along the project and all, as it would be difficult to do once the whole thing is finished, as there is no division between outer and inner layers. So why isn't this one done, and its fellow well under way, since my fingers are icy right now, typing at my desk? (Not that you could type in mittens, but you get the idea.)

Good heavens, had quite forgotten the Origami Socks. Chanced on a remaindered copy of Knitted Socks East and West while away somewhere, and fell for these instantly, buying the bright red wool in two different shops because each had only one. It involved driving several miles too, I remember. It's a very pretty pattern. And yes, it deserves finishing. They'd look great for wearing on Christmas morning.

Are we there yet? Are we heck as like. My dear friend Tricia started her annual Advent Scarf KAL and how could I not participate this year? And there is the Lintilla shawl languishing somewhere, it's in soft dark green mousse yarn and it's going to look exactly like that worn so fetchingly while shopping, by Kate, Duchess of Cambridge - WHEN it's finished. Can't even find that at the moment. Didn't have the courage to haul out the huge bag with the almost-completed gansey in cream Stella yarn, because there is a lurking fear, amounting almost to certainty, that an overwhelming flood of 'what on earth was I thinking of when I started THIS?' will sweep across it. And that Stella has been tried and frogged several times already in OTHER gansey projects.

It was bad enough, starting that Fireside or Holiday jacket, although in defence, what would you have done, seeing Cameron Diaz slinking around a cute English cottage in it and ensnaring Jude Law into the bargain? (Never mind that she couldn't possibly have lit that log fire and fed the resident dog, let alone worn it to bed with a bottle of wine, while still maintaining the pristinity of the white wool. That's what you call poetic licence, I think.) But wandering around Ravelry the other night, as you do, I saw the most amazing shawl pattern (Zuni, I think, but don't quote me) which was nice enough in fingering weight but which immediately shrieked to be created in a really thick, ultra-luxurious yarn that would make a positive blanket of cuddliness for the cold weather. I have almost-matching supplies of rich angora and supremely soft alpaca (one from France, one from Norway) in my favourite violet shade, which together would make a thing of beauty. They're calling softly to me now from the sitting room. 'Come here and touch us,' they are crooning. 'Find the right circular this moment. We want to be with you! Wouldn't it be lovely to start playing with us tonight?'

I've got to face up to this problem that I seem to have developed. I'm not sure what to do. I would welcome constructive suggestions for dealing with it. Two lots of constructive suggestions actually. Firstly, how to stop starting things. And secondly, how to start finishing things.

Long-Ago Places

2011-11-27T12:19:00.018Z

You know the kind of place I mean. Where life seems to be continuing in another time warp, a far off century, and as you discover it, wander through its quiet spaces, you find yourself tiptoeing, listening for voices of other times, echoes of the past. There actually are long-ago places still to be found, and you can get to them if you go looking. As we did one day last week when at last the grey clouds gave way to sunshine. A chilly wind with it, but at least sunshine. So we headed for absolutely the best place to go when you want to forget all about traffic jams and roadworks and crowded city streets, the Black Valley. It's hidden in the mountains between Killarney and Kenmare and you can really only get there by letting it happen.

We stopped by Muckross on the way past the lakes of Killarney, and were lucky enough to see the native red deer also enjoying the rare November sunshine quite close to the road.

These are really shy creatures, our red deer. You will often see sika or fallow ambling through the woods, but these magnificent animals normally inhabit the high inaccessible mountainsides, only venturing slightly closer to human habitation in the winter months. So a good view of them near to the road put DH in excellent humour.

That good humour nearly hit a severe test when we finally reached Moll's Gap, the draughty cleft at the very top of the pass where a wonderful cafe (a real Last Homely House if there ever was one) provides sustenance to exhausted travellers. In previous years it has closed after Hallow-E'en and I only remembered this as the car growled the last half mile in low gear. Oh horror! No hot coffee? No jam and cream scones? What would DH say? I crossed my fingers, and Sophy Wackles' paws too, for good luck, and held my breath.

All was well! The Avoca Cafe (which also has a splendiferous shop, selling all kinds of knitwear and jewellery and titbits) had most sensibly decided to stay open until Christmas, and had decorated its windows in festive manner to say so. Thank heaven in a crazy world for small delights like this! The view from its windows over the mountains is heartstopping.

Refreshed (and yes, we kept some raisins from the scones for Sophy Wackles, sulking in the car) we put the car in gear, pointed it sort of west, and hoped that once more the hidden path to the valley would be open. It was. Without really seeing how it happened the car was suddenly no longer on the main road, but bouncing down a steep little boreen which twisted between grey rocks and furze bushes, carrying you ever further from the everyday world. If you were very alert and organised (the kind of person who folds maps perfectly, and has a tick-list for every moment of the day, every point of interest) you probably wouldn't have a hope of getting on to that hidden road. It has, as I've said before, to happen by chance.

And so we came down at last to the Black Valley.

See what I mean about a long-ago world? This boreen surely has only known black-cloaked countrywomen carrying baskets of butter and eggs, the occasional creaking cartload of turf cut from the bog. Traffic lights? Bus lanes? Gridlock? Horns, engines, exhaust fumes? Another existence. The only sound is the call of a yearling lamb or the croak of a raven floating on wide black wings from one side of the valley to the other.

We chatted with the locals, who were pleased to pass the time of day, and then thought we had better find a drink for Sophy Wackles.

There is something deep-rooted, atavistic, in pushing underneath the overhanging boughs of ancient trees and glimpsing running water up ahead. You almost instinctively pause before leaving the shelter of the woods and check the open ground to see who or what is there, who has found this vital source before you. So must our ancestors have done, thousands of years ago, and we still retain some vestige of those survival instincts. You can't help but wonder how much of the old ways we have forgotten. Maybe it is possible to redevelop, rediscover natural knowledge that was second nature to our forefathers and foremothers? Wouldn't do any harm to try anyway. Sniff the wind instead of looking at the weather forecast on TV.? Check the good or bad feeling in a building before entering? Tune in to the wellbeing of friends and family before picking up the phone or writing an email?

The river bank was welcoming, however, and Sophy got her drink from a side pool. The waterfall was in full explosive spate after all the rain we'd had lately. For days after a downpour the water continues to flow down from the hills and increase the river's strength considerably, so we kept the small dog well back from the main torrent.

Oh look, oh look! A rainbow! Right across the valley! And it's ending right here by this rusty gate! Quick, get a spade and let's look for the crock of gold!

Thing about that legendary crock of gold, though, is that you're not meant to find it. Or if you do, you have to know what is best to be done with it. It's not like winning the lottery, it's more like a challenge to see how you will behave, how you will handle the responsibility it brings. Much better to leave it there, and make a wish on the rainbow.

The Black Valley was heavily populated at one time - as was most of Ireland - but now it's a silent place, with only faint traces of its history to be found. That was one reason we had come here at the ending of the year - it's much easier to discover those echoes of the past in the low sunlight of winter.

Can you see those traces of old lazybeds, way up there on the hillside, just below the mountain shadow? Lazybeds is rather a misnomer - these were the hardest work possible. When there were too many people competing for the good land, others had to move further and further up into the barren ground to grow their food. The soil was far thinner here, and so they gathered what earth they could and piled it in little ridges, just high enough to grow the potato crop. Those people have long gone, but the outline of the backbreaking, heartbreaking ridges remains, thrown into relief by the cold sunlight of November.

And look at this lone tree atop that great grey rock, its strong wiry roots spreading down deep and holding firm against the winds which howl down this valley in winter. There is an ancient belief in Ireland that the Cailleach Beara, or the Wise Woman sometimes transforms herself into a thorn tree atop a rock, and there watches silently over her people and her land. Go out to this valley on a dark stormy night at the full of the moon, and you might see her float from her rock and ride the wind across the Reeks to the ocean, there to tryst with Manannán mac Lir.

Here is the picture, though, that I carried away in my mind's eye, and now want to share with you.

Look at that. Can you see the tiny ruined cottage, at the end of a winding green lane, at the right hand side of the picture? Click on it if you can't, and it should come up in a larger format. Doesn't it tug at your heartstrings? The mountains to its back, and the entire valley opening out from its front door, stretching for miles, right to the Lakes of Killarney. What was it like to live there? Was it exhausting, draining, poverty-stricken? Or did they love their home and its surroundings and its simple serene lifestyle with a deep heartfelt love? Did they survive the Famine and if so, did they travel far across the ocean to a new world, one of rush and noise and crowds and anonymity? And in the blessed quiet of the night, did they often think back to the Black Valley and wonder if the stream still fell with a musical note past their cottage there?

Now that I look at the picture again, I see there is a thorn tree guarding the green lane leading to the homestead. Perhaps the Cailleach is keeping an eye on it, until such time as the family returns to its roots.

When De Next Book is done (deadline next February!!!) we are both deeply drawn to doing one called Echoes of the Past. And this lonely little cottage will be in it.

In Which Wondrous Wanderings Are Undertaken in Wales, Muffy the Yarnslayer Suffers a Mishap, and The New Autumn Yarns Are Revealed

2011-08-20T12:45:00.029+01:00

A soothing picture of the new autumn collection first. More on the yarns later, but this is to calm your fears about Muffy the Yarnslayer. She has been in the wars, and no mistake. I discovered her one afternoon in a hideous state, one eye totally wrecked, and the poor little dog in dreadful distress, trying to hide in her bed. I don't know what happened, since she was safely enclosed within the gardens, but obviously she ran into something sharp with considerable force. Rushed her to the lovely Dutch vet who lives not far away (just before the haunted castle, turn right up a very winding lane, beyond the two cottages...) and he sedated her and soothed her before turning his attention to a semi-hysterical Celtic Memory. Which is as it should be.

Several days of worry and telephoning, and the little warrior came home, now a very creditable Pirate Princess. When she's pretty enough for your sensibilities once more, I'll put on her velvet eye patch and show her off here, but not just yet. We'll let the fur grow back first.

There is definitely something to be said for not thinking too much. Muffy is now as happy as a sandboy, bouncing around and enjoying life. It was I who had to do the adjusting, but I'm getting there. And she will look very rakish with the eye patch.

Somewhat earlier than this mishap, we wandered off to Wales for a weekend. Had been wanting to try the Cork-Swansea ferry for ages, and since several things could be achieved on one trip, off we went. You sail at night, and arrive in Wales nice and early in the morning.

Gosh, I'd forgotten how twisty and winding the back roads of Wales can be - and just how much more crowded the UK is than Ireland (about 60m people as compared to 4m). This being high summer, every lane was jammed with caravans and cars proceeding at a snail's pace. And I was stressed because I wanted to get to several places before they closed...

HERE, for example. How long have I imagined getting to this little treasure cave hidden deep in the Welsh hills, and finally I'd made it!

You don't need me to tell you about the amazing Colinette colours.

Ran around wildly, trying to see everything at once, grasping at bright jewel-like colours very much like a greedy thief in Aladdin's cave. But time was marching on and we had to make somewhere ELSE before too long. And experience was already showing that short map distances could take till Tibb's Eve to traverse on a busy summer weekend in Wales. So onwards and upwards, until finally we crossed the invisible border into England and Cheshire -

And arrived HERE! Another long-wished-for-visiting-spot on the Celtic Memory memorandum pad. Metropolitan, where all good machine knitters want to spend the rest of their lives.

I'd had this recurring, maddening, problem with my trusty Brother KH230 and ribber. In that they simply didn't want to know each other. Working separately they were fine - bring them together, and disaster ensued.

Oh the simplicity of bringing your problem to the right place! Mark diagnosed the difficulty without even laying a hand on the double monster. 'Wrong clamps' he said, instantly. And went off to find the right kind. Who would have thought that the difference of a millimetre in the angle of clamps could cause such heartache and wasted yarn? Sure enough, once we'd fitted the correct ones, Carol worked several rows of perfect ribbing on the KH230 and all was well.

Of course there were other goodies to look at. Well, as we were there, and had a nice big car with us, it seemed only sensible. You would have done the same, wouldn't you? And these divine new (did you read that, no, I didn't say 'vintage', I didn't say 'pre-loved', I didn't say 'well used', I didn't say 'disaster zones') Silver Reeds were set up in the same room, so when Carol offered to show me how beautifully they worked, naturally I jumped at the chance.

Which sort of.... well, fortunately DH had gone off to photograph some bees around the back of the building (they're farmers too, Carol and Mark, isn't that nice?) so we were able to slip a couple of rather heavy long boxes into the back of the car, then hastily conceal them with the now reinstated old machines plus a few raincoats (can you see the wet ground there? It was simply throwing it down by this time).

Waving fond farewells (but I'll be back, I'll be back) we next headed for Chester, although fortunately didn't have to hit the rush-hour maelstrom that is the ring route around this lovely old town. Chester itself is exquisite, but the traffic isn't. We were aiming for a peaceful little village outside, with its own cricket pitch and venerable trees. Where my dear friend Andy, supplier extraordinaire of undyed yarns, hangs out.

Andy was very busy getting ready for a trip across the herring pond to - guess where - Sock Summit no less! He was going over to meet up with a major client of his, the lady who supplies undyed yarns to you New Worlders. So now you know where your undyeds come from, don't you! (The horse isn't going to America, though, he thought he'd hang around and wait for the hunting season to start.)

The car was getting pretty full by this time (although the packs of yarn came in handy for cushioning the delicate Silver Reed machines) and it was with a distinct sense of relief that we turned the car back towards the Welsh border. (The credit card was pretty relieved too, I can tell you. It had had some serious work to do on this outing. Lucky we don't make trips like this too often.)

If you're going to stay in Wales, then do it properly. No predictable hotel chains. Go for something with age and character.

This is Bodidris Hall near Wrexham. Every period from medieval downwards, and mentioned in the Domesday book too, I shouldn't wonder. Creaky staircases, vast panelled rooms, and the wonderful scent of beeswax everywhere. Owls calling outside at night, which delighted DH. And food to dream of. In fact the overnight charges are exceptionally reasonable, while dinner would verge on the medium to expensive, so it all balances out in the best possible way. Discovered some incredible herbs and seasonings, including - could it have been red amaranth? Somebody enlighten me, quick! Whatever it was, it added the most piquant flavour to the salad.

Next morning we popped over to Trefriw Woollen Mill

where, it being Saturday, the looms were unfortunately silent, but this was more than compensated for by the fascinating dye and fibre gardens, which held all the plants that spinners and weavers have used for centuries to create both yarn and colour.

Could have wandered through these for hours, seeing all the different plants, and reading the carefully handwritten labels telling you which one did what, and where it originated.

But it was more than time for DH to have his share of the fun on this weekend, so without further delay we headed straight for Gigrin Farm near Rhayader where he could indulge his passion for wildlife photography to the full.

The red kites are fed here at exactly the same time each day (yes, the owners do allow for winter and summer time changes, the kites don't carry watches) so around 3pm you are treated to a spectacular display which would not otherwise have been seen since the Middle Ages when these birds fulfilled a most useful function of clearing up carrion and general rubbish.

Stunning birds, aren't they? That forked tail is the quickest way to identify them overhead.

And so we wended our way, tired and happy, back to Swansea and on to the ferry home, loaded down in my case with future projects and in DH's case with thousands of digital pictures to be processed. (In fact the sea crossing was so long that he had time to do most of it on board, and process these for me too - thanks, sweetheart!)

Some of that yarn I got has already been dyed up for the new Celtic Memory Autumn Collection. It's a rather special blend this one, being superwash merino fingering with a sprinkling of delicate gold or silver throughout. Utterly beautiful when dyed up in different shades. You can see some of them waving in the breeze at the top of this post, but I'm so proud of them that I'll let you see sneak closeup previews as well.

Here is Rose Gold

and this one I have called Silver Truffle, because it reminds me of the most mouth-watering milk chocolate truffle, lightly dusted with silver leaf. Good enough to eat. I'll be listing them on eBay tomorrow.

Oh I forgot. There has been knitting! And crocheting too.

I made the South Bay Shawl for myself, and enjoyed it so much, I made one for my friend Eileen as well.

These are so quick and easy to work that they would make ideal gifts. As long as I remember that fact in the frenzy of December!

And this is the Monarch Shawl, another beautiful pattern and extremely handy accessory for throwing round your neck on cooler autumn days. Not at all difficult to knit, by the way - I am amazed at how effective such simple patterns can be if you block them strongly. Added beads to all three of these by the way - currently going through a serious bead craze.

Enough for now. Off to dye some more yarns, play with Muffy (she's been getting a lot of attention lately and is enjoying it thoroughly), and try to summon up the courage to strike up a relationship with the new Silver Reed aristocratic knitting machines. Actually I have done a little bit in that direction already. Made a rather elegant kimono jacket in black alpaca, faced with bright pink, because it didn't involve using the ribber at ALL. (You can see where my hang-up lies, if that isn't too much a mixing of metaphors. Ribbers equal trouble where Celtic Memory is concerned. It's a hang-up that will have to be taken down, shaken out, and sorted before long.) And I'll show you the kimono jacket when I've finished sewing up the facings.

And next time I promise I will tell you about breakfast with that sorcerer in the wilds of Iceland.

The Tomb of a Goddess, Lost Wells, Secret Caves, And What Blogging Has Given To You

2011-07-11T10:17:00.020+01:00

Sorry I'm a day late with this promised posting - was having breakfast with a sorcerer in the far far north of the world. No, really. Tell you about it another time

I know you all want to hear who's won the Connemara Twilight shawl kit so let's not delay but sort that out. And gosh, it isn't easy! What lovely heartfelt observations and such unerring instinct for knowing what is really valuable in life. I wish I could post shawl kits to every single one of you, but that would reduce me to beggary and I'd have to come live with all of you in turn, which might not be exactly to your liking.

I've narrowed it down to three:

Lilacs4Angels, you wrote:

I think, for me, that blogging takes us away for a bit. We travel the world through the words of others. And when we think our world is just going to fall apart for one reason or another here comes a blog from someone who's world has already fallen apart.For another day our world will stay together as we give encouragement to another to keep going.

My Heart Exposed, you described your journey

from an enforced existence of craft-less life into a world where my creative spirit and colour are my driving forces.Blogging has brought into my world a private and personal space platform for me to expose my heart. I find it interesting at times when on certain days things feel all uphill, I look back on what I wrote on that day say one, two or even six years ago. That way I can always see that despite the difficult times or uphill moments, I am actually travelling forwards never backwards. So blogging has also given me the opportunity to look at myself, value myself and have the courage to just be me. I've never had that before, I didnt even know who ME was.And that is an extremely powerful piece of knowledge to have in ones make up, I'd be lost without my little piece of the world wide web now.

And Kathleen C, you voiced the feelings of many, I think, when you said:

I have met people both virtually and in real life that I never would have connected with if not for their blogs. I have had glimpses in other people's homes, lives and countries and it has broadened my view of the world. I have been inspired to create and make and learn new techniques and skills... sometimes even if I wish I wasn't (I do NOT need to learn another hobby skill, I do NOT. But it looks like I'm going to start quilting).And that's just the expressable. The inexpressable, the sense of connection and friendship... it makes no logical sense as I certainly don't know them. I don't even comment sometimes. But these bloggers still feel like friends.

Like I said, you all deserve prizes for the way you wrote about what the world of blogging and the worldwide web have meant to you. But these three captured the essence most vividly, I think. So what the heck, the three of you get prizes! PM me if you're on Ravelry, email me if you're not. There is a link on this page for both.

I'd like to add this final point. We really are a huge force for good power in the world, we bloggers. We have the ability to influence decisions and make changes that need to be made. Don't neglect your power. If we believe we can, then we will move mountains.

And speaking of mountains, let's get back to where we left that road trip in northern Ireland, shall we? I think we left the rattly little green bus by Dunluce Castle, so climb on board and we'll clank off around by Malin Head, the northernmost point on this green isle, and cross Lough Swilly by a lovely little ferry into County Donegal.

See this huge stone circular wall looming on top of the hill? That's Grianan an Aileach, an ancient royal fort of the O'Neills, glowering down over the valleys and loughs, daring any invader to come close enough for a fight.

And here is a clever fish-eye shot of the interior (don't know how he does that). In ancient times, of course, that nice clean grass sward would have been jammed with little huts and bothies and fires and equipment, but it's still pretty evocative as it is, with the wind whistling over the ramparts and only the lone cry of a curlew to break the peace.

Now this signpost excited me very much.

Look at that name. (On some nearby signposts it was spelt Beltany, but that was fine - spelling didn't get standardised until very recently - late 19th century in some places, and when you have both Irish and English versions of place names as you do here, it's anybody's guess.) If ever I saw a clear surviving link to the ancient rituals of Beltane or Bealtaine, May Day, that's it. And it's the first such example I've seen. Most stone circles are named for the present townland where they stand. This is a rare exception. Naturally we hurled ourselves out of the car and climbed a steep lane. We were breathless by the time we got to the top and found an old gateway .

Right at the top of a lonely hill stood this massive stone circle, absolutely radiating power and the memory of ancient rituals performed here millennia ago.

'Was that one left out?' DH wondered, as we went to inspect this tall stone standing some distance from the others. Somehow I don't think so. It's at times like this you get really frustrated at not being able to put yourself back in time, to see exactly what the rituals were, and how the single great stone played its part in relation to the circle.

What do you think of this? A big mound of stones behind a house, right? Well, not quite. That untidy pile is in fact The Heapstone, the largest ancient cairn in Ireland outside the Boyne Valley. It might look recent, but believe me, it isn't. I put in this picture so you could see how close the past and present mingle in rural Ireland. Kind of nice, isn't it? But there's more. There's always more! A simply lovely traditional legend in this case. That huge cairn, you see, hides a very ancient sacred well of healing, used by the Tuatha de Danaan to cure their battle wounds. But their enemies cunningly came by night, every soldier carrying a stone, and they filled in the well and piled the stones high over it, so that next day, after a fierce conflict, the Tuatha de Danaan could not reach the healing waters, and so passed from the living world to the green hills forever.

It's worth another picture, isn't it, now that you know the full story? Wouldn't you love to dig to see if the well is still there? Because of course it must be! It has to be! Maybe if we went water divining...?

Here is a massive dolmen at Bloody Foreland. As you can see, the weather was turning slightly damp, but that, if anything, emphasised the dramatic size of this great monument to ancient hard work. Can you imagine how much effort it must have taken to raise that gigantic capstone?

Damp weather or no, Donegal was simply beautiful and I didn't want to leave. It has been such an isolated region for so long, that old traditions and customs have lingered there, untouched by modern ideas, and there is so much more to find out, to learn. Plus I didn't even get to Kilcarra, to see if there is a back door with a bin of discontinued or discarded yarns! Next time, next time... We had perforce to continue down the deeply indented west coast and into Sligo, the country of Yeats.

This dolmen was at Carrowmore, probably the largest collection of megalithic monuments outside Carnac in Brittany. But do you see that hill rising behind the dolmen, with the mound on top? No, maybe you can't see the mound at that distance. Wait a minute.

There, can you see it now? That is Knocknarea, the fabled tomb of Queen Maeve, who was herself of course a reincarnation of one of the ancient goddesses who ruled Ireland before a more patriarchal religion took over. There she lies, sword probably ready to hand if I know her, waiting for the moment when her country demands her to fight once more. Remember Yeats' poem?

The wind has bundled up the clouds high over Knocknarea

And thrown the thunder on the stones for all that Maeve can say...

Now here is somewhere completely different, the total antithesis to powerful goddesses and the old ways:

It's no good. I can't be professionally objective about this place. To put it mildly, it gives me the screaming ab-dabs. That looming, threatening bastion out there in the lake - it puts me in mind of a prison. Which it is in one way. Once you're out on that island, there is no escape until the little ferry boat chooses to take you. And yet, for many it is a place of refuge, of therapy, of peace. It's Lough Derg, of course, St. Patrick's Purgatory, where not so very long ago the faithful would starve themselves for days and nights while making the rounds of the various praying points, often on their knees. Perhaps they still do, even in this rather more self-indulgent age. I can't be objective because my own mother went there many years ago, on more than one occasion, and I remember the condition she was in when she came back. Small as I was, I hated Lough Derg with an intensity that has not, apparently, faded.

But the historian in me is interested, because like so many other pilgrimage sites in Ireland, Lough Derg is really a far older place of worship. Underneath that vast church you see on the right of the picture there are deep caves. Caves that have been officially closed and unreachable since the early 1700s when the then Pope ordered their effacement from general knowledge. In ancient times, this island was where the wise men, the druids, would come in search of enlightenment and knowledge. They would stay in the depths of these caves for several days and nights, starving themselves until they saw visions and made contact with the Otherworld. Shamans in North America would do the same thing. It became the practice in later centuries for others in search of knowledge and answers to come to the caves too, and endure the same rigorous conditions. However, the Christian church disapproved of self-education of this kind, and closed off the caves forever. It is very significant, though, that people are still drawn to that island, still stay there to fast and pray. They're following the old ways, even if they don't realise it

Onward, onward. We've miles to go yet

An hour's drive, and we're at another site of pilgrimage, the great Croagh Patrick in Mayo, where at Lammas-tide, the beginning of August, thousands climb the mountain, some in bare feet.

Even when we were there, well before Lammas, there were enthusiastic climbers making their way up the long rocky path, trodden by centuries of believers. Millennia actually, because excavations on the top have shown beyond doubt that Croagh Patrick was used for ritual celebrations from ancient times. It's rather reassuring to see the old ways still holding firm, albeit under a different name, isn't it?

The evening was drawing on as we came down into Connemara.

It would have been lovely to stay until the evening darkened into twilight and the mountains became blue and purple, but it was still a long way home. Had to make do with creating those Connemara Twilight shawl kits instead when I was safely back among the stash.

But we did stop to take this picture for you, especially for those who count The Quiet Man among their favourite movies.

Yes, this is the very bridge where John Wayne stood, and in flashback remembered his mother talking of the old days and the cottage where he had been born. Thought you'd like it.

Of Moon Skeins, Beautiful Stones and Glimpses of Scotland

2011-07-01T09:03:00.016+01:00

The moon skeins first, because you'll be wondering. We had this fun idea over on the Sock Madness group in Ravelry that we'd all go on a virtual magical mystery tour together (now that this year's madness has thankfully come to an end with a spectacular supersonic-speed win by Niella). These virtual trips are lovely because everyone can leap on the bus and we can stop anywhere in the world you want. Sometimes DH does look rather oddly at me when I come down from the study raving about the fun we've been having in some remote valley of the Himalayas, or in a yarn shop on Vancouver Island, but it is one of the great developments of the worldwide web, I think.

Anyway, the moon sheep (well how else do you get a moon skein, or indeed a moon fleece?) I suggested the bus should take a side jaunt into the hidden valley where the legendary Moon Sheep were to be found. You can only see these sheep by the light of the new moon - you know, when it's only the thinnest paring in the sky. And that's the only time you can roo the fleece as well, so you have to be quick about it. You know rooing, don't you? It's when you don't cut the fleece off, you pull out soft handfuls gently. It's how they made the yarn for the softest, finest Shetland shawls.

Everybody got so involved with moon fleece and moon sheep that I thought I'd better make a Moon Shawl. This was, in part, inspired by a simply lovely book I read recently, Twist of Gold, by Michael Morpurgo, about two Irish children who flee the Famine and journey across America to the Californian gold rush. The little girl is gifted a beautiful moon shawl by an old lady who befriends them in Boston, and they use it to shelter from the blazing sun by day, and to warm them by night, until they reach California's Grass Valley. I'd been reading the book, partly because I've travelled much of their route, but mostly because I was in London last week, interviewing the said famous writer. He is a simply lovely person, not at all affected by his fame and success (War Horse has opened on Broadway now, and Spielberg's film is due to be released in January 2012). We talked for hours, but the one thing I forgot to ask him was where he got the idea for the Moon Shawl. Michael, if you're reading this, will you tell me?

I'd never heard of a moon shawl before so I looked it up on the Net and found this exquisite antique example.

Then it seemed like a good idea to create some magical moon yarn myself.

and make a Moon Shawl too.

It's not quite finished yet. I'm using the Seaspray pattern in between the bands of plain stockinet, because it looks like the woolly backs of moon sheep grazing in their magical meadow, and the plain sections are the open land you have to creep across without being seen, to reach them.

Had to make up several of these skeins for web friends too, and of course they wouldn't be complete without their own little magical silvery project bag, would they?

All this was enormous fun, and took up a great deal of time which should have been spent working on De Next Book. But that's something we've all discovered from the worldwide web, isn't it? That we now spend far too much time enjoying ourselves in the virtual world instead of the real one?

Oh that reminds me! I almost forgot! It's my blogging anniversary around now, I'm almost sure. Let me go see. Yes, it was July 9, 2006. That's five years of posting here! And I could not have believed that I would make so many friends, discover so many new fascinating avenues of exploration, enjoy myself so much, learn to knit socks in two days flat, for heaven's sake!

Oh it's been so much fun. I'll have to give out a present. Let me look.

How about this? I've been making up some new shawl kits and this is Connemara Twilight. Sorry? Oh you want to see it out of the bag? OK.

A lovely mix of yarns, totalling 500m in all. Plenty for a shawl, stole, long scarf, even a vest. And it's yours. Well one of yours. Just tell me on the Comments what blogging (or reading other people's blogs) has brought into your life, and I'll award the Connemara Twilight Shawl Kit to somebody next week, the day after the anniversary (July 10). That all right with everybody?

Now let's get back to that virtual versus real life topic. I'd been reading too much and not travelling enough so a week or so back, DH and I took a trip up North, to explore the coasts of Antrim and Donegal. The roads are much improved these days, and it's possible to leave home around 9 and be in the Glens of Antrim for afternoon tea.

Can you see that misty line of land in the background, just visible between the sea and the clouds? That's Scotland - the Mull of Kintyre to be exact. Quite something to sit in the sunshine over tea and scones, and look at the Mull of Kintyre (somebody stop those bagpipes playing, will you?) This is the shortest sea crossing between Ireland and Scotland, and in olden times there would have been a great deal of traffic back and forth.

I wasn't quite sure how the Giant's Causeway would look. It's such a huge tourist attraction that I thought it would be a bit of a let-down.

But it wasn't. It was awe-inspiring, and utterly beautiful.

What I wasn't prepared for was the sense of happiness and peace there. It seemed quite natural to sit on those wonderful hexagonal stones and get on with the current gansey in the afternoon sunshine.

The stones are simply so lovely as they lie snugly fitted together, like a Flower Garden quilt. Some of them, worn hollow by the centuries, have little pools of rainwater, others have gentle shadings of yellow or orange from lichens, once used for dyeing yarn. I wanted to take the whole lot home with me immediately and have them in my garden to love and cherish. Fortunately for posterity, there were two main drawbacks to this plan. In the first place, each one is of enormous individual weight, and in the second place, the National Trust would have you clapped in irons in an instant. So there they lie, as they always have, through storm and sun, wind and rain.

We crossed the swaying rope bridge at Carrick-a-Rede, once used by fishermen to check their lines and pots off the sheer rocks. It's not the worst rope bridge I've been on, quite secure and sturdy, but the swaying can be a little off-putting. One imagines it would be quite frightening on a stormy day with the tide full in and the waves sending spray right over it.

From the cliffs above, you could see Rathlin Island in the distance. Another temptation, another destination to put off for another occasion. Trips like this are a constant discovery of other tangents and other paths, so that your original route becomes the centre of a positive spider's web of possibilities.

Just look at Dunluce Castle on its cliffs. Can you imagine living there, hurrying through the draughty passageways to the main hall and the welcome of a blazing fire? Dunluce was the home of the McDonnell clan until the early 1600s when, upon a large part of the kitchen falling into the sea one night, along with many of the servants, the wife of the chieftain refused to live there any longer. No pleasing some folk, is there?

Look, we have to leave it there for now. In the next posting, I'll take you into Donegal to see islands and cairns that hold strange secrets, ritual stone circles, and the tomb of Queen Maeve herself. Gotta go do some work!

Being A Tale Of The Pheasant, The Fox, The Robin and the Rabbits

2011-04-25T09:33:00.018+01:00

These baby rabbits are too young to know fear. No bigger than the palm of my hand, out of the bushes they pop, to browse on the soft green grass of the lawn. A dog wanders past, they blink at it in wonder. I come by with a rake, and they move a few feet away in respect, but then return to their grazing.

The other morning, one came adventuring right up through the rockery, and peeped in the window from behind a clump of primulas. Next thing you know, they'll be sitting up to nursery tea and wanting stories read to them.

The robins are more careful. They had their nest built, the eggs hatched and the babies being fed before we even realised they were back at the old box in the shadow of the ivy-clad tree.

DH (who is ingeniously clever at these things, whereas I wouldn't even know where to start) unobtrusively set up a camera close to the nestbox, linked to his computer, so that he could sit at his desk and press a button whenever the parent bird appeared with food for the hungry nestlings.

All done without any birds being worried or upset. And, more importantly, without attracting the attention of opportunistic predators like magpies or crows, who would be delighted with a local fast food takeaway.

The blackthorn has been amazing this year. The flowers come out before the leaves, usually around March, but with the cold weather we've been having, it was delayed, and made up for it with a really splendid show of white blossoms on bare black branches. There will be a good crop of sloes this autumn. Tongue-dryingly bitter to the taste, with the addition of plenty of sugar and a little alcohol, they make a lovely soothing winter syrup.

It's been a lovely Easter weekend here. Chill winds, but sunshine most of the time. We went out to see what could be seen.

Early morning is a good time to come across someone like this splendid dog fox on his way home across the fields. He paused, watched us narrowly for a minute, then loped off again and was lost to sight in the ditch. Doubtless his poor wife is cooped up underground in the den, dealing with a brood of fractious babies, and with no hope at all of seeing the sun and feeling the breeze on her back for another month yet.

Up the Shournagh Valley there is an old old tin shed that was once a shop for the local community. I've met middle-aged men who waxed sentimental about going in there as children, and buying toffee bars with their hard-earned pennies. (Remember penny toffee bars? I recollect being much addicted to a real tooth-cracker that had peanuts blended in, and was known as Sailor's Chew.) Last time we were here, about five years ago, it wasn't as overgrown as this, but leave a car standing in West Cork for more than a week and the brambles and ivy will have it. The bright yellow kerria japonica, though, was in full bloom, and I took a few slips, to see if they would root in my own garden, and keep the memory of the country store alive.

On that previous visit, which was in autumn, we'd climbed a venerable apple tree and brought home bagfuls of fruit in triumph. This time the poor old tree was bent double under the weight of a crushing mass of ivy, but it was still determinedly putting out its blossom on every branch that could reach the light and sunshine.

Is there anything lovelier than apple blossom in spring, promising warm summer days followed by a rich autumn? Those selfsame children who bought penny toffee bars here back half a century ago probably sneaked around to the side of the shop in October to pick up windfalls, destined for merry games of snap-apple and bobbing for apples by the fireside at Hallow-E'en.

There was an old man, bent over his walking stick, waiting to cross the clapper bridge at Ballingeary as Sophy Wackles and I came over. I apologised for keeping him waiting. 'No hurry at all, girleen, no hurry in the world,' he said in that soft West Cork accent. And off he went, at his own peaceful pace, across the ancient flat stones and into the woods for a stroll. It's a while since I've been called 'girleen', and it made me smile whenever I remembered it during the rest of the day.

Spotted this pheasant glaring at us from over a hedge, and DH immediately stopped the car to set up his long lens. After some patient waiting, the bird obligingly flapped its wings and called hoarsely, to warn any other resplendent males in the vicinity that this was his territory and no mistake about it.

Look at the graceful curve of that wing. Wouldn't you love to create a shawl with that effect? Here, have a look at the full back view:

I simply love the way those primaries curve upwards. What little female pheasant in her sensible but boring plain brown dress could resist a man like that?

It was a nice wandering sort of day, with pauses here and there.

Of course the knitting came too. This was one of those easy, mindless projects that could be dropped down and picked up without too much worry. An Aran cardigan in Noro Shirakaba (never can remember that name, wonder why?), yarn picked up at Knitting in La Jolla simply ages back.

Here is a close up of one of the fronts. I inset a pocket halfway up, where you can just distinguish the little band of moss stitch. It's going very well, but I fear I won't have enough of the yarn to complete the full cardigan. If any of you live closer to a source of Noro Shirakaba than I do (it isn't generally stocked in Ireland or, I fear, the UK) do let me know, and we can do a trade or PayPal, OK?

And then it was time to turn for home. But not at speed. You can't move at speed on the winding narrow lanes of West Cork.

You wouldn't want to hurry tomorrow's milk and cream and butter, would you?

In Which A Thorn Tree Points The Way, And A Small Bird Prefers Wool To Moss

2011-04-11T09:12:00.014+01:00

I meant to tell you last time, but there simply wasn't space. Which is why there will be a blue moon tonight, as Celtic Memory is posting again within the space of a week. Well it's not just to put in the extra bits - it's also to avoid that awful feeling when it's been let go too long, and the stories to be told, and the pictures to be shown, have piled up so high that even the thought of sitting down to post for several hours is appalling. No more. Nevermore! Going to post little and often from now on. Did I say that once before? Twice before? Anyway, the lovely story I meant to tell you last time. We had been out in North Cork on a job and were wandering home through the lanes when I bethought me to look out for lone thorn trees. This of course is for De Next Book. Of all the trees, the hawthorn possesses the richest folklore even today. You'll know the old song: All night around the thorn tree The Little People play, And men and women passing Will turn their heads away. But if your heart's a child's heart And if your eyes are clean, You need never fear the thorn tree That grows beyond Clogheen. Hawthorn comes into bloom on May Day. Or it would if the powers that be hadn't decided to change the calendar from Julian to Gregorian time back a few centuries ago (no, I'm not going into the details now, Google it if you want to, it's quite complex, involving the loss of ten days, then a change of mind, and a loss of eleven days instead, plus, believe it or not, a Feb 30 in 1712 to get it all sorted out finally, only it didn't.) So unless it's a particularly mild year, the lovely, milky-scented white blossom stars the hedgerows around the second week in May. (It's also why Twelfth Night or Women's Christmas is still celebrated, but that's another story.) You wouldn't believe how cross people were at having eleven days just snatched out of their lives. I mean, wouldn't you be? Go to bed one night, planning to plough and harrow tomorrow, plant the potatoes the day after, take the wife to market the following weekend... and then suddenly you're told 'sorry' (actually forget that, the Church never said 'sorry', wasn't its way) 'dem days are gone boy, you're going to have to hurry to catch up, you're almost two weeks behind in your work now.' Where the tarnation was I? Oh yes, the thorn tree, the fairy thorn. It's believed to possess considerable power in its own right, and also to be very much connected to the Good People. Of all the sacred wells and springs in Ireland (and we have thousands) the majority have a thorn tree growing next to them, and you'll usually find little scraps of cloth, yarn, offerings tied to its prickly branches. To damage a fairy thorn or, worse still, dig it up, is considered very bad luck indeed. And often you will see a lone thorn right in the middle of a wide ploughed field, because no farmer with any sense of tradition would dare to touch it. If you find a lone thorn growing on the edge of a rath, a lios, or fairy fort, of course, then it's doubly magical and doubly dangerous to lay aggressive hands on it. So as we were driving along, I asked DH to keep an eye out for just such a lone thorn, so we could get pictures of it. And then, over a hedge, I spied one that wasn't particularly typical, but would do for the moment, so we stopped in a farm gate. The farmer wandered out for a chat, and we explained what we were doing. 'Oh the thorn,' he said. 'I thought you were coming to see the stones.' The stones? THE STONES? What stones? 'Ah, it's The Sessions they call them. Never did know why, but that's what they've always been called.'

Look at this picture of the thorn tree. Look back there in the distance, slightly to the right of the thorn. See some dim grey shapes? Flipping 'eck, I had no idea whatsoever that they were there!

Up the lane with us, through a gate, and across a long field, never mind that the sun was setting. And gradually those strange grey shapes became larger, more definite.

Gosh, they were big. Six originally, you can see one fallen there, fourth from the left.

Here you can see the height of that end stone, the heaviest and widest of the six. Of course there is probably as much underneath the ground as there is above, so their original height would have been awe-inspiring indeed. A genuine stone row, but for what purpose? Leading where? Marking what?

Looked it up in the records as soon as we got home, where the name appeared as An Seisear or The Six. Maybe we misheard the farmer. That name would make more sense. Well thank you, thorn tree, for pointing the way. Wouldn't have spotted them without you. Yes, Celtic Memory is ashamed of herself for not knowing about An Seisear, but then, there are so many stone rows, stone circles, lone standing stones, within a stroll of home that you can't be knowing everything, I suppose.

That same day we'd passed through the lovely little village of Bruree just over the border in Co. Limerick. The name means The Seat of Kings, and certainly the kings of Munster used to live here in ancient times. It was a gathering place for bards and poets too, once or twice a year.

That ivy-covered bulk rising above the old graveyard is actually the medieval de Lacy castle, though it's not particularly recognisable. The stones and the ivy are probably old friends by now, holding each other up.

While I sat on a bench in the sunshine and dreamed of the past glories of Bruree, DH climbed nimbly up the old castle and took a picture of me, far below. Wish you'd all been there with us.

Sock Madness is proceeding apace, with the Norwegians beating everybody in terms of sheer speed. I simply do not know what they have for breakfast in the far north, but I certainly can see why the Vikings were so successful. Didn't hang around wondering about life, simply seized it with both hands.

I'm not as fast as that. Here are my Dangerous Turns, designed by the clever Maya. Love cables, and these are delightfully mirror-imaged. Using my own hand-dyed merino/bamboo in a colourway called Swirling Mists. I'd say they'll be a couple more days yet in the making. Also working on the Irish Mystery Shawl by Meagheen, which will take a lot longer, having lots and lots of stitches, not to mention those diabolic creations, nupps. But a gorgeous design, nonetheless. Using a beautiful Cashlana from Fleece Artist for that, in mossy green. Pictures when there are some worth showing.

In the meantime, I am glad to report that it is not only we humans who appreciate fine wools and the soft warmth they offer. At this time of year I usually put little handfuls of wool or dog hair out on the bushes for the birds who are busy making their nests.

Bingo! A bluetit (chickadee to you New Worlders) forthwith ceased his busy gathering of moss from the hedgerow and came straight up to investigate. 'Ooh, wool', he squeaked. 'Lovely, just what we needed for the babies. The wife will be pleased!' And he tugged and tugged energetically.

He hung upside down, determined to get the longest draw possible on the fibres.

And finally he hovered, wings beating vigorously, pulling the strands up, up and away, before flying victoriously off with his spoils. Isn't it nice to think that little nests will be cosy and warm in West Cork this spring? Go on, do the same. Put out dog hair after you've groomed out the winter undercoat. Do as my mother always did: hang a little net bag of yarn ends, scraps of wool, bright colours, from a branch, and then have fun in the autumn seeing the well-used nests which have incorporated your offerings.

Enjoy the spring. I gotta go finish some socks...

Of Brigit's Cloak, An Ancient Yew Forest, Bee Judgements and Bould Actors

2011-04-04T10:06:00.031+01:00

I should have thought of it sooner, of course. Isn't it always the way, that you have studied something for years, and yet you never apply its practicalities to your own life? That back of mine wasn't getting any better, and I was still unable to sit at the computer - or anywhere else for that matter - for more than two minutes at a time without discomfort. With time to think (a rare commodity), I remembered that the morrow was Feb 1, Brigit's Day, Candlemas, Imbolc, whatever you call it in your corner of the world. And that very day, a friendly woman who runs a great coffee house in Macroom town square, had said her family had always put out the 'Brat Bride' on the eve of her festival. I'd been checking for old customs and traditions as usual, for De Next Book, and noted this down carefully as evidence of the old ways still continuing in West Cork. Somewhere between twilight and dark, the rusty penny dropped in my own brain. Why not put out the Brat Bride myself, and see would it help the back any? (It's pronounced 'brah breed-eh' by the way.) This is a length of ribbon or cloth placed on a friendly bush on Brigit's Eve where the dew or rain can fall on it, and Brigit herself can confer power upon it as she passes. Next day it is brought back into the house, dried, and kept carefully for the year ahead, to apply to anyone suffering from pain or injury. What better to use than the Advent Lace Shawl I'd knitted along on with Zemy during December? Just the right sort of thing to appeal to Brigit, I felt.

Outside the front door it went, to be carefully draped around the bay tree which stands there in a pot. Didn't dare to place it any further afield, as the wild winds would certainly blow it to Tir na n'Og and I'd never see it again. Brought it in duly on February 1, dried it, and laid it across my bed that night. Possibly it was going to happen anyway, especially with the physiotherapy I'd been getting, but my back started to improve right away.

Now it's in a place of honour on the spinning chair, ready for the next emergency. Old ways are good.

So much recovered did I feel that we headed down to Killarney in search of a very ancient yew forest, the only one remaining in Ireland, and one of just three in Europe overall. It has all kinds of official protective status now, but for me the important thing was that it had been there back in the mists of time, when trees were highly valued and believed to be the holders of considerable magical powers. Oh of course we know better these days. How could a tree be stronger or better for us than a computer chip, for heaven's sake? What benefit could a bush possibly bestow that modern technology cannot?

Here's just a glimpse of the edge of that ancient wood, which was old when the Tuatha de Danann walked this land. You'll get more when we go back in brighter spring weather to do a serious photoshoot. But let me share with you a very very venerable quotation which I discovered recently while researching De Next Book. The speaker is Fintan the seer, who claims to his hearers that he survived the Deluge and has lived in Ireland ever since, seeing kings come and go, landscapes change, while he lives ever on. ‘One day I passed through a wood of West Munster in the west. I took away with me a red yew berry and I planted it in the garden of my court and it grew up…’ Now you can't get more west Munster than Killarney, and I think that Fintan is surely speaking here of this selfsame ancient yew wood of Reenadinna, now within Killarney National Park. It gives you a strange feeling to stand silently amid those trees and moss-covered rocks, and think how long this forest has been here. Of course the individual trees grow and die (though yew has a very long life, sometimes a thousand years), but new ones spring up from their roots or their fruit, and the forest continues in an unbroken tradition.

Here is Sophy looking suitably enigmatic, almost swallowed up in the thick moss which covers every rock and fallen branch in Reenadinna.

On the way back, called in at Muckross House where a craftsman was making the traditional straw hats for the Biddy Dancers.

Here are the Biddy Dancers themselves, executing a lively jig outside the house. They even had a brideog with them, the traditional figure which used to be carried around by children on Brigit's Day, while they begged for pennies. I should point out, in the interests of historical accuracy, that this version I saw at Muckross had been pretty well Christianised with a white dress and veil. The original type would have been roughly fashioned of straw and wrapped in a scrap of cloth. But she is holding Brigit's cross of rushes which is genuinely historic. It's not really a cross, but the very ancient symbol for the sun, used by the Sumerians among many other races. That the Irish would greet the coming of spring by making sun symbols of rushes is entirely appropriate. Now where was I? Oh yes, trees and their power. Did you know that the old Irish Brehon laws provided specially for the protection of trees? They most certainly did, and the modern Tree Preservation Order is but a poor copy. Seven species were classified as Nobles of the Wood, and to damage one of these in any way brought heavy fines. They were oak, hazel, holly, yew, ash, pine and apple. After that came the Commoners, the Lower Divisions, and the Bushes of the wood, all with their own legal protection. Heck, to remove one of the noble trees entirely brought a penalty of three milch cows with their calves. That would beggar you in ancient Ireland, and certainly make you think again about random acts of devastation. But the Brehon Laws were, above all, sensible, practical, and reflective of the life of the times. Wood was valuable, trees were important. So were bees, which provided the only source of sweetness before the coming of sugar. There was a special section of the laws known as the Bee Judgements. Isn't that nice? If you kept bees, you had to give a share of their honey every third year to your neighbours, since after all the bees had gathered pollen over their fields too. See what I mean? Practical and sensible. Enough. You're probably thoroughly sick of old Irish yew woods, not to mention the bees. On to more interesting topics. Like world famous actors, for instance.

The nice thing about pottering down by the seashore for an afternoon is that you simply never know who's going to happen by. Now you might not recognise this well-wrapped up gentleman on the skewbald, but think Brideshead Revisited, French Lieutenant's Woman, Betrayal, Lolita, The Merchant of Venice, or indeed the upcoming Borgias. Yes, it's Jeremy Irons, who lives not far away along the coast, when he has time to be in Ireland. Didn't get better pictures than this, because quite honestly, we both feel that when he's at home, he wants to be treated like one of the crowd, and that's what everyone does. Have to say though that he is an amazing rider, the best I think I've ever seen. Rides long, like an American, and stays simply glued to the saddle even at full gallop. Quite something to watch... and watch...

Knitting, knitting, knitting. Yes, it's been done - lots of it. Sock Madness is upon us once more, and so far two rounds have been completed.

Here are the Nornirs from Round Two. I love this brightly dyed yarn, a present from Zemy (she of the Advent Scarf KAL). It was perfect for the Nornirs.

And do you remember that nice Hitchhiker scarf I made some time back, in Wollmeise yarn? Well, we were dashing through Amsterdam airport a week or so ago, and I thought I saw something rather familiar just in front of me in the queue:

Look at that! What are the chances of finding two Hitchhiker scarves, both worked in Wollmeise, in the queue for the Cork flight? (The lady was a little taken aback by my enthusiasm, so I promised I wouldn't show faces, just her lovely pink version of the scarf.)

Managed to get a batch of dyeing done this weekend,

and the sun came out long enough to allow them to be photographed. You wouldn't believe how wet that grass is, and how drenched the branches above! When the next downpour came, retired to the study and put all the yarns up on eBay. Mostly merino/tencels, but a couple of merino/silks too.

Now that's it, I think. Oh no, no, I forgot! We have another sock machine! Yes, really. I know, I KNOW, but how could I pass this one by? Blessings on LizLimerick who alerted me to the devastating news that there was one for sale in Annascaul. Couldn't sleep that night! Kept waking up thinking, 'I can't, I can't. But - how can I not?'

This is when the true worth of the DH comes out. He could have said, 'You're joking!' He could have said, with truth, 'Don't you think you have enough already?' But he didn't. He hauled on his heavy coat (it was a freezing day) and went out to warm up the car. What a treasure.

And it was a freezing day. You wouldn't believe that we could get snow in March in West Cork, but we did.

It was quite eerie, driving through the tiny hamlet of Glenflesk with the grey winds whistling, and seeing the mountains towering up with their filmy white mantles.

Even the unicorn which rears up proudly on the border 'twixt Cork and Kerry had drifts of snow on his western flank, showing without doubt which way the wind was blowing.

Annascaul is the village that produced Antarctic explorer extraordinaire, Tom Crean, a mild-mannered, soft-voiced man who went out with several terrifying and fateful expeditions yet survived them all to come home, open a pub, and live peacefully ever after. What a man. Ni beidh a leitheidh aris ann.

But the sock machine, the sock machine, I hear you cry! Yes, here it is, just as I saw it first, when we arrived at the house where it was waiting.

Well could you have left that behind, turned your back and walked away? No, I thought not. The sheer weight of history (we won't talk about the weight of the machine, no, not, while my back is still delicate) would stop you in your tracks.

Almost the best thing was that Derek, here seen dismantling the stand for easier transportation to the car, actually knew its history, and had been involved in it. That makes the machine so much more intrinsically valuable. It had belonged, he explained, to an elderly lady called Hilda, who lived near them in London. She had been blind from teenage days, and had been taught by the Society for the Blind to operate this machine which they found for her. So adept did Hilda get at making socks (yes, even turning the heels, a procedure I myself haven't yet ventured to try on one of these babies) that the Society would take her to festivals and fairs to demonstrate. Isn't that something? Puts me to shame, it really does, with my pusillanimous efforts. As she became more elderly, though, Hilda's arthritis wouldn't permit her to work the machine any more, and rather than let it fall into disuse, standing ina corner of her flat, she offered it to Derek and his wife. They brought it over to Ireland, and now he wanted to sell it on to someone who would actually continue to use it.

Here is a picture of Hilda herself (who has since passed away). It's taken from Derek's computer screen, so it might look a little odd, but it's wonderful to see this courageous lady, all dressed up for a special occasion. A good life, well lived. That we may all learn from you, Hilda. And thank you, Derek, for passing on the trust.

Miraculously the cafe at Inch Strand (an amazingly long beach jutting out into the ocean for miles, they filmed the horse races for Playboy of the Western World there back in the late 50s) was open, not at all a common occurrence during a chilly Irish March, so we went in and had coffee and lemon cake. The management obligingly turned a blind eye to the fact that Sophy had come in too.

Oh the fun we had unpacking! Because not only was there the machine itself (a Harrison Sun by the way) and its mightily heavy stand (made, Derek told us, by the same Glaswegian firm that made stands for deck cannon, and I wouldn't be surprised), but several sacks of yarn cones, some beautiful antique wooden cones, set-up baskets, weights, spare ribbers, cams, and all kinds of other goodies. Look at these! Genuine old wooden stocking shapers. And sixty - yes sixty - steel DPNS, about size 2.25mm as far as I can ascertain. Yes, I'll be looking to dispose of some of the spares in due course, and will let you know. Need to work out how much yarn is on the cones, that sort of thing. But the machine works delightfully, even though it desperately needs a good clean to remove the oil and gunge of half a century or more. I think it's happy to be back in use again. They built these beauties to last, and more power to them.

Welcome to your new home, a chroi istig.

In Which Snow and Ice Cause Havoc, Malign Muscles Misbehave, But Joy Cometh When Dragons Are Discovered

2011-01-21T10:09:00.008Z

Just because you haven't heard from me doesn't mean that nuthin's been happenin'. Au contraire, Blackadder, au contraire! These have been strange and tumultuous times chez Celtic Memory.

First of all there was the distinctly unseasonal ice and snow which hit West Cork in early December and, liking the area, refused to leave. Yes, the rest of Ireland got it too, but down here in the balmy southern regions, we're unused to Arctic visits at any time of the year, let alone early December. February maybe, but even then, just for a fleeting overnight. Not week after week after week.

Of course it took its toll. Roads were deathtraps, gardens were frozen solid (we'll have to wait some time to know what survived there) and travel suddenly became more of a trial than a jaunt. Celtic Memory survived until just before Christmas when the little jeep hit a patch of black ice, waltzed attractively several times, bounced off a fence or two, and ended up facing a phalanx of shocked motorists coming in the opposite direction, all of whom, mercifully, were able to stop in time.

Mercifully also, Celtic Memory was not even bruised or shaken. Not a hint of whiplash. Fortunate indeed. Just the poor little car looking the worse for wear and needing TLC fairly urgently.

Of course it was coming up to Christmas which meant that everything that hadn't already closed down was in the process of so doing. And thus it was early January before I could receive the glad news that in fact the little jeep was a write-off. Gone, kaput, nevermore.

How on earth can you call it a write-off when it's perfectly driveable, I demanded. (no, not immediately, this was after the sitting-on-the-floor-screaming-my-head-off in-tears-of-rage-stage). This is my much-loved and loyal companion you're dismissing so lightly! But apparently there are write-offs and write-offs, and mine was an economic w-o as opposed to a mechanical w-o. Not worth the trouble, you see. Unless some loving mechanic with time on his hands thought it worth while.

Which is what happened in the end. I now have a smart little (boring little?) economical and modern model, and Little Jeep has gone back to the garage from whence it originated, there to be worked on in Jim's spare time over the next year or so.

I'll get used to it. I am fortunate to have a nice little car that runs for ever on a teaspoon of petrol, falls into a very low road tax band, and could slip unnoticed into any parking lot without arousing attention. On reflection, I think it's probably that last fact that is niggling me. Little Jeep had a lot of character. But hey, couldn't it have been worse?

Getting used to this of course necessitated a great many more shiny new projects, among them the lovely Revontuli shawl which I started with some balls of Karaoke a week and a half back. This exciting new interest necessitated my crouching for several hours one night on a small and hard three-legged wooden stool under a good light while I worked out the set up rows. Well, you know how it is, once you're settled into something, you don't feel like stopping to rest or stretch, do you?

During the night I felt twinges in my leg and vaguely thought I should probably go see my Chinese acupuncturist again sometime soon. Towards morning the pain was becoming insistent and I decided to pop along to my local health store that day to see what they might suggest. Came the dawn, I leapt out of bed, and immediately collapsed on the floor in agony, shrieking for DH to get me to the nearest source of painkillers, pdq, and the heck with alternative treatments. The most appalling muscle spasms were making walking, even moving or standing, an impossibility.

There followed an unpleasant week of lying in bed, trying to relax, getting up at intervals only to collapse back, and generally raging at life. All this, by the way, while trying to sort out the insurance on Little Jeep and negotiate for a replacement.

It is quite possible to knit while lying on your back. Which can be a good thing. Needing a serious distraction from despair, grabbed a book of Japanese patterns which had hitherto appeared somewhat daunting, picked up pad and pencil, and started to map out the instructions for a rather nice crop cable and moss stitch jacket.

Got DH to bring me some recently frogged and reskeined charcoal Shetland (farewell, half-finished St Enda, the urge had gone), and started working. These Japanese patterns are actually quite achievable, even without a word (a symbol?) of the language, once you give your mind to it, since they provide excellent schematics and charts. Got both fronts done and had started on the back by the time I was taking tentative steps again. Now determined to get on to those cute bell-shaped sleeves.

Of course other WIPs got finished during the Week of Hades too. Not just one, but two shawls from one skein of Wollmeise, howzat?

The Hitchhiker Scarf, by Martina Behm, with its lovely dragon's tail,

and the Klamath, a clever crochet design by Sarah Kukuchek.

The Revontuli is lying quietly to one side, untouched since that unwisely long evening. Soon, maybe.

Not back to normal yet, not by a long chalk. Onset can be swift, but recovery is slow. In the meantime, it has been well-nigh impossible to do anything at all on the computer unless it can be achieved inside of ten seconds. It is difficult to sit, stand, crouch, stay in any one position for long without cramping up. Movement or lying immobile are the only options. And that's why you haven't heard from me in a while. 'Twasn't that I didn't love you.

This morning, in despair at the latest batch of kind queries, I set up a laptop on a high surface and am standing at it right now, taking ten minutes at a time to post, interspersed with balletic exercises and stretching moves. Also of course hopping up and down stairs to retrieve images from the main computer, without which Celtic Memory's blog would indeed be a sorry thing. Let's see if this works.

Now the sharp-eyed among you will have noticed that the car contretemps happened before Christmas and all this angst and agony happened in January. Well, we did the only sensible thing in between, and went off to explore a strange and little known region between Arizona, Mexico and California, where unusual birds and odd locations might be found. Circle a compass around El Centro and Yuma (remember that old classic, recently remade, 3.10 toYuma?) and you'll be in more or less the right area.

Around that natural oddity, the inland Salton Sea, huge flocks of snow geese drift overhead at dawn and dusk, uttering their wonderful wild cries. (One of my favourite children's books is The Grey Goose of Kilnevin, by Patricia Lynch, about a fat little grey farmyard goose who is warned by the wise old gander, 'When ye hear the wild geese flying overhead, don't look up! Don't look up!, in case she is seized with the desire to fly far away with them. Yes, of course she does. Wouldn't you?)

This little beauty, Costa's Humming Bird, was one DH particularly wanted to see. Just look at that violet-blue! Would that I could reproduce it on a silky yarn. Maybe one day.

The wildlife was less cooperative here, but on the right you can see one of the Celtic Memory Endless Sock inventions, where a cuff is handworked at each end of a machine-knit tube, then the waste yarn in the centre cut and toes added to each side; and finally afterthought heels worked. Good fun, and only slightly longer timespan than knitting the entire pair by hand, but the technique's the thing, right?

Do you know Yuma? It's kind of fun, not least because of its history - the only reliable crossing, throughout time, of the Colorado River. That's because there was solid rock here, not just sand.

And the trains still cross it, constantly, day and night, as they have done since the dawn of the railways.

They've put a huge old beauty right in the centre of the town, to honour the connection. Isn't this a magnificent specimen?

I loved that you were able to climb right up into the cab and play at being an engine driver. Who wouldn't want to try that?

We did, have a secret mission on this trip, one which had to be kept absolutely under wraps because we weren't certain it could be pulled off successfully. It involved a dash into the California interior, lots and lots of secret emails, and the brilliant cooperation of this lady:

Ruth (Grandy to her many Ravelry friends) and I had agreed to try to set up a surprise meeting with one of Ravelry's liveliest and most energetic members, the witty and entertaining DragonYady. Those of you who have participated in Sock Madness over the years will know how the irrepressible DragonYady was always to the fore, thinking up new daft ideas, throwing out suggestions, sending us all off on harebrained missions hither, thither and yon. All this while having more than enough on her plate to cope with in everyday life. Once I'd asked DragonYady (MaryAnn) what she'd like from Ireland, and she said, simply, 'Just a visit from you.' At that time it hadn't seemed even feasible, but now we looked at the map, thought about it, then emailed Ruth. After a day or two of frantic messaging, the mission was on!

We drove across desert landscapes to the assigned town, arriving in time to find Ruth and husband Ron waiting as arranged at Barnes & Noble.

Ron is a real jewel. He accepted calmly and placidly the fact that daft knitting women were running and messaging all over the place to set up a lunch date. He acted as go-between with his cellphone, organising and timing arrivals to perfection. You got a good one there, Ruth!

Ruth and Ron had persuaded MaryAnn to meet them for lunch, but there was still the risk that she mightn't be able to come, due to family commitments. We could well have been prevented too, by fire, flood, famine or other unforeseen conditions (there were storms aplenty in that corner of the world at the time, in fact, but fortunately they didn't affect us too much). Hence the secrecy. But it all worked out.

Ruth went ahead to check that MaryAnn had arrived, and confirmed to Ron by phone. He then led the way to the restaurant, and went ahead to the table, so we could see where it was. DH took over, arriving at the table with camera clicking, and asking where a certain MaryAnn might be, as he had a message from Ireland for her. That was my cue to approach from behind while she was distracted by DH.

'MaryAnn, also known as DragonYady...'

'guess who!'

We had the most wonderful lunchtime ever, all talking, laughing, exchanging reminiscences and experiences. The incredible thing about the knitting community and Ravelry, the thing that never ceases to amaze and enthral me, is that we can meet for the first time in real life and yet already be such close friends, knowing so much about each other. It was a lovely day.

Three happy friends going their separate ways, yet always linked by an unbreakable length of yarn and a computer keyboard.

Hopefully the next time you hear from me, I'll be back at my own normal keyboard and dancing Swan Lake in my spare time. Until then, limpingly yours. (All folk remedies welcomed)

St Agnes Eve... Ah bitter chill, it was...

2010-12-05T18:00:00.015Z

In fact that feast isn't celebrated until January 21, but the way the weather has been behaving here lately, you'd be forgiven for thinking we'd jumped forward six weeks or so.

St Agnes' Eve---Ah, bitter chill it was!

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass,

And silent was the flock in woolly fold.

We'd been trudging peacefully towards the end of the year, accepting the dark evenings and looking forward to the first signs of spring in January. Doesn't really get cold down here in West Cork, as I told one impending American visitor recently (I'm so sorry, I hope you did after all bring some warm clothing!). Yet one morning, we all woke up to below zero temperatures and - was it? Could it be? Snow?

This was the view from my study window last week, and it hasn't changed since. You can't see the tiny snowflakes falling, but believe me they're there. And that spidery little magnolia out there in the middle of the lawn has its buds on, silly thing. Tuck them away again, quick!

This is what it looked like from the sitting room window this morning. Beautiful, but freezing cold. The winds have been taking turns to come from Siberia and from the Arctic, turn and turn about, easterlies and northerlies. Oh for a beaker full of the warm South...

The birds have been frantic, and so have we, trying to ensure that not one little sparrow falls victim to the Big Chill. Now I realise that for many of you, minus five is no big deal at all, and unless you have to dig your way out from under a snowdrift, it's not worth putting on an extra woolly, but remember that our birds are no more used to this weather than we are. And so the fat balls and the crumbs, the halved apples and the muesli, have been in demand. Plus fresh warm water of course. They have nothing to drink when everything is frozen hard. I wondered why their nice fresh water was disappearing so rapidly, and then discovered that the dogs were pottering out to slurp from the handy bowls outside, since their favourite ponds were iced over. Now I've put the birds' water bowls up on flowerpots

I've even had the birds tapping at my study window, that one you can see in the top picture above. I'd started leaving seeds and crumbs there in the autumn, and each freezing morning the little fluffed-up creatures are there and waiting. Got it organised now, with a dish of supplies inside, so I can add more to the windowsill outside as and when required

This little robin looks quite plump and happy, but that's because he has all his feathers fluffed up for warmth. We've hung a couple of woven birdhouses in the porch, and are keeping fingers crossed that some of the birds use them at night

I've been re-reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter too. The frightening description of living through those prairie blizzards comes a lot closer to home when you're caught in the grip of this kind of weather

Doubtless it will lift soon and we'll be back to the customary damp mild Irish winter. It had better. We're nearly out of firewood. Not prepared, I tell you, not prepared!

There hasn't been much discussion of knitting matters lately, but that doesn't mean they haven't been happening. Quite a few projects even got finished. I experienced one of those blinding moments of self-realisation when I looked around and saw just how many weary WIPs there actually were in view, not to mention all of those tucked safely out of sight and out of mind. Nauseated by the sheer number of failures, I dived in and sorted out several.

This is the Victorian Shoulderette, worked in a nice variegated wool boucle. It sits superbly on the shoulders and doesn't slip off annoyingly just when you least want it to. It had been lying unfinished for almost a year because I couldn't face working the endless sideways lace edging. Solution? Don't work the edging. Fine as it is. Job done.

And this was a machine-knit project, essayed to see if I could manage to execute cables throughout a long piece of work. I could and I did, but then left it to one side because it needed a trim of some kind and I couldn't think of one. After a lapse of a month though, the ideal trim was obvious. Work three very long lengths of i-cord (only takes minutes on a machine) and plait (braid) them together, then sew around the fronts and neck. Excellent.

The Adam's Rib Vest, aka the Newfoundland Vest, because I think I was thereabouts when the project got started, is still not finished though, nor is the Pamuya Shawl, nor yet the Pogona Shawl. What possessed me to start yet another shawl when one is unfinished? Listen, you have no idea how many more there are tucked away in boxes and baskets. Don't ask.

So the one clear idea would have to be: do not under any circumstances start another project until all (or at least nearly all) of these are done, right?

Right...

Well... it is a pretty thing, no two ways about it. Which is presumably why the Yarn Harlot called it that. And it's a cowl, which is needed right now, to keep the Celtic Memory neck warm. And I had a ball of scrumptiously soft Italian merino mousse hand-dyed in my favourite violet shade, which was sitting there feeling unused and unwanted. And I was waiting for the next day's clue in the Advent Lace Scarf KAL.

What?

Oh, well it seemed like such a nice idea at the time. Tricia started this with her local knitting group at her yarn store, and asked if I'd like to join in, never mind that I'm several thousand miles away across the herring pond on Tuesday nights which is when they get together usually. So I did. And I am. Each morning another little pdf arrives plunk in my mailbox, and I keep the knitting next to the screen so I can start immediately.

Up to Day Five now, and every day different. It's enormous fun, and also excellent practice at lacework, because there are only 54 stitches to get wrong instead of the hundreds you might have on a shawl. And Celtic Memory is pretty good at getting it wrong, mainly due to the fact that she won't read a pattern slowly and carefully but plunges right in and gets going. Only to find it necessary to frog back after Row One. Again. You'd think I'd have learned by this time, wouldn't you?

Awoke this morning to the shocked realisation that Christmas was approaching with the speed of an express train, and I hadn't fulfilled my promise of putting some yummy yarns up on eBay to enable others, more organised than I, to get their gift lists sorted. So the brief period of sunshine was put to good use in photographing tempting skeins.

Felt more like Scrooge than a joyous, open-handed yarn seller when putting these beauties out. This is (peal of bells) brushed Suri alpaca, almost weightless, soft as a fairy's touch, with a loft which would put it in the bulky category if that wouldn't be an insult to something so delicate. I love it, love every cone of it, you hear? You don't deserve it. Especially the natural soft white one. I want to keep all of that for myself. Might pull it from eBay yet.

And these are laceweight kid mohairs for shawls. A pale lavender and a hand-dyed violet to match.

Put up lots more - alpaca/silk fingering, some merino/silk, more kid mohairs. But you don't want to see them all. I mean, how boring can pictures of yarn be?

Now listen. I've had some lovely comments on various postings over the past while, and several times I've wanted to reply directly to the commenters. But I COULDN'T BECAUSE THERE WAS NO WAY OF CONTACTING THEM. You haven't enabled access on your Blogger profile, so you haven't! Elaine, who told me, wonderfully, that her husband's grandfather actually owned Rabbit Island (you remember, that gorgeous little Roan Inish lookalike down in West Cork?), I want to TALK to you. And Sharon, who remembered singing a May Day carol in her youth, CONTACT me. There is a link to my email on this page, for heaven's sake. Don't go round muttering 'that Celtic Memory, thinks she's somebody or what, never bothers to answer, why do I take the time to comment...' If your own Blogger ID has not been enabled for contact, then make the effort, enable it, and after that, do still please make contact with me directly. I LOVE talking to people (as most of you already know!) I'm wallowing in ancient customs, traditions, songs and music right now, and need all the help I can get.

In Which Publishers Are Visited, And the Ancient Magic of Trees Rediscovered

2010-11-14T10:14:00.014Z

Good morning to you! We have endured several days of wretched chilly rain and grey clouds here, days where it was almost as dark at midday as it was at midnight, and all you wanted to do was crawl back into bed and pull the patchwork quilt over your head. Spent the time skeining up Shetland yarns for eager customers (gosh, maybe it is time to start the gift knitting, do you think? Clearly some of you already have!) and trying to find where I put the half-finished Pamuya shawl so I could get ON with it.

But today - ah today is one of those for which you forgive Ireland everything! The sun is beaming in a cloudless blue sky, the fallen leaves are crisp underfoot, and there is a glittering layer of frost on everything. Distinctly chilly - I'm wearing a sheepskin jerkin I bought in the Carpathians years ago, rather too long, but I'm glad for that right now - and the dogs are coming back in after their morning beating of the bounds somewhat quicker than usual. The most basic of checks for strange intruding cats or the path a hedgehog took last night (I know, hedgehogs should be asleep by this time, but in West Cork they often potter around all year, depending on the temperature) and the dogs are gratefully back snoozing by the window in patches of sunshine

We went up to Dublin the other day, and paid a long overdue visit to this charming Georgian residence. Despite De Book, this was actually my first ever meeting with the legendary head of the publishing house, Michael O'Brien, although Richard has known him for years. We'd been emailing back and forth constantly of course (and you of all people don't need to be told how well you can get to know someone online, do you?) but now I was going to meet him in person. Loved his initial greeting:

'How do you do. I'm your publisher.'

I mean, how many times do you hear that line in your life? That's the wonderful Ide on the right, our editor on De Book. She was the most amazing combination of nanny and sergeant major, able to tell from the slightest changed note in your voice whether you needed comforting and encouraging or barked orders to Get On With It. A rare blend of qualities, but essential for a good editor, and Ide's one of the best.

We went out to the local pub for a sandwich en masse, and had a great time chatting about everything and anything, and then Richard and I called into Claire's office to talk about all the signed copies being posted out to Furrin Parts. (Did I tell you how delighted and entranced they are at all the requests for personally inscribed copies for America, Canada, the UK, France, Sweden and beyond? Normally they'd have to wait for one of the giant behemoths like Amazon.com to wake up and agree to put the title into their listings, and that probably won't happen until Tibb's Eve. So, it's delighted and entranced they are and send you their love.)

And here is the very girl who gets your online orders and sends out the books. She liaises with me on a daily basis to check for individual inscriptions, and somehow brings it all together. Claire never loses her calm, no matter how many times I bombard her with queries and forwarded questions from yourselves. Isn't it nice to see the face of the girl who sent out your copy?

She does, however, get a little worried if a book doesn't turn up on time, as happened with one or two orders. She got on to their Irish shippers, who in turn got on to the American onward deliverers, who eventually admitted that they'd had a bit of a log jam which was now being sorted out. So don't worry, yours will be there soon. We picked up another box of books to bring home, so that we can sign any new requests as they come in, and get them back to Dublin in short order. Just make sure you email or PM me when you place the order, won't you? Otherwise I just might not know, and I'd hate that.

Then it was time for Michael O'Brien and myself to have a serious discussion about De Next Book which is, as you know, to be on our ancient Irish beliefs, customs and traditions. I'd had to send in a sample chapter for discussion at the editorial meeting which finished just as we arrived. Fortunately everyone had liked the details on the Banshee and the surprising number of actual live evidence I'd managed to garner simply by going into the little market town of Macroom and asking around. (There's more coming up on that - an old gentleman has been located who has himself heard the banshee in recent times, and an elderly lady wants to talk to me about the Little People - you'll get all the inside story here first, don't worry

The trouble with Michael is that he is so knowledgeable and so interested in everything that you can quite easily spend a couple of hours going off after one fascinating side road or another. 'Enough!', I had to cry in the end. 'We can't possibly fit all this in! 'But we must!' insisted Michael. 'It's so interesting, and readers would love it.'

A topic on which we agreed wholeheartedly was that of trees, and the magical powers associated with them from time immemorial. And that's going to be one of the first areas to be explored more fully over the next few months. Of course in this part of the world you grow up knowing that rowans possess powerful magic, as do apple trees, hawthorn, yew and ash. When you start looking into the old books and documents, though, you discover wonderful details which somehow ring absolutely true in your mind. Do you know that feeling? You read something and immediately recognise it - as if it were something you had always known but had forgotten? That's old memory or folk memory working. We tend not to exercise this faculty too often these days, bombarded as we are with information that various monsters of communication think we ought to hear, but if we can get away to a silent place and look into the old sources, we can revive the skill

But the trees. The rowan or mountain ash is one of my favourites.

It's as happy hiding in the deep forest, among vaster leafy monarchs

as it is clinging to a rocky mountainside. Wherever it is to be found, it's good magic. We have strong young rowan trees encircling our land, to ward off evil. Wands of rowan were used by Druids, and the berries were considered a powerful antidote against sickness and old age (you can make a rowan jelly which is excellent with meat, but I haven't tried it yet. The blackbirds get to our berries long before I do.)

And then there is the apple. Which is the lovelier or more satisfying

the heartrending innocence of its blossom in May?

or the promise of jellies, pies and preserves contained in the glowing fruit of autumn? Apple is another powerful tree which protects and shelters, and it's always a good idea to have at least one by your home, even if it's only a miniature in a pot. If you have space, then plant an orchard. And while you're at it, try to source some of the old varieties, that are in danger of dying out through the inroads of computerised, controlled, oversprayed, overdesigned, all-of-a-size shiny products you see six-packed in supermarkets. Those abominations simply do not taste the same.

Oh, and while I think of it, I wanted to tell you that Ireland has its very own native apple type, and it's a tip rooter! That means the branches curve to the ground and take root there, just like the bramble does! That is very rare indeed. Nearly every apple tree today is propagated by grafting on to a sturdy rootstock. I must get one or two of those tip-rooters from the lovely people in the Midlands who are tracing and saving all the ancient varieties. Irish Seed Savers, that's the place.

And no, I hadn't forgotten the hawthorn, the quickthorn, the Fairy Thorn, that twisted, gnarled, indomitable survivor, bent double with the sweeping winds, yet defiantly displaying its pink or white spring blossoms and its ruby red berries of autumn. How could I?

All night around the thorn tree,

The Little People play

And men and women passing

Will turn their heads away.

But if your heart's a child's heart

And if your eyes are clean

You need never fear the thorn tree

That grows beyond Clogheen.

Up to very recent times, you would see branches of blossoming hawthorn placed over cowshed and barn doors on May Day (Beltane), and even little sprigs tucked into horses' harness, to ward off evil spirits and bring a good and fruitful year ahead. It's often said to mark the entrance to a fairy fort and it's considered sheer folly to dig one up in case you offend the Good People. Indeed, you'll still see wide fields in the Irish countryside, beautifully ploughed and tilled, with one twisted thorn tree sticking out in the middle. No sensible farmer would remove it. I like that.

The ancient Greeks considered man to be at the very top of the developed world, and animals and trees way down the list. The Celts, in contrast, saw spiritual power in all things. I think they had the right of it, myself.

Bounty of Autumn, A Buttercup Bear, and Beliefs of the Banshee

2010-10-31T10:21:00.019Z

It's Hallow E'en or Samhain this night, October 31. All over the countryside children will be dressing up as ghosts and witches and wandering around from one neighbouring house to another, wailing blood-curdlingly as they go. It's a nice custom in many ways, and although much altered by modern commercialism and international influences, it is still the acknowledgement of the Celtic New Year's Eve, when the veil between the Otherworld and ours is very thin indeed, and spirits walk abroad. That's where the original custom of dressing up as ghosts, or carving frightening faces to put in the window, came from - the reasoning was that if the real spirits passed by, they would see the lighted turnip grimaces, or notice a white wraith flitting past a front door, and leave those houses alone, since they were clearly already being dealt with.

Here is a nice picture by Daniel Maclise of Hallow E'en celebrations at Blarney in the 1830s. Some are bobbing for apples in tubs of water, some are scrying for the future, others are cracking nuts or enjoying a jig. I remember Snapapple myself - extraordinarily difficult to take a bite of a fruit that is dangling and swaying at the end of a string, especially with both hands held firmly behind your back. But if you did get a bite, that ensured good luck for the year ahead.

We loved the barm brack too - that round traditional fruit bread with special charms baked into it. The ring was the most prized, never mind that we were all far too young to consider marrying in the next twelve months. The pea, bean, stick and rag were received with laughter, but not taken very seriously. Today, unfortunately, doubtless due to health and safety regulations, only the ring remains, carefully wrapped in layers of paper, so it's immediately evident on slicing into the brack. Ah well...

Most of the orchard didn't do too well this year - we had an extraordinarily cold spring and then the driest summer on record, so the venerable trees took a year off, and why not? But this little crabapple excelled itself, the thin branches bent almost to the ground under the weight of tiny scarlet fruits

When the winds started to howl yesterday, though, and the leaves were flying everywhere, it was time to pick the bounty of autumn and see if just one little pot of spiced apple butter could not be made. Every time it's opened, that brave little tree will be celebrated.

It's time to share bounty with others too, open up the stash and let other people have a chance to work with some of the beautiful stuff I've been storing. I've been harangued by many of you about Shetland yarns, and now that we're moving inexorably towards the gift giving season, and you're all starting to get into the mood to make this a handknit year, it was decided that really some of the Shetland should be skeined up and put on eBay.

When you come to skeining them up of course, very few are exactly the same thickness.

Here, for example, are a lovely deep green, a natural white, and a rich blue, all 2/9ths which is almost fingering weight. I'd use this for socks, only I wouldn't because it might not wear that well. Better to use a Shetland/nylon blend for the knee-length kilt hose and there is plenty of that in the stash. These are better suited to lovely light but cosy winter shawls, or those divine sweaters with Fair Isle yokes.

Really fond of these two subtle tweedy Shetlands. The one above is Pine, with Maelstrom below. Finer - let me just check - yes, 2/16ths (I can't remember what that means either, did know once, but forgot - the main thing to remember is that 2/9ths is the thickest and the higher the number goes, the finer the yarn. Doesn't it have to do with dividing the 2 into the 16, which gives you 8 metres to the gram - or something? That would make sense.) Anyway these would be exquisite for traditional shawls. Even if I sell lots, I will still have enough left for myself to double up and make sweaters. One done in wide bands of each of the two shades would be good - they're close enough to make it very effective.

And this pairing is my absolute favourite - two 2/17ths Shetlands in Mist (above) and Persian (below). It will break my heart to part with even an inch of yarn from these two cones, but I can't use it all. So skeins are going up on eBay tonight or tomorrow, whenever there's a minute. Now that I think about it, it will be tomorrow, because of the night that's in it.

Now the other day I went down to Gougane to say goodbye to everyone at the cafe and hotel as they closed up for the winter. It's a strange year they work down there - non-stop round the clock from spring to autumn, and then total quiet in the darker months. That's when they catch up on everything else that had to be put on hold when all the visitors were streaming in. May you enjoy your time of leisure and sitting by the fireside!

Afterwards, Sophy Wackles and I crossed the stream on the old clapper bridge,

and went up the hillside to enjoy the beautiful clear afternoon air. Can you see the old green lane down there on the left hand side of the picture, winding away into the Back of Beyond?

The holly berries are ripening fast and were gleaming beautifully against the clear blue sky. It did your heart good to see them.

We met this splendid ram by a ford. Will you look at the style of him, with one short horn and one dramatic show-off?

And finally we came back down to the secret lake as the sun was setting over the mountains to the west.

Now this next bit may be a little too much for those allergic to cutesy stories or saccharine, so if one of those you be, then look away for the following couple of paragraphs, OK?

We went to the recycling centre yesterday (yes, after I picked the crabapples, sharp-eyed, aren't you? Doesn't take all day to strip one tiny tree). The howling winds and driving rain ceased temporarily to allow us to rush from container to container, dropping off the different items. And then, I glanced at the huge skip for total rubbish, the unreclaimable, unrecyclable kind. It was full of sodden soggy stuff as usual. But perched on top was - of all things - a small, buttercup-yellow teddy bear. All on its own. Wearing a tiny red shirt and no more against the elements.

The rain was threatening once more, and the winds were picking up again. What would you have done? Bless DH, he ran with me, and held the back of my jacket as I leaned out precariously over the drop and just managed to snatch the little creature as the clouds delightedly opened their floodgates. As we rushed back to the car, I noticed that the little fellow wasn't even wet yet. He must have been thrown there in the previous five minutes or so.

When we got home, and had regained our breath (and DH had finished making gentle fun of me), I sat him on a mossy little wall to take his picture. Then I noticed that there were some slight marks of paint or something similar on one furry foot. Otherwise he was totally new. Even the shop tag was still attached, for heaven's sake.

Call me hopelessly sentimental (don't all shout at once, I knew it already) but what kind of person throws out a buttercup-yellow teddy bear just because they spilled something on his fat little leg? Who could abandon such a jolly little fellow on top of a huge skip of rubbish? What would have happened if I hadn't come along? What would that little bear have been thinking? OK, OK, this has gone far enough, back to sensible reality.

Yes, of course there is no doubt whatsoever as to the next step. A lovely Aran sweater in warm soft wool. Mini-sized. What else would one do? But what colour, what colour, what colour? Help!

Oh, De Book, De Book! Happy to relate, it is selling extraordinarily well, and the O'Brien Press are enchanted that so many of you in other lands are ordering it too. You're petkins, the lot of you! Anybody experiencing delay in receiving their specially signed copies, I've been checking on a daily basis with the nice girl at O'Brien's. The books are sent out via DHL, a most reputable company, but delays can occur in the best regulated organisations. Rest assured that if yours really doesn't turn up, Richard and I will sign fresh copies and get them on their way. And, as usual, if anybody else wants a personally inscribed copy, make sure you let me know, with the name and address used to order, at the same time you put in the order to O'Brien's. That way I can tell them to hold that book until we can sign it for you. If you don't let me know, they might just send it out unpersonalised, and I'd hate that!

And, I'm utterly thrilled (if a little daunted) to say, it looks as though that new book, on Irish folklore and traditions, may well be in the offing. The publishers have asked for a sample few pages by next week, and I've decided to write them on the banshee.

She's a strange enigma, the banshee (bean sidhe, or fairy woman). Every single man, woman and child in Ireland knows of her, and you don't have to go very far into the countryside to find someone who either has heard her chilling wail or knows someone who has. She's been around as long as our folklore has been recorded, and probably a long time before that. Yet throughout the ages, she has totally resisted change, the kind of alteration gradually forced on, for example, the goddesses Brigit and Danu, or the ancient spirit wells by more modern religions. The banshee remains determinedly, unalterably of the Otherworld, and calls to our deepest instincts.

Just to test the water, so to speak, I started asking around in neighbouring villages over the past few days, and was astounded to find how many people who, once they were sure I wasn't trying to make fun of them, admitted to family experiences of hearing the banshee. In one rare case, the girl told me that her father in law, who was at the time in the army, was driving back from manouevres in the early hours of the morning with the rest of his battalion, in an army truck. He was at the wheel, and as they came to the outskirts of the town, he saw something strange fluttering in front of an upstairs window in a tall house. At first, he thought it was a sheet left out by accident - and it was only as they drew nearer he could see it was the shape of a wraithlike woman, all blowing robes and long hair. The lorry windows were shut, so he didn't hear anything, but drove frantically on to the barracks where his men, who hadn't seen anything, had to help him down, he was so shaken. The next morning he checked, and of course discovered that a woman had died in that house in the early hours of the morning.

It is very unusual to hear of an actual sighting, since most records are of hearing the long-drawn-out keening wail which is said to raise the hairs on the back of the neck instinctively.

I hold no personal belief one way or another on banshees, but what exasperates me beyond measure is the smug and instant solution offered by non-believers that the country folk must have heard a fox vixen wailing or a barn owl screeching. Do they really have the nerve to claim that those who live in the countryside, close to nature in all its forms, would not recognise the bark of a fox or the cry of an owl? To my mind, the hairs rising on the back of the neck is telling evidence. That can't be brought on by ordinary sounds (I remember well the same instinctive reaction happening to me one night, many many years ago, in Transylvania, sleeping in a tiny tent and hearing the howl of wolves in the next valley. It was a strange sensation to feel the hair prickling.)

Best image I can find for you (yes, it's the one from Darby O'Gill, but I think it's a pretty good representation, going on the evidence).

What is or was the banshee? And why is she as powerful an image in modern Ireland as she was in ancient times? Not (and this is the odd thing) as a sort of bogey with which to threaten children, but almost as part of everyday life, part of the family as it were. And why is it heard as often (if not more so) by complete strangers as it is by members of the family where someone is about to pass on?

Celebrate Samhain, the Celtic New Year tonight. Build up the fire, put candles in the windows, and leave out some food for beloved departed relatives. And try a game of Snapapple too. May the year ahead be full of good things for you.

Concerning An Ancient Way Over The Hills, And Cunning Transportation of De Book

2010-09-28T08:30:00.022+01:00

Well what a lot of fun we've had with the book signings! The O'Brien Press simply could not believe that so many people in America, Canada, Australia and other far off lands wanted personally signed copies. This before De Book has even reached Amazon.com! I don't think it had ever happened to them before, and they are thinking that clearly they need to pay a lot more attention to abstruse topics like 'blogging', 'knitting', 'Ravelry' and the like.

Sarah came down from Dublin with two boxloads and as we signed, I carefully ticked each one off the list I'd been keeping. (We had to have that double check, because O'Briens wouldn't know who wanted the personal inscription unless you'd told me as well.) Then we put a sticky note inside each individual copy so that there was no chance of one going to the wrong address.

Of course even as Sarah headed off again, more emails were coming in with requests from more lovely people who had ordered from the publishers but wanted an inscription too. We actually chased after her, and signed another one as she got a puncture fixed at the local garage, and the garage staff were all delighted. But then she was definitely gone (I know you think Ireland is so tiny that Cork and Dublin are only a hop, skip and jump apart, but believe me it's a good three hours' drive and that's before you hit the Dublin traffic, so it's not to be undertaken lightly). For the next batch we had to think of something else.

Enter Tall Fair Sitar Player, who happened to be coming down from Dublin on the Tuesday and going back up again on the Wednesday. I'm not giving you his real name because he might be embarrassed, but he is sort of part of the publishing family. And yes, he does both teach and play the sitar. Sigh...

Look, we can't just sign all these on the back of the car outside this locked car park, can we? Yes we can, there are no traffic wardens about.

(The Music Department of Cork University is situated in the delightfully-named area of Sunday's Well, but the narrow roads were never intended for heavy traffic and parking here is really at a premium.)

Settle down, settle down. I'll convey your good wishes to him, right? But he's spoken for, he's spoken for...

Anyway, we have now set up one of those particularly Irish arrangments known as 'going with the milk and coming back with the bread', ie that whoever is coming south from Dublin will bring additional supplies, and whoever is going back will take the personally signed books. In the meantime, I email their very helpful girl in charge of sending out orders, so that she knows to hold one until the properly ascribed text arrives. So if anybody else wants to order an individually inscribed copy for someone's Christmas present, make sure to tell me as well, so that I can set the wonderfully circumlocutory mechanism in motion. No, we haven't tried a donkey and cart yet, but I would love to. The next batch is heading up to the capital city with our editor tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. MaryJo, Kira, your copies are in there, so they should be on their way to you soon!

That's quite enough about De Book. Let's have some knitting content. Knitting has been continuing - in fact it was ideal for picking up and putting down while all this was going on.

Here's a little vest made on the knitting machine with Noro Silk Garden Sock. Two strips, joined together at the back, some little buttons for fun, and a stockinet strip (the machine won't do i-cord, but the strip curls under just fine) to finish it off. Good use for the long colour changes of Noro.

Fell madly in love with Thu's Kimono Vest when I saw it on Ravelry and determined to make it myself forthwith. As in, bought the pattern there and then, downloaded, printed out, found the yarn and needles, and cast on. All this at midnight!

Worked obsessively on it for two days and nights, in the intervals of book signings, and Sophy Wackles got a bit upset (she was upset anyway at all this to-ing and fro-ing of book reps and sitar players, but my attention being focused on something else was the final straw).

She had been sitting moodily on DH's lap, watching me work on the by now cumbersome project, and then, determinedly, climbed up on to the table, shuffled across, and lay down right on top of the knitting. Isn't that exactly like a cat? They can't stand your attention being diverted from them for a moment, but I hadn't known a dog show this annoyance before. I remonstrated, and said I couldn't really work double moss stitch with a heavy lump of fur lying on top of the piece.

Don't care. Staying here till things get back to normal.

Managed to finish the vest anyway. Isn't it delightfully simple and chic? Can't think why everyone isn't making this one.

With the onset of autumn, vests are definitely on the knitting agenda. Two down, and several more in the planning process. The Jane Thornley group on Ravelry are having an Autumn KAL on any one of her patterns, and I'm going to do a variation of the Sunset Bolero.

I've been making up some new Samhain kits for those who requested them, and will use one of them myself for the new JT vest.

This is the Samhain one, in the traditional fall colours, which would do just fine for the vest, but my mind right now is running on deep green woods and mosses, so I think I'll go for the Secret Forest colourway.

Can't wait for October 1 to start knitting this.

Yes, I'm getting to the ancient way over the hills right now! And it's all linked in together really, now that I think about it - De Book, and the green secret forest places and the old traditions and everything. Because the publishers have tentatively suggested the possibility of another book, this time on the old Irish faery traditions. Not just looking at the stories as we know them now, but going behind them to see where they really might have originated, how perceptions and attitudes changed over the centuries, and how today's funny Little People might once have been the ancient gods and goddesses of the landscape. A fair bit of research in there, but can't think of a nicer subject, can you?

And it so happened that last weekend was Gougane Sunday, the late September day when, for hundreds, probably thousands of years, people gather at the lake in Gougane Barra. Originally I suspect they came to venerate the spirits peopling the source of the mighty river Lee in this strange cirque or bowl in the hills, but in later time Christianity took over, and now Mass is celebrated in the little church on the island. What interested us though was the fact that as well as jamming the one narrow roadway into the hidden valley, people traditionally come in by the old routes over the hills and mountains. These are the paths and tracks that have been used since prehistory, and on this one day they are used again. Suddenly we needed to be there. And early was a good idea, not just for parking, but (whisper it) to enjoy some of the cafe's legendary baking as well.

We were tucked up comfortably in the old bar, enjoying coffee and freshly baked scones, when one of the family came in and pointed to one of the mountain crests towering high over the lake.

The first pilgrims had reached the top already! They would have left the valleys of Kerry several exhausting hours earlier. Refreshments forgotten, we dashed out and up a rough side road where we knew they would come in.

DH found a useful gate to lean the camera on while waiting for them to come into view.

I don't know why it should be so moving, to see those tiny figures in the wild landscape, making their way down the old mountainside route, but it was. I felt very strange indeed, witnessing an age-old tradition still reverenced today.

Sure 'twas only a bit of a stretch of the legs, said Timothy, from whose farm this group had set off. And 'twasn't too bad on the top, although you'd have to watch your footing. And then he was off again, heading down the road to Journey's End with his travelling companions.

They would all have dearly liked a sup of something, I would think, after that gruelling trek, but custom is custom, and Mass came first.

The tiny church on the island isn't very old, but there are ruins of a 17th century monastery with monks' cells there too. However, people have been coming to this hidden valley and mysterious lake around the time of the autumn equinox since back in the mists of history, to venerate far more ancient spirits. I'm glad we were there to see it still happening in today's world.

This is far older than Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, than Santiago de Compostela. This is older than time.

Of Bright Mornings, Blasket Islands, and (of course) De Book

2010-09-14T09:21:00.014+01:00

Honestly, what a lovely lovely lot of people you all are! I never expected such an outpouring of good wishes on the publication of De Book. I knew that we were a strong circle of friends, reaching out to each other from around the globe, but the friendliness and very evident delight you felt in its publication warmed my heart. And yes, brought tears to my eyes. DH, accustomed though he is to the camaraderie and close-knit ties of the blogging world, was taken aback - and as for the publishers, O'Brien Press, they were flabbergasted. I think they're going to have to take the world of blogging a little more seriously from now on.

Listen now, those of you who have ordered directly from O'Brien Press, this is for YOU. I've asked them to hold all your orders until a bundle of books can be delivered down to us for personal inscriptions thereon, which should be within the next few days. BUT - and again, BUT - they don't know which orders those are, so you will have to tell me as quickly as possible. Email, private message on Ravelry, carrier pigeon (as long as it's the Concorde species) or runner and cleft stick (Olympic standard only), as long as you let me know. WITH the name and address given on the order, since sometimes I only know you by your blog name. Oh, and if you want it dedicated to someone other than yourself, tell me that too. And anyone else thinking of having your copy sent from Ireland, and wanting it signed, do it now and let me know. I would simply hate for someone to be expecting a signed copy and not get it. (Jeanne, and Sally, I have you on the list, never fear!)

It's nice to order direct from the publisher. Not only does it support a small independent house in a world that is increasingly run by gigantic conglomerates, it also makes Ireland feel important and loved. I know they won't overcharge on international posting. (In fact I think it's usually far less expensive to send something from here to the Far Beyond than it is in the opposite direction. We go strictly by weight, whilst the rest of you tend to have basic charges, whether it's a fallen leaf or a gold ingot that's being posted.)

Angeluna was the first to post a review on Amazon! Way to go, you can tell that woman's a professional! Mind you, she'd advance ordered from O'Briens before the ink was even dry on the books. Clearly carries a field marshal's baton in her knapsack. She tells me the most ooh'd and ah'd over pictures among her friends were of the pathway through the cornfield to Kilcrea Castle and the old forgotten road through the Gearagh.

We went down to that exact spot early the other morning, to tell it all about the book and how it had a starring role therein. It was quietly pleased, and whispers rustled up and down the old road all the time we were passing underneath the interlacing branches of hazel and willow. 'Did you hear? Did you hear? We're in a book. Yes, the old road and the old ways, and everything. We're not forgotten at all, so we're not. Everyone will know about us now.'

It was a beautiful, quiet early morning. A flock of Connemaras (well, most of them were dapple grey, although I see now that none of those in this picture are) were grazing in some rough pasture by the water. Just look at this pony's perfect reflection. You can see his muzzle hasn't touched the surface yet, can't you - there isn't a ripple.

The mute swans were floating serenely among the ancient tree roots, only clue to the lost riverine forest that once shaded this whole area, making it a place of mystery and magic (OK, yes, and moonshine-making too).

Even Sophy Wackles wanted to sit there for the day, and watch the mist rise over the reedsBut there was work to do, and it's been a busy few days. So much so that on Sunday, DH being out on a job, I called a rest break and took the selfsame Sophy down to the far far west, to visit one of our absolute favourite cafes. You could well call it the Cafe at the End of the World, since it's right out on Slea Head, beyond Dingle.

Getting there is definitely half the fun. The road gets narrower and narrower, and you'll find sheep wandering along the verges, taking their own sweet time, while you keep one eye out for the first glimpse of the legendary Blasket Islands on the horizon.

I love the poignant history enshrined in these old grey drystone walls, winding right up to the top of the high hills. They hold the memory of pre-Famine times when the population of Ireland was far higher than it is now, and every scrap of land, however poor, was desperately needed to grow food. Today the people have gone, but the walls still remain, echoes of the past.

There was no time to visit the prehistoric beehive huts, nor yet the newly restored Famine Cottages. They will have to wait for another day. We finally got to Dunquin and Sophy had a little walk down the lane before I headed into the Pottery for that long-awaited coffee and fresh scone.

Here's the view from the window. A little oddly-tinted perhaps (the window glass has to withstand some pretty strong storms in winter) but you can see why it has to be a top contender for the Coffee-With-A-View award, don't you? That's The Bishop lying there in state on the right out in the Atlantic, also known as Inis Tuaisceart, one of the smaller Blaskets.

Wasn't time for a trip out to the islands either, though their lure was as irresistible as always, but in any case there was a strong wind getting up, and you do not, repeat, do not try going out to the Blaskets when the wind is up. Bad idea. And the tide was really really low too.

The small bit of road you can see in the foreground twists down to the tiny pier where you embark for the islands. But on Sunday the tide had gone so far out that the entire beach was exposed. The clear colour of the sand shows that this doesn't happen every day. I couldn't tell if that group by the water were waiting hopefully for a curragh or holding a secret ceremony. They were a long way down and ours was a long road home.

Here is the driver's view going the other way on Slea Head. In fact I took this picture from the window as I waited in a lay-by for another car to get by. It doesn't do to be in too much of a hurry when you're out at the end of the world.

Edited, later in the day, to add: Hey, the O'Brien Press have added an interactive link on the web page, so you can browse the first few pages of De Book, and, and, AND -

Through the Cornfield to Kilcrea Castle is there! Go look!

Aren't they poppets? Oh, and they've posted your review from Amazon on their page too, Angeluna! I think they simply couldn't resist such a lovely piece.

De Book Is Published, De Book is HE-E-E-E-RE!

2010-09-06T10:18:00.028+01:00

At last, the happy occasion! Oh frabjous day, callooh, callay indeed! West Cork: A Place Apart, comes into the world today, September 6, 2010.

We are so proud, you wouldn't believe it. Yes, we've both had literary children elsewhere in times past, but this is our very first one together, and it couldn't be more welcomed and loved. There is something very special about working on a book together, each knowing exactly what the other means, what he or she is aiming for. Mind you, there were plenty of 'Oh no, I don't like the way you've written that at all', and 'No, no, I wanted the landscape to say this, not say that!', but overall there were very few difficulties. And we had a really superb publishing house in O'Brien Press who kept us going when we lost confidence, didn't feel like it, were sick of the whole long drawn out process. 'It'll be beautiful,' they said calmly and confidently, and weren't they right?

Here's a bit of truth behind the picture on the bookflap, just for you, because I know you enjoy insider information.

The general brown tinge to the landscape might hint that it wasn't exactly midsummer when we took this, but in fact it was an utterly freezing day at the beginning of February last. We'd been told we simply had to get the author shots in right away, so down to our favourite place in the world we went, Brow Head, overlooking the Crookhaven peninsula. (This was where Richard lived when he first came to Ireland from France at the age of 16, it was here we met, here our parents, now no longer with us, got to know each other, here many of our fondest memories are placed. Who would have thought that after all the intervening years, all the different corners of the world, we would after all find ourselves here again where we started, publishing our first book together?)

Oh but it was a gaspingly cold day, with a wind that would take the horns off a goat. The kind of day that froze your face the second you got out of the car. And we (because DH is a perfectionist) had to crash our way through gorse bushes and brambles, lugging tripods and lenses, until we found the perfect spot.

No, of course we didn't bring another cameraman. You think DH would allow someone else to take his picture? Look more closely. His right hand is holding a camera, his left is pressing a remote control. Cool, huh?

Trouble was, he wasn't prepared to doff his heavy coat for the picture, no matter how much I nagged. 'Quick', I cried through chattering teeth. Just take it off, throw it out of the frame, and it will all be done in a second. But he refused. Me, I got acute hypothermia during the few seconds it took to capture the picture. There are a heavy padded gilet, a thick jacket, a woolly doubleknit hat and a scarf all out of sight there, and they went on again, double quick.

All your favourite places (as I know from your lovely comments on this weblog) are in the book, and a few you haven't discovered yet, whether in person or from the comfort of your armchair, wherever you are.

The cool green woodlands of Glengarriff, where you can wander for hours amidst moss and ferns and ancient trees, meeting only the spirits that protect such a lovely place.

Galley Head on its dramatic promontory, again with a guardian spirit in the shape of that black cat watching the camera so keenly. This was considered for a cover shot, but in the end it was thought that it looked too posed. Cat owners, can you imagine a feline agreeing to pose obligingly for a photoshoot? No way. That moggie was there because it was his territory and we were the intruders.

And of course the strange unearthly Cailleach Beara herself, the old Hag who stands on a lonely peninsula beyond Castletownbere, forever watching and waiting for her lover to return from the sea. She's the subject of a very famous ancient Irish poem - here's a scrap from the translation by Lady Gregory in 1919:

It is of Corca Dubhine she was, and she had her youth seven times over,and every man that had lived with her died of old age, and her grandsons and great-grandsons were tribes and races. And through a hundred years she wore upon her head the veil Cuimire had blessed. Then age and weakness came upon her and it is what she said:

It is riches you are loving now, it is not men; it was men we loved in the time we were living... When my arms are seen it is long and thin they are; once they used to be fondling, they used to be around great kings...

Whatever time of year you visit the Cailleach, you will find little scraps of heather, twisted wreaths of reeds, coins, beads, placed in and around her enigmatic presence. People from all over the world come here, sometimes perhaps simply to see a tourist sight, but almost inevitably finding themselves drawn to leaving a gift, a sign, a token. The old ways are still very strong in this part of the world.

I hope people will love this book as much as we loved creating it. Oh I'm so thrilled. I keep looking it up again, on Amazon.com, on other sites, trying to imagine I'm somebody else discovering it quite by chance. What an idiot! You'd think it was the first baby ever born, wouldn't you?

Listen, if I don't catch up on Knit Nation and tell you about the fun we had there, I'll never do it. It was way back at the end of July, for heaven's sake, and here we are in September!

The next few pictures were taken on a tiny little camera because of weight issues on flights, so please forgive if they are not up to the usual standard.

I met up with Ros and Linda, two old friends from Sock Madness. Linda and I have met at several events before now, but it was the first time ever coming face to face with Ros in real time. Isn't it funny how blogging and Ravelry can make you such close friends when you've never actually met?

And Chrispindle and I had a wonderful night wandering through the deserted streets of Kensington hunting for a restaurant. No, really, it was wonderful, although we didn't realise it at first. Long quiet roads, only the swish of expensive cars passing by. Trees rustling gently. The Albert Memorial by moonlight. The Albert Hall all lit up for performance, with just a few black-tied ushers hovering in the foyer. A splendid palace-like town house with Rolls Royces pulling up outside and footmen ushering in elegantly clad guests. And us pottering happily along the pavement talking of everything under the sun. Yes, we did find a lovely little French restaurant eventually, and had a very nice time there. But the whole evening was part of the experience.

Took a lace class with Anne Hanson and that was wonderful too. Anne is another old friend from early on in blogging, and it was simply great to meet her in person. She's a pretty fine teacher, making everything seem so simple and obvious, even down to the difference the placing of a yarnover can make in a design. Learned a lot during that hot morning session (wouldn't you know there was a heatwave in London that weekend). And Anne, it was lovely to meet you. (I was the troublesome one out there on the periphery who kept talking.)

There were some wonderful stands at Knit Nation, selling all kinds of desirables, but the queues outside the door at eleven each morning had only one preliminary goal in mind - the Wollmeise stall at the furthest end of the hall. When the door was finally opened, there was a stampede - only word for it, and I should know, I was there - all the way down those resounding wooden floors, until a hundred or more eager yarnhunters arrived panting at the Wollmeise stand.

Bless her, she had brought absolutely tons of stuff over from Germany, and the overall effect was one of dazzlement, of confusion, of total inability to choose. You found yourself darting from the blues and greens to the scarlets and oranges, from laceweights to sockweights, and back again. All around were sighs and oohs and clamberings and pilings into arms... we were very courteously offered carrier bags to stockpile our choices.

In the end, the choice was too much. I limited myself to just four. No, don't chorus in horror, honestly, if you'd been there you'd have been confuzzled too. (I'm not going to tell you how much I paid later on for a skein of Fleece Artist Seasilk.)

These ladies didn't have any such confusion issues. They were having a wonderful time, going over their purchases and making sure they hadn't missed out on any utterly unmissable colourways before finally heading off.

My good friend Sarah from Babylonglegs was there, with her divinely dyed fibres and yarns. 'Why don't you have these for sale online?' I demanded. And of course she does. Has had for ages. Why don't I check these things instead of jumping to conclusions?

The adorable Andy from Bluefaced.com was sharing a stall with Jeni of Fyberspates (the only person I know who can master a sock knitting machine just by looking at it sternly). She was happily getting on with some knitting in between hordes of customers for her gorgeous hand-dyed yarns.

Bought several pairs of very good bamboo circulars in the smaller sizes, at exceptionally good prices, from Atomic Knitting. And one of those extended crochet hooks (Tunisian?) with a cable to it, just in case I feel like refreshing my memory on that technique sometime. I shall definitely get more supplies from her online - the bamboo has been tested and come out with flying colours. Finally fell for the siren song of The Enchanted Sole - who could resist a book which shows pearl-decorated socks on the cover? - and darling darling Sandy, who had used the excuse of Knit Nation to take a whole week away from Sweden, actually gave me her copy of The Intentional Spinner. Sandy, your sock machine awaits. We just need to be on the same land mass at the same time with motorised vehicles, right?

When the credit card refused to come out for even one more airing, I called it a day and set off for a little place I know down near Covent Garden.

Now there aren't that many little places down near Covent Garden. Most places there are large and brash and designed to separate tourists from their money. But Treadwells of Tavistock Street is a delightful little anachronism - or, rather, it's a delightful little relic of former days in old London, when small independent shops were the norm, not the exception.

It's a magical bookshop - that is, it exists to supply the practitioners of magic, Wicca, what you will - and surely must have provided some of the inspiration for Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter books. Dark, mysterious, peaceful and utterly welcoming, it positively invites you to browse, relax on a battered old sofa or armchair, read this ancient text, discover the latest research on that topic, even stock up on herbs, frankincense, oils, get a new set of rune stones... I spent hours here. Outside the roar of central London on a broiling Saturday, inside, the calm of the old ways. Gave me the energy I needed to face the Tube, the train, the airport security, before at last, thankfully, arriving home to the welcoming trees and green seclusion of Inshinashingane.

What, no knitting, you cry? Well, with all this going on you'd have forgiven me for not working a single stitch, but in fact it's been busy on that front too. With The Enchanted Sole, a skein of Seasilk, and an Atomic Knitting bamboo circular to hand, I cast on for the Tristan und Isolde socks before even leaving Knit Nation. The original pattern doesn't have pearls on it, but that was clearly an oversight. Celtic Memory is into pearls at the moment and they are going on everything. Pictures when there is something worth showing.

So why, given that Knit Nation was at the end of July, and this is early September, are the socks not completed? Well, shawl-mania hit this corner of West Cork rather hard recently. Blame the Ravelers who run 10 Shawls in 2010, Small Shawl Lovers, Folklore and Fairytales, and other irresistible groups. At the moment, can't seem to stop making shawls.

Here is Shaelyn, helping me to pick blackberries, as befits a sensible shoulder shawl worked in Shetland yarn.

Here is Annis, in a heavy silk which I overdyed with blues from the original basic turquoise.

And here is Pamuya in progress. Using my own hand-dyed merino/tencel fingering weight for this, and the sampler-style stitchery is a delight to work. At least another dozen patterns waiting in the wings. When shawl mania strikes, it strikes hard. Already I have ideas for some new shawl kits to tempt those not already struck down...

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go coo over a little bookbaby cot.

Season of Misty Yarns And Mellow Blackberries

2010-08-14T13:28:00.012+01:00

One minute it's high summer, the next everything is ripening and it's inadvisable to leave the house without at least three plastic bags tucked in your back pocket. Long days of simmering, stewing, potting ahead. That's nice. Entirely the right thing to do as the circle of seasons rotates and we move towards the Celtic New Year on October 31.

While I think of it, if anybody knows a really good recipe for grape jelly that doesn't demand peeling the skin off every single tiny grape first, please let me know. Life is a bit short for that kind of thing, and you stew the skins anyway, before sieving the lot, so why, why, why? We look like having a bumper crop of sweet black grapes in the conservatory this year, and although the good folk of Macroom are now accustomed to receiving bunches at their desks, counters, front doors, there is still more than enough to make jelly. Home-made preserve surely has to be nicer than that over-jellified paste you get at breakfast stops in North America.

Had a birthday last week, and celebrated by dyeing up a whole new bunch of yarns to put up on eBay. They're up there right now if you want to go look.

One is such a gorgeous cashmere/silk laceweight that I'm rather hoping none of the watchers buy it, so I can use it myself. I called it Faery Hosting, because it's the kind of yarn the Queen of the Good People might commission to make a truly dramatic shawl for a midnight ball.

Here they are, drying in the sun...

...and here are some of them with Sophy on guard, in another location in the garden. I took this one to keep on my phone, and it shows up whenever DH rings me from home. That's nice, if I'm somewhere busy and noisy and crowded. Reminds me of the quiet serenity and green calm of Inshinashingane.

Oh that phone. Decided it would really be a good idea to have one that received emails, so went for this trendy thing called the HTC Desire. 'It's absolutely state-of-the-art,' said techie DH enthusiastically. 'Everybody is looking for one of these!'

'Can it make good phone calls?' I enquired cagily.

The shop assistant joined in. 'Look, you can link up to Twitter and Facebook!'

'Don't want Twitter and Facebook. Does it make phone calls?'

'And look at this, you can download all these apps...'

'What on earth are apps? Does it make phone calls?'

'Now this turns into a spirit level. See, you can use the phone to check that shelves are straight!'

'And this, show her this one. You can set up a mosquito repellent!'

'And the flashlight, show her the flashlight.'

'DOES IT MAKE PHONE CALLS?'

Yes, dear reader, I gave in and got this trendy cute little thingy. And have discovered totally new levels of stress since then. Oh I can push across from one brightly-coloured screen to another. I can check the weather in Beijing and Tapei. I can go from Google Earth to XE.com in the flick of a finger. Or I could if I could work out how to get online.

Phone calls continue to be a bit of a problem. The numbers are all there, transferred from Old Faithful. In fact they're all in twice, for some reason into which I have not dared to delve. But try to choose one, and nine times out of ten you choose its neighbour, and find yourself ringing Great Aunt Matilda in Ulan Bator instead of the newsdesk. Really useful tricks like speed dialling your nearest and dearest has now morphed into 'who the heck is this and why have I just rung you?'

Oh technology, oh progress, leave me be. Let me go back to the woods with my hand-carved knitting needles.

Which I did. Or to Gougane anyway. Took Sophy Wackles down to see the little stream running through the woods of holly trees and venerable oaks,

and told her she was paddling in the upper reaches of the mighty River Lee.

Sophy said that was grand, and where was lunch?

You may notice that these two pictures aren't quite as good as former ones. That's because I used the phone's own camera, dear reader. 'Gosh, you've got a really neat camera on here, look it's easy, you just...' At least I now understand (or think I understand) how some of you clever clogs on Sock Madness managed to get your pictures to the moderators while on flights, on the road, in the labour ward, whatever. I couldn't do it myself, mind you, or not yet at least. But I dimly perceive that technology has moved on to assist sock knitters (that is why it moves on, isn't it? Saw an 'app' on Ravelry the other day which made it possible to design new knitwear on your phone. While waiting for a UN conference to start, presumably, or sitting through a boring lecture.)

Where was I? Oh, in Gougane. DH, bless him, took me there for the birthday dinner. It was as divine as before, and they even put a candle on the dessert plate.

It's lemon creme brulee with a lime madeleine (be-candled) and a scoop of Murphy liqueur ice cream. What a lovely evening. Thanks, dear heart. Life is good with you.

Got an unexpected birthday gift from my mother too. My brother arrived out to the house with something tiny that he'd found while clearing out one of the rooms at the ancestral home.

At first I couldn't think what it was, and then I tried it on a piece of paper and remembered. It's my mother's buttonhole scissors that she used for all her dressmaking and machine knitting. Any good suggestions on how to restore it to usefulness once more? I know I'll lose the silvering, and I'm not worried about that, but I'd like to use it. Carrying on the tradition. Now are you going to tell me that she didn't put it there for my brother to find? Of course she did.

Is there any knitting content to this post, I hear you cry? Well of course.

The cabled crop jacket in Elann Peru Soft got FINISHED! Yes, it did, it did, and let no-one say Celtic Memory is a hopeless WIP and UFO-er, 'cause she's not. Give her time, that's all...

Here's a closeup showing the cable and lace pattern and also my pride and joy, genuine handmade Dorset buttons! I always knew how to make these, but it only occurred to me when finishing off the crop jacket that they would look very nice on it. The Peru Soft would have been too thick for the buttons, but some leftover Panda Silk was idea. Aren't they ideal? I'm going to make lots more. Maybe shank them together, so I could interchange bright buttons on jackets? So many possibilities.

Oh gosh, I have to dash. I'll have to tell you about Knit Nation and all the fun there, in the next posting. And the new shawl on the needles. And the Tristan and Isolde socks with pearls...

Concerning Secrets of Speed Knitting, Supremely Sensible Supermarkets, and The Fox That Yearned For Kneesocks

2010-06-30T12:16:00.024+01:00

I said I was going to track down the secrets of super-speedy knitting and that's exactly what I did. Got on a flight to furthest Norway (Finnmark to be precise) and went a-looking. Of course there were other aspects to the trip too. Wildife, for one thing.

The reindeer were everywhere, their big eyes reproachful as they lumbered out of our way. My landscape, not yours, they seemed to say. Take that noisy vehicle away.

This little stoat whisked across in front of us out on the Hamningberg peninsula, a place that deserves the title of The End of the World if anywhere does.

He even posed for a closeup, unable to resist the flattering temptation of a master photographer (no, no, not me, DH!)

The violet kneesocks really came into their own up there. (Jenny Lee's you may remember, from this year's Sock Madness). They were warm and fortunately so. Late May it might be in southern Europe (even Ireland) but it was still winter on the fells above Batsfjord.

This fox was totally enraptured by the same socks. 'I wonder now', he asked politely, 'would there be any chance of you making a set for myself? They would be ideal for the cold weather.' Three points here. Firstly, it is interesting he didn't consider the current icy conditions to be genuinely cold weather. Secondly, his words may have suffered a little in translation to Irish/English, for which blame this writer, not the Norwegian fox. Thirdly, if you are planning to make socks for a fox (or indeed a dog, cat, rabbit, reindeer) you need to think four, not two. And possibly adjust the toe shaping, if they're for a cat or dog rather than a fox. Just alerting you.

There were tantalising glimpses too of beautiful Lappish traditional dress dashing past in a snowy wood (I think she was shy).

The thing about this part of the world is that knitting is totally part of everyday life, and a necessary part at that, not an occupation for idle moments of amusement.

Look at this supermarket aisle in Ivalo, the northern Finnish town into which we flew before driving on into Norway. See that aisle on the left, where the woman is wheeling her trolley? Yarn, needles, and fixings, right in there with other household essentials.

And this? Now here we have a very small general store on the Finnish/Norwegian border at Utsjoki. Only the bare necessities. Which of course includes yarn. There on the right, opposite the fruit. Don't you just love these supremely sensible supermarkets? A pound of apples, two bottles of lemonade, and four balls of sock yarn, please. Certainly madam. Oh and I might as well take one of those 3mm wooden circulars too. Wouldn't want to run out.

Kirkenes is the place I remembered and shamelessly cajoled DH into revisiting. I said, wide-eyed, that it was for the scenery and the birdlife, but truthfully it was for this.

I would emphasise that this is a huge general store-cum-supermarket, selling food and drink, thermal underwear and diving gear, books and magazines, gardening equipment and spare tyres for 4 wheel drives. And it has a complete wall of yarn at one end. A whole wall!

If any of you are planning to visit Kirkenes (you might, if you're on a Midnight Sun cruise) then be warned - there is a very charming souvenir shop in the centre of the town which sells yarn as well as national dress and linen items and so on. But their yarn prices are two to three times as high as those of the Spar supermarket down on the quayside, for the same labels. I paid the equivalent of €1.40 to €1.50 each for most of the sock yarns and baby wools I bought here at Spar. That's about $1.50-$2 or thereabouts. The baby wools are almost nicer than the sock yarns - no sickly pastels for Norwegian babies, but bright vibrant primary shades, easy to see against the snow or fir trees. Yo for bright babies!

No, I hadn't forgotten. Speed knitting. This hunt was of course created by this year's Sock Madness where the Norwegian participants easily outdistanced the rest of us. I wanted to know why. And so I visited lots of yarn shops and watched and spied and asked discreet questions. Actually they were quite pleased to share their secrets and show me how they knitted.

This lady in Vadso was working on a complicated colourwork sweater for her granddaughter, and doing it at a frightening speed. She showed me. Ah, as I thought. Continental style, the yarn held over the left forefinger, not the right. Picking, not throwing. I can't do it. But yes, you can. Try again. See? But how do I purl? Like this. Like that? No, no, put the needle behind the yarn. Now! Good!

I bought one ball of really inexpensive thick yarn and a suitable circular (isn't it lovely, they have their own brand of bamboo circulars up there, appropriately named the Viking range) and worked for three days solid on mastering this new (to me) technique. Finally I thought I had it, and to celebrate cast on for a tie shawl which would be made entirely by the picking rather than the throwing technique.

In the meantime, I had packed every available corner of the car with spare yarn (well, you never know, and I did score a few balls of rare Faroese sock wool) and we had headed reluctantly back for Ivalo and home. But at the airport, what should I see in the souvenir shop?

This lady was knitting ribbed baby socks and although I had seen some speedy knitters up in Norway, this Finnish technique was supersonic! Her fingers simply flashed around the sock.

We hauled her up and made her pose in front of the shelves of tiny socks, felted boots, mittens, headbands and caps that she made for visitors to buy on their way home. Isn't that the best thing ever? To stock your shop not with mass-produced souvenirs, but your own handwork?

Huh? Oh yes, of course she was knitting by the Continental method. But so fast, so fast. And I did learn something new yet again. This is where it gets technical, so those who aren't really into knitting technique, skip the next bit. Generally when you purl, you put the yarn over the needle and then bring it in and through to make the stitch. Where she was working the purl stitches, she was bringing the yarn in from below, which is much faster - that is, bringing it under and up, not over and down, if you get me. And yes, that does create a knit stitch facing the other way if you're doing back and forth knitting rather than in the round, but so what? Knit it in the back. No worries. As long as you have uncrossed stitches, where's the problem?

OK, technical bit over. You can come back now.

The tie shawl a-la-Continental turned out superbly. It's in Knit Picks Andean Silk by the way, about a 5 or 6mm needle, I forget which. (And that cunning crochet two-colour twisted edging comes from the Traditional Danish Tie Shawl by Dorothea Fischer.) I was so pleased with it, especially as knitting it was fun and fast. And do you know something? It's wonderful to wear too. Tie it on whenever you feel the need, and you're warm without being smothered.

If you get hot, take it off or let it hang loose. Great. I love it! Consequently felt impelled to make several more by the same method, and thought I ought to share this with other knitters too, so listed a whole bundle of ideal yarns on eBay, trawled from the gigantic Celtic Memory stash.

These are the lovely homespun-style ones. They're on cones I sourced from a secret location, still with much of the original lanolin and factory dressing on them, but they're pure gold. Well, pure wool actually. They remind me most of Rowan Tweed. But nicer. Natural, denim blue, and a heathery lavender, all flecked with tiny lights of other colours, three different thicknesses, in that order, thickest to thinnest. The heathery one is about light worsted and the others go up from there.

And these are the beautiful Italian boucles. What I love about these is that the yarn and its colours do all the work. You can just whip off a quick garter stitch shawl in the simplest shape and it will look wonderful.

And finally of course the sock yarns some of which I am tempted to take off sale again and use for my own pleasure, to make little lacy shoulder shawls, to spice up whatever I'm wearing and suit the mood of the moment. If I haven't taken them off, you'll find them over on eBay. If the tweedy ones (ID 170506217549) have all gone, contact me and I might be able to skein some up for you.

The main purpose of this posting though is to alert you to several important points:

One. Never, but never neglect a close examination of Scandinavian supermarkets. Scan every shelf with a keen eye. You never know what you might find amidst the buns and the broccoli.

Two. If you want to improve your knitting speed, go Continental. Don't give me that 'Oh I couldn't possibly' defeatist line. You can, and you will. NOW!

Three. Start making shawls immediately. It could possibly become an addiction as serious as socks. And that's saying something.

Roan Inish Rediscovered

2010-06-13T12:03:00.024+01:00

Yes, we finally got there. At last the weather relented, and blue skies plus calm seas meant we were able, at long last, to set foot on the enchanted island.

Hang on, let's get a few knitting matters out of the way first, though, just to ensure that those who log on here solely and only for matters fibrous and looped will not be disappointed.

Sock Madness continued to an exciting finish, with the final winner being Erica from Oslo. Strewth that girl can tackle a pair of entrelac socks (yep, entrelac, no kidding) between breakfast and lunch, and still have time to look after the family, weed the garden, whip up something pleasant in the kitchen, and probably write out a detailed plan for world peace for all I know. I forthwith determined to learn Norwegian speed knitting and you'll hear more about that in my next posting.

This was where I called it a day. Full length, fully-fashioned knee socks, no less, with Celtic motifs on the sides and a most cunning sideways slip on the foot. They were designed by Jenny Lee, and I don't mind admitting that they nearly sent me over the edge. Gorgeous stockings, and I'm thrilled to have them to show off on state occasions, but millions of stitches, thousands of rows... it was a marathon and no mistake.

So what does one do when finally it all comes to an end for this year? Why immediately cast on another pair of socks, of course. OK, so it's an addiction. Maybe I like addiction.

These are the Rigel design from Anna Zilboorg's Socks for Sandals and Clogs. I love the way you have a plain and demure sock from the front, and then turn round and ZA-ZOOM! I added the fuchsia toe myself, thinking it gave just that extra touch of je-ne-sais-quoi. Didn't have the right yarn in the stash (do I ever?) so plied some angora-blend twice and some Shetland three times to get the two colours.

Even found time to dye up some new sock yarns but still haven't found a window of opportunity in which to list them on eBay. Tonight, tonight, I must do it. No point having all that yarn hanging around when there are eager knitters out there clamouring for it. Merino/tencel and merino/bamboo, nestling on the buttercups and daisies of an Irish June. We've waited long enough for the weather to get better here, but finally it has. Which is why we decided to try again for that elusive island.

It was a beautiful morning when we drove down yet again to the remote stretch of coastline beyond Glandore and Union Hall, hoping to find someone who would rent us a currach or kayak. Nobody around though. And no kayaks lying invitingly on the shoreline either which one might borrow casually for an hour or two.

It was so frustrating to sit on the cliffs and look across at that little silver beach and those ivy-clad ruins, so near and yet so far. It was almost close enough to swim, but that really wouldn't be advisable with the undercurrents you get on this stretch of coast. Was it going to be yet another day of disappointment?

Somewhat downhearted, we got back in the car and made the long detour inland and out again to get to Squince Harbour (it's only about half a mile if you traipse over the rocks and cliffs) and here our luck changed. DH leaned over the sea wall and saw a fisherman loading gear into his boat. Casual pleasantries were exchanged, and then DH very casually let drop how much we wanted to visit the little island. 'Sure, come along with me and I'll drop ye off on my way out to check the pots,' said the fisherman genially. 'I can pick ye up on the way back, in a couple of hours, if that would suit.'

Would it suit? Would it? We were down on the shore and in that boat before you could blink.

And so at last we came to Roan Inish. Yes, yes, yes, it's called Rabbit Island on the large scale ordnance survey map, but you can't tell me that isn't Roan Inish.

Look, even the guardian seals and the all-knowing gulls were there, watching us, ensuring we were kindred spirits and not likely to break the peace of this place.

The feeling of actually landing at last on that silver strand, of waving goodbye to the friendly fisherman, and then climbing a steep track to the grassy top of the island, knowing we were the only people there, was indescribable. A lost world, with the sea breezes blowing over it, bluebells and buttercups growing rampantly in the unmown grass. Of course we headed first for the old ruined cottages - wouldn't you? Oh, I forgot, I'm taking you along on this trip, so that's what you wanted to do too. Look, you're there, right now. Climb into the pictures, relax, breathe deeply. Now, don't you hear the gulls crying, and get the scent of the salt air?

You couldn't really see it from the shore, but from this vantage it's much clearer that there were once at least two and possibly more cottages here, facing each other across a green lane and built sideways on to the sea (as all sensible seaside cottages were until the trendy days of double glazing and superstrength picture windows). Totally quiet and peaceful now, can't your imagination just see and hear what was once there? Children shouting at play, women's voices calling, the cluck of hens and the mooing of a cow waiting to be milked. The grating sound of a currach being pulled up on the beach. The whirring of a spinning wheel at a cottage door. There was a whole community living here for centuries. Now they're gone, but the landscape is still imbued with their presence.

From the cliffs on the seaward side it's easier to see that this is actually quite a big small island, if that doesn't sound too contradictory. You could spend a good afternoon following its indented coastline. See that tiny beach up there at the top of the picture? The one that looks totally deserted?

Not deserted now. Just one castaway Celtic Memory. Wonder how many islanders came down here after a storm to search for timber, firewood, anything useful washed from a ship's deck? All islanders are natural foragers and it's not unusual to find furniture, doors, windows, even carts, fashioned from wood picked up on the shoreline.

In places the thick grass, prickly furze, and wiry heather made walking quite difficult, especially if your four little legs were rather short. Someone got rather tired and appreciated a bit of a lift now and again.

Fortunately we found a stream trickling down a gully in the cliffs and Sophy was able to clamber down the rocks and have a large and lengthy drink. Trouble was, she then decided that it was rather nice in there in the shadowy cool, and just lay down and refused to move. Now you will appreciate that when a small dog stirs up a small pool, a great deal of mud is the result. And furthermore, when said small dog is disinclined to bestir herself for the homeward journey, anyone seeking to assist in such bestirring is likely to acquire quite a bit of said mud. As was indeed the case in this instance.

The Roan Inish imagery was everywhere. You could just see Fiona picking bunches of these bluebells. I expected to see baby Jamie pushing off his coracle from a dozen tiny hidden coves we chanced upon.

And what better place to fall asleep and dream on a sunny day? The feeling everywhere was - how can I describe it - like a long-ago afternoon is the best I can do. You know that feeling?

It was very hard to leave. Those cottages cried out to be lived in once more, to be whitewashed and tidy, with sturdy thatched roofs and geraniums in the windows. The little overgrown fields wanted to be tended and dug, and planted with potatoes. The island wanted voices again, laughter and busy movement and a way of life that had endured for centuries. But our fisherman was hailing us cheerfully from the beach, and we had to go.

We'll be back, though. We'll return to you, Roan Inish, one day very soon. Promise.

A Cold Spring, Warm Socks, And Yes, That Lost Island

2010-04-19T08:59:00.018+01:00

It has indeed been some six weeks since you last heard from me. Those involved in Sock Madness won't ask why - it's been a busy time on the knitting front, involving many late-night sessions and all-too-frequent callings on the heavens to enquire why one had been so insane as to get tied up in this annual survival course yet again.

There were rather unusual Side to Side socks to be made, the brainchild of MtMom, which really challenged one's concept of how a sock is constructed, since these were made flat with a provisional cast-on and then grafted so that the toe, heel and cuff could be worked in the round. Learned quite a bit from that one.

And some challenging colourwork in the shape of Cool Beans, shown here in organic Irish fingering weight and thus (of course) christened Organic Irish Coffee. That design was created by Heatherly, aka YarnYenta, and really gave the fingers some exercise in alternating those yarns.

In between these rounds, somehow found time to dye up some new sock yarns, as well as create a new Designer Shawl Kit, this time in the Wild Roses colourway. I like these kits - everything tucked into one bag, ready for your inner designer to run wild and whip up a unique item. They take time to get ready though, and the antique brass skein winder was kept pretty busy.

The most recent round of Sock Madness brought a really delightful pattern from Taya, christened GAMS, not, as you might think, in reference to the shapely legs which they would subsequently decorate, but as an acronym for Girls Are Meaner Sometimes. (I wonder about that girl, I really do...)

Took those out to Gougane Barra in an early stage of their creation one sunny although chilly, afternoon, since they deserved a nice place for their progress picture. Here they are, resting on the thick moss which envelops everything here.

And just to show you what a wonderful, cathedral-like place these woods are, here is the entire scene, the one they didn't get to see on the Sock Madness page. You can just see the socks resting on the tree root in the foreground, dwarfed by the shadowy green immensity of the old forest.

We went up to the Poll, that remote rugged glen high up behind Gougane Barra, where once an ancient road led over the mountains to Kerry.

This old track was much used by pilgrims, pedlars, and those fleeing from pursuit, over the centuries, but now there is a safer track winding at a lower level, well away from these challenging rocks. Me, I'd take the old road any time, and if it means climbing like a monkey, well that would be good too. It was chilly out there, though, with an easterly wind funnelling up the valley - cold enough to haul out the ski headband, and find it difficult to work the stitches with frozen fingers.

Now, I hadn't forgotten. I was going to tell you this time round about that wonderful little lost island, and I will. I've been delaying, because I was hoping that I could actually get out to it first, and show you pictures of what it's like there. However, the weather has been harsh this spring in West Cork, a most unusual occurrence, and sea voyages in a kayak, no matter how short the distance, have been considered inadvisable. So I looked at it this way, to console myself. You can share the waiting, impatient time with me, know why it is we must go there, and then, when the right day dawns, we'll make that trip together. OK with you? Yes, that's the way I'd like it to happen too.

I first discovered this place when my editor suggested that one particular area was a bit vague in the book and asked for some more information. It was in fact a region I didn't know particularly well, so on a quiet day, when DH was busy elsewhere, I headed off with only Sophy Wackles for company, to explore. Down to Glandore and Union Hall and then, in the best traditions of seeking adventure, just take the by roads, keep in the general direction of the sea, and wait for what happens next.

It's a quiet, unfrequented part of West Cork, well away from the well-trodden tourist routes, with dusty laneways and plenty of grass growing in the middle of them, which is always a good sign.

We passed this old-fashioned farmyard with hens clucking outside the whitewashed shed. That simple scene is something you don't see everywhere these days, although it was common enough in my childhood. I was able to capture it just by leaning out of the car window on the way past.

Then we started to descend down towards the sea. A glittering blue sea, but don't let that deceive you, the wind chill made it feel like the North Pole. Down, down, the lane looping peacefully to cope with the gradient. Sophy Wackles was clinging to her seat resentfully, and I was feeling an increasing sense of excitement that we were coming to somewhere very special.

And then I saw it in full. A lovely little lost island, waiting there for us.

Will you look at that beach? Nobody there, deserted and empty. But at night, surely, the seals come to sing there, and the sea birds make their nests undisturbed and safe.

The lane ended in a little stone pier where we could look across to the island and see that there were ruins on it.

This is the best I was able to do with my own meagre photographic skills. Next time I'll bring DH, I promise. But look at those ruins. What are they? Who lived there?

I was seized with an uncontrollable desire to get out to that island, wander all over it, talk to it, discover its secrets. But there was a reasonable stretch of deep, icy water between us, and I have more sense than to borrow a boat (if there were one) and set out alone with nobody knowing where I was. So I had to possess my soul in patience and try to find out more

It's called Rabbit Island. A bit prosaic, but probably accurate. Back home, couldn't find anything more than that in all my archaeological and historical texts, so did a bit of telephoning round and found a man who used to live near Union Hall in childhood. He knew the island well. 'One family was still there right up into the 1970s,' he told me. 'Three brothers there were, and they made their living by fishing mostly.' When they grew older though, the brothers decided to make the move to the mainland, and left their island home. And so it has remained ever since.

Now there is a little village some two or three miles down the coast (that's as the crow flies - by road it takes about fifteen miles and a great many inland-and-out-again little lanes) which hires out kayaks in summer. Rest assured that when the weather conditions are safer, Celtic Memory will be out there like a flash. They may call it Rabbit Island on the OS maps, but we know better, don't we? It's Roan Inish, isn't it? It's a magical island

We'll go there soon, I promise. You can't want it more than I do.

Of Ravelympics, Country Buses, And A Lost Island

2010-03-02T18:26:00.015Z

Been too busy lately. Honestly, what did we all do before Ravelry? Got a lot more done that isn't being done now, that's for sure. As soon as one special event or contest finishes, another seems to start, and we're all in a constant whirlwind, saying to ourselves, 'When all this is over, I'm really going to...' Think about it. Haven't you said that lately?

I'm getting worried that there never is going to be a time when it's all sorted and there is plenty of space to catch up.

The Ravelympics, of course, took up a fair bit of time. Frogged some Rivendell socks which were going to be far too small, and also a Dogi vest (from Vicki Square's Knit Kimono) which would never have suited me anyway.

Made these Turquoise Gull Wing socks from some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn, using a gusset heel from Wendy Johnson's Toe Up book, and seriously adapting a Faux Gull Wing stitch pattern from Barbara Walker. The gusset heel is a bit fiddly to work from the toe up, but fits beautifully when it's done.

And at long last the Conwy socks got finished. About time too. These were started at the UK Ravelry Day last June for heaven's sake!

Didn't succeed in finishing the Anny Blatt jacket nor yet the Espresso jacket, but it was daft to take on so much anyway. Have sense, do! (Celtic Memory is not renowned for her sense, especially where starting new projects is concerned. Optimism triumphs over practicality every time.)

And if further proof were needed, we are now waiting for Sock Madness to start. More days of frantic hysteria! Getting fidgety in the waiting though (it tends to be that way when there is even a tiny break between high-pressure events - are we becoming hooked on pressure? Don't answer that.) Began a little neckwarmer scarf in a complicated Aran pattern just yesterday, but got totally tempted this morning by the Travelling Woman Shawl (that was your fault, Angeluna, for telling me about it, you know it was), and cast on for that this afternoon. See? no sense.

Managed to find time to dye up some new sock yarns, and get them listed on eBay (the listing takes almost as much time as the dyeing).

Merino/silks here, as well as merino/tencel and some rather nice lambswool/angora in a laceweight which would make divinely warm little neckwarmers, cowls, shawls.

I'd like to share a recent heartwarming trip with you. DH was given the job of shadowing a country bus driver on his very last trip before retirement. Jim has driven the Cork-Tralee route for forty-three years and is well known and well loved everywhere along the route.

The day started early, with a Full Irish at the bus station in Cork. (Those with high cholesterol, don't even think of enquiring about the nature of a Full Irish, ok? On this occasion it was something of a rite of passage, with extra black pudding and rashers and things like that.)

The route took them past the end of our road, so I came down to the crossroads and hopped on to share this special last day too.

You wouldn't believe the places he had to stop to allow old ladies to push packets of sandwiches or bags of biscuits through the window, friends to climb into the bus briefly to shake hands, other bus drivers to block all the traffic while they exchanged good wishes through their respective windows. One very silent woman on the bus from Macroom to Millstreet got up to leave and suddenly produced two Mars bars from her bag, putting them wordlessly down on the seat next to Jim. That brought a lump to my throat and, I imagine, to his as well.

In Millstreet town, as in several others, there was a reception committee of wellwishers, taking pictures and pressing little gifts on him.

This flag-waving friend on the Cork/Kerry border must have been watching from his window for the bus to appear round the corner. He dashed out, brandishing the Kerry colours wildly, and cheering Jim on his last run.

After forty-three years, Jim knows absolutely everybody. Even this farmer driving a slow and battered tractor in front of us. 'That's Neily,' he cried in delight, drawing abreast of the cab and slowing to hold a shouted conversation. It could only happen on these quiet country roads.

And that's not the half nor the quarter of it. The sheer number of people coming out to celebrate his last day driving the Cork-Tralee bus speaks volumes for the man and the affection he has engendered over the years.

We came down through the hills to Killarney, where fresh snow was lying on Magillicuddy's Reeks - a view that Jim has enjoyed every day of his working life.

At Killarney, sons, daughters, grandchildren were waiting, and a few got on the bus to keep him company for the last leg to Tralee.

This is one grandson squeezing out a lively tune for the end of the road to keep his grandfather cheerful (not surprisingly, Jim was getting a little choked up by this time).

He even got a police escort for the last leg, I kid you not! Flashing lights and all.

At the end of the road, Jim's wife wanted to see what I had been knitting on so busily during the bus trip. 'Well I've never seen socks done on circular needles before,' she observed in puzzlement. I told her where she could buy some, and I hope she does.

No time to tell you just now about this enchanted little lost island. I promise I'll give you all the details in the next posting. Do you know the film, Secret of Roan Inish? Well that might have been set in Donegal, but this place is an absolute dead ringer for it. Read the next instalment...

In Which A Very Long Scarf Is Hooked, Yarns Are Dyed, And Woods Walked

2010-01-17T19:21:00.013Z

Gosh, I've never known weather like it. Floods were followed by freezing, followed by snow, followed by more floods, and more snow. Roads were treacherous going on lethal, people were slipping and breaking limbs everywhere, the local councils were run off their feet (well, generally we don't have much need of snow ploughs and grit in this part of the world) and overall everybody had to stay indoors for the best part of a month.

This was the view from my study window on a typical day. It was midday by the way, not dawn or dusk.

And this was a dawn view from the upstairs sitting room. You can just see the sun trying to break through the icy fog.

Now I do realise that this petty little shimmy of less than perfect weather will make many of you laugh hollowly - especially those of you in Canada, Alaska, Maine... We, however, are so unused to it that it nearly drove us mad. One chilly night, one or two bouts of frost are all we ever get, before returning to the normal mild damp and drizzle.

So we were mightily pleased to see the sun yesterday and today. Still pretty cold, but at least there was blue sky. The roads were packed with relieved families getting out to shop, to socialise, to get the fresh air. Let's hope we've seen the last of the ice and snow. (The last of the rain? Ah don't be silly. That's a given. How do you think we keep so green?)

Oh while I think of it, a few people (including Laurie M) asked to see a closer view of the Polperro jacket, so here it is. Still quite pleased with it, and wearing it constantly (which is more than can be said for every Celtic Memory project - bet I'm not the only one with a few horrors in the closet over which endless time and money were expended).

But that project is well finished, and by way of finding something to do during those enforced days when cabin-fever threatened, I became a new pupil at Hogwarts - that is, I joined the Harry Potter Knitting & Crochet House Cup group on Ravelry. (Slytherin House of course). The first homework I undertook was for the Divinations class, where we had to make something to protect the palms of the hands.

I thought fingerless gloves would be about right, and they suited the bleak weather very well. Silk cashmere from the stash, hand-dyed in my favourite violet and used double. These are based on the lovely Cabled Fingerless Gloves by Kimberly, but I adapted the stitch count and the cable pattern a bit.

Here's the fun bit - since they emphasised protection of the palm, I put a tiny pocket on the palm of each glove, suitable for the tucking in of some powerful herb. In times of real danger, both hands can be raised with the palms outwards, thereby knocking any evil influence for six. I've hardly taken these off since completing them. Not so much to protect against bad spirits as to keep my hands warm. Why did I ever mock fingerless gloves? They're wonderful, even at the keyboard.

And then, for the Potions class, I made a Monkshood scarf. I do have this plant in my own physic garden, but at this time of year it's well underground and better off there too.

Using these blue and violet shades of mohair reminded me of how beautiful the monkshood looks in summer. It is apparently excellent as an external embrocation, but exceptionally poisonous if taken internally, so always treat it with respect. Yes, the scarf is hooked rather than knitted. Wanted to make sure I hadn't lost the skill.

Tried something new for me on this project - some delicate beading to emphasise the curving edge of the scarf. Added the beads with the final row of colour, just using a very very fine crochet hook to pull the stitch through each bead. A lot of fun. Must do some more beading.

And finally, since I'd promised faithfully that I would list the new yarns today, at noon, some dyeing had to be done.

These are in a new blend, a rather gorgeous mix of 50% superwash merino and 50% silk. The yarn has a lovely lustre, and a delectable drape. Soft sumptuous socks certainly, but I see cowls and scarves and gloves here too. Left to right, Marsh Marigold, Chocolate-Dipped Strawberry, Wild Iris, Woodland Moss, Wild Rose, and Blue Pool.

You may take this picture for granted, but it took days to achieve, waiting for a gleam of sunlight long enough to get them hung on an obliging tree and then caught swaying gently in an icy wind. Oh for spring! (Those of you digging your way out of twelve feet of snow, feel free to laugh scornfully.)

And then we have these, a right aristocratic pair. Absolute pure silk, both of them, light fingering weight or heavier laceweight, depending on your attitude, 400m to the 100g and - well, what can you say about silk except, 'Grrrr - gimme!'? Enchantress Green on the left, Bluebell Woods on the right. Love 'em both, but have a sneaking preference for the wicked green lady on the left. What a lace scarf she'd make for a Slytherin House student!

It took ages to list them (it always does) so once they were safely up on eBay, a treat was in order. I grabbed Sophy Wackles and we set off for Killarney Woods. Would you believe I haven't been able to get down there since November? Can you imagine the state of the roads after all that appalling weather? I can tell you, I've been in some war zones just after hostilities had ceased, and those roads looked a lot better than the one between Macroom and Ballyvourney. And going towards the city was no better - poor DH has to get four new tyres on his car. Fortunately a jeep can cope better, but even so it was a careful journey down to the woods.

Whenever life is trying, the woods which enclose Torc Waterfall restore the balance of things. There is something about the timeless peace of the place, the ancient hazel woods, the moss-covered rocks, that strokes the heart into calmness. There is a well-used path up to the foot of the waterfall but both Sophy and I prefer to make our way to it through the woods . So would you, I think.

There is always the chance of coming across something unexpected like this little length of old stone wall right in the middle of the trees, on its own, keeping its counsel about what it's doing there. Me, I think there is probably a private entrance leading from that dark little gap at its base to the nice warm tree behind. And very probably a leprechaun or a clurichaun tapping away inside, keeping busy with orders from the Good People for dancing slippers to see in Imbolc or Brigid's Day at the beginning of February. Gold satin for the Queen, better make sure they're ready by tomorrow night or there'll be ructions. High heeled red shoes for that wan, who does he think he is, cocking himself up like that? Where did I put those buttons? And didn't I have a bit more of that green leather left?

I know I've shown you Torc before, and indeed admitted before that the world holds many larger, more splendid examples of waterfalls. What I love about this one though is the way it is cradled in such luxuriant greenness, with ivy and brambles and bushes and trees reaching out and dipping their fingers in the crashing water all the way up to the top. It's at its best after rain, sometimes even three days after, since it takes quite a while for all the water to drain from the mountains down into the rivers.

Take the feeling of Torc to bed with you tonight, and imagine that you are tucked up snug in a little warm cabin in the woods near to the foot of the waterfall. It will make you sleep sound.

[Update. Heavens to Betsy, while I was out in the woods, half those yarns sold! Sorry if you wanted the Chocolate Strawberry or the Woodland Moss...]

West Cork Moves Closer To The Arctic Circle!

2010-01-10T20:33:00.013Z

Hooray, hooray, the Polperro gansey jacket finally got finished! Took advantage of the temporary lull that always happens just after Christmas and really got stuck into it. And of course once you concentrate, and don't get distracted by every shiny new idea that whisks in front of your mind's eye, the work does go faster. Right pleased I was to see it all done and dusted. Then we did our best to take a proper knitter's picture of it. You know, the kind you'd see on the front of a pattern, or a magazine. DH did quite a good job on it, although his photographer's eye did insist on giving Dripsey Castle a bit of the limelight as well.

This jacket is the first thing in ages to be absolutely and immediately useful. It's cosy and warm, and bright enough to cheer up the dark days of winter. And has it had some use since being finished! (That was a rhetorical question - it has!)

Because we have had a freezing snap, the like of which hasn't been seen in Ireland, let alone West Cork, for many a long year. Usually we might get a night or two dipping down to almost zero, and then back to the usually milky mild dampness. But this freeze began just before Christmas and hasn't let up since. And today it started snowing and hasn't stopped yet.
Side roads are lethally icy, main roads not much better. Birds are flocking desperately to the garden and we're kept busy refilling feeders all day and putting out dishes of water, since every normal source for them is frozen solid (the dogs keep trying to drink from the pond and looking exasperated when all they can do is lick the ice!)

This bullfinch was methodically stripping every single little forsythia bud from the bush outside the window, but you couldn't really grudge it, could you? To us the shrub might be a pretty sight in flower in spring, but to the bird, it's survival. I'm worrying about all the birds right now, when it's dark and late in the evening, and the snow is falling. We have had incredible flocks of migrants moving in from northern countries over the past few days, a sure sign that whatever it's like here, it's even worse for these little creatures up there.

We went down to Gougane Barra yesterday (on very icy roads) because we'd heard that the entire lake had completely frozen over. And sure enough, it had. A Dutch couple were skating very beautifully, but also very close to the middle of the lake, where it's more than a hundred feet deep. We tried to suggest it wasn't a very good idea but they said cheerfully that they were used to ice at home. Yes, well, the Dutch canals probably freeze solid down to their bones. You just couldn't be sure how thick this ice was out in the centre. Fortunately they survived.

Here are some of the sixth generation of Luceys, enjoying themselves safely close to the edge where they know it's only a few inches deep. The hotel is officially closed for the winter, but we were made welcome of course, as always, and given hot chocolate in the kitchen, while news was exchanged and opinions given on how long the cold weather would last.

And then Christy had to go out to make sure the Jacob rams didn't go hungry after nightfall.

Today DH had several sporting and social jobs on his schedule but they had all been cancelled, not only because of the existing bad weather but because even worse weather is forecast for tonight. However, a newspaper can't exist without pictures, so we went hunting for happy people out walking, children snowballing, that kind of thing. And in between, to see what birds and animals we might find foraging.

At this time of year, you can't possibly pass nice dry dead wood without loading up the car, can you?

Look at this bright-eyed little chap. In summertime you wouldn't have a hope of seeing him amongst all the foliage, but right now, on bare branches, and especially against a white background, he stands out so beautifully. He was more intent on feeding up, naturally enough, than bothering about a pair of nuisances in a car, so we got closer than usual.

And I would love to think that this is his house, where he is tucked up tonight. Now of course the rational adult in me knows that squirrels have dreys, not little houses in a treetrunk, but just look at that door. Well it must be a door! Can't you just see it opening a crack and a bright eye peeping out? And inside there's surely a little hallway full of warm dry brown leaves, and then a little interlaced staircase climbing up through the tree roots to a tiny sitting room above, with a black pot bellied stove, and a cosy armchair upholstered in red check gingham. And above that again, a snug little bedroom all panelled in moss, with a box bed and a big thick eiderdown. If you look closely, you might even be able to see a lattice window artfully hidden underneath that ivy. Well I think it's there anyway.

(OK, those of you who find such imaginative wanderings nauseating, you can come back now.)

I thought I'd leave you with this image. This little lost bridge at Dunisky is very dear to my heart, representing the old world and the old valley before the dam was built far downstream and the area was flooded. Once it spanned the small Buingea river and was very important in its own right.

Neither of us has ever seen it like this before, on its little islet, completely surrounded by a lake of ice. May never do so again. This kind of weather only happens every fifty years or so in this part of the world.

Wherever you are, keep warm, keep happy, feed the birds, and don't forget to look out for the tiny doors in trees near you.

The Tall Stones Beckon

2009-12-29T17:06:00.009Z

Think I've nearly got the hang of this now. Thanks to all your good advice, we should be almost getting back to normal. Probably no harm though to post little and often rather than a mega-epic every few weeks. It got so I was dreading the sheer amount of preparation that had to go into first finding the pics on DH's computer, then re-sizing and captioning them, and only then getting started on the posting.

Listen, while I think of it - I got such lovely comments and help, but in some cases I just couldn't get back to the person who I wanted to contact because she hadn't made her Blogger profile accessible. Hey, I WANT to talk to you India, whose father Alvin Tresselt wrote the original version of The Mitten, illustrated by Yaroslava. But you won't let me! This happens from time to time, and I often wonder if the person who sent such a nice comment wonders why I never made contact. Well now you know! Go check that you've left the (metaphorical) door on the latch for me, and the welcome mat out!

Here we have just some of the gift knitting which had to get done before December 25.On the left several black tubes worked on the sock machine, all awaiting tops, toes and heels. On the right and at the bottom, two pairs of children's stripy socks, ditto. A black cabled headband centre front. And at the back my honeycomb socks in that lovely Cormo yarn from my friend Louise at Tapetes de Lana in New Mexico. Someday I'm going to visit that mill. Anybody been there? Angeluna? You've been everywhere. Glad to get all those gifts out of the way. It is probably the first year ever that I've given more handmade presents than bought ones. It was a very nice feeling, but a bit hard on the neck and back muscles, to say nothing of the hands. How're you feeling after the festive season? (Sorry, Chinese friends, I know you have to wait until Feb 14, we'll share it with you, OK?)

Here is the picture I promised of one pair of the sock-machine-knitted, hand-crochet-finished wristlets drying. They're a great way of using up the leftover sock yarn, aren't they? This was the remains of balls from the Talia's Wings design in this year's Sock Madness (still one of my favourites, YarnYenta!). Must make a few dressy pairs of wristwarmers for myself. I have in mind a really dramatic graceful style with long lacy falls over the hand, in an ivory or silver yarn.

It is time and more, though, that the Polperro gansey jacket was finished. With all the gift knitting out of the way, there is little excuse (since, despite the book deadline, Celtic Memory would be knitting in any case, and if she stopped casting on for new projects, the older ones just might get done).

See, only one sleeve to go. After I photographed it at this stage, the needles were indeed brought back into play and the stitches picked up for the final run. But could I get the right number up? Could I heck as like! You see, when I did the first one, I just picked up according to received wisdom (where? Can't remember. Was it Priscilla Gibson-Roberts? Barbara Walker? EZ? Whatever) by picking up on two rows, missing one, and so on, for the distance required. When I got to the second one, after rather a long break over Christmas and all, I carefully consulted the pattern and picked up the number recommended for that. Of course I completely forgot that (a) I hadn't done that for the first sleeve and (b) that if I had, it would have been wrong, because since I'm a loose knitter, I'd done fewer rows to the shoulder than the pattern dictated. Of course I only realised this when I was several long moss-stitch rows into said sleeve and had to work out where the patterning should go.

Frogged back and picked up a second time, basing my calculations on a rapid stitch count of the first sleeve.

Ha! Did you notice the trick word in there? 'Rapid'? Of course I got the sums entirely wrong but also of course didn't notice until I was yet again several rows into the sleeve.

Third time lucky. Now working down the sleeve at top speed, to try and finish before my energy for this particularly long-drawn out project drains away.

(Not that long-drawn out when you consider some of your other WIPs, did I hear someone comment snidely? Back to your cage, you!)

Because once it's DONE, I can start on some of the other wonderful ideas that wandered into my mind while this has been on the go. Do you have those tempting visions during a long piece of work? A glimmering picture of beauty that calls to you, urges you to leave this boring mundane task and fly with it to fibre heaven? Go on, tell me I'm not the only one.

This is one of the projects that is tempting me so much at the moment. I saw it mentioned on - Knitting Daily, I think - and fell head over heels. Bought and downloaded it on the spot (don't you just love the instant gratification of immediate downloads?)

It's the Yarn Harlot's Pretty Thing cowl of course, and really Steph couldn't have thought of a more appropriate name, could she? I recently dyed up some fine laceweight kid mohair in two shades of rose pink and although I have found it really too fine for my mood to work at the moment as a single, both shades used together would look enchanting for this. (Soon, soon, Pretty Thing, only a few more miles to go with Polperro...)

Now with all the hassle over Blogger, you didn't get to share a few things that I was certain you would have enjoyed. Here is one of them, a little late, but still worthwhile.

On the south west coast, not far from Castletownshend (the home of that inimitable pair of ladies, Somerville & Ross, who wrote the wonderful Irish RM books that became a hit TV series - I remember the late great Anna Manahan as the put-upon cook, Mrs. Cadogan, especially) there are three tall standing stones at the very top of a hill. They're some way from the road, and if you catch a glance (it's a narrow winding boreen and you wouldn't want to take your eyes off it for more than a second, if that) you think at first that they must be the remains of construction work. Surely you couldn't get standing stones of that height, up there?

Because it's so far from the road, we kept putting off going up there to take pictures for De Book, but finally came one cold clear December day when wellies were donned and the trek undertaken. The first part is through very muddy fields indeed - thanks to the cattle who followed us curiously at a respectful distance - but then it starts to climb, and the stones, which have disappeared for a while behind the undulations of the terrain, suddenly appear much closer.

It's absolutely right that the old thorn tree should be there, keeping an eye on them. Bit high up and exposed for the rowan, but the fairy thorn can survive anywhere.

You're a bit out of breath when you get to the top, but isn't it worth it? Look at the height of those stones! Can you imagine what it was like when there was a full row of them? (You can see one or two fallen, and it is recorded that some Victorian Anglo-Irish gentleman in Castletownshend took a fancy to another, and simply had it uprooted and carried down in a cart to his home. Well he'd have had no luck thereafter if he did! Wouldn't be at all surprised if he came to a bad end.

As the sun dropped lower in the west behind the hill, the long black shadows of the stones were cast dramatically on the green slopes below. What an important place it must have been. Probably still is.

The Secret Solstice Road

2009-12-26T15:52:00.010Z

Well last night's posting seemed to go all right, so, much encouraged, we'll now try for the next section, shall we? Gosh, it is annoying having to keep to a limit of four images per posting. On the other hand, it does make one concentrate and really make sure they're worthwhile. Rather like the National Geographic photographers being given one day with just one roll of film instead of the usual hundreds, and being told to make every shot count. (Yes, yes, this was in the days before digital, don't be pedantic!) DH finds it very difficult to choose between pictures at the best of times, and now that he habitually shoots off a dozen or more on each opportunity, the hours spent pruning and deleting have increased enormously.

The old road this time, I think, and then, tomorrow, a knitting update. That OK with you? Here we go, then (should one offer libations to Blogger? No. Why the heck should one?)

We have had some wonderful still frosty days to follow on that dreadful rain which lasted for weeks, so very early on the morning of the Solstice we took Sophy Wackles down to Coolcower Woods, a part of the flooded Gearagh river valley, quite close to home.

Isn't this a magnificent old tree trunk, still offering shelter and life to so many mosses and ivies and probably all kinds of little creatures who tuck up snugly at night on a bed of leaves within its twisting roots? You can almost see little front doors underneath those arches, can't you? With polished door handles of beechnut, and miniscule 'Welcome' mats of plaited rushes?

Normally we walk down to the edge of the lake and then turn back. But it was different this Solstice morning. The water in this lake is affected by the dam further downriver (the reason the valley was flooded in the first place) and since that dam had released a lot of surplus water during the rainy season the previous week, the lake had almost dried up.

I had never seen this solid ground before. Where Sophy is standing is just as far as you can normally get, right at the water's edge. But on this particular morning, for the first time in many years, the old track was revealed, running across to the woodlands beyond. Those trees on slightly higher ground are normally islanded, inaccessible without a flat-bottomed boat, and even then that's a risky venture with all the hidden tree stumps underwater waiting to tear the bottom out of your craft.

Did we cross? Of course we did! You don't get offered these chances more than once and if you turn them down when they're offered, you only have yourself to blame.

It was strange roaming around and rediscovering the little pathways which were once well trodden by the community that lived in this valley. Trees and bushes of course had grown up over and around the ruins of cottages, old stone walls, and gateways. You could still make out the outline of gardens though, little fields, crossroads. The railway to Macroom used to run through here a long time ago, and we even found the old trackway, minus its sleepers and rails now of course, but still running straight as a die across the bed of the lake. (Oh Blogger, Blogger, why can't I show all these pictures?)

The rising sun was turning the horizon scarlet and then gold as we wandered around this lost forgotten world, and finally lifted itself over the horizon to celebrate the shortest day of the year.

Solstice blessings to you all. Go mbeirimid beo ar an t'am seo aris! That we may all be alive at this time again.

[Hey, hey, HEY, did you see? Did you count? I got FIVE pictures in there...]

First The Seasonal Tale of the Postman's Socks...

2009-12-25T19:13:00.006Z

Sorry it's been such a time. I had fully intended to wish you all the joys of the Solstice, and then to update on knitted gifts which have been taking up most of the time chez Celtic Memory these last few weeks. As, I imagine, they have been with you.

But Blogger had other ideas. OK, so I had adjusted to the idea that from now on, instead of dragging and dropping pictures where I wanted them to appear, I'd have to load them all, one by one, in reverse order (and thereby, perforce, planning what I was going to say in advance) and only then inputting text.

Now Blogger won't let me load more than three or at a pinch four pictures before it hangs, jams, throws up entirely incomprehensible warnings, and finally crashes. My good friend LilyMarlene says she has the same problem. Anybody got any ideas here? Stress levels reached a high last night when one might have thought that, it being Christmas Eve, one could have been winding down.

So after a fairly peaceful day (far too slippery and icy to go out, so why not enjoy a lovely time trying out a new project, a top-down boat-neck sweater in black Incense (from Elann) designed to show off a white shirt underneath, you know the style?), I've accepted the inevitable and you will therefore get, instead of one lengthy post, several short ones, spaced out over the next few days.

The plan was to update you on the gift knitting, as I said, and then talk about books, followed by an account of a lovely solstice exploration down another old road revealed by very low water levels in the lakes near home. Tonight, you're getting the gift knitting and a bit of the books. No more, because if Blogger goes b-y-minded again, I can't guarantee I won't attack the blameless screen on my computer with an (empty) Chardonnay bottle.

There are many books laid out for the festive season by the fireplace in the upstairs sitting room. A Christmas Carol, of course, A Child's Christmas in Wales, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, The Dark is Rising, The Children of Green Knowe, Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. This year, however, I think my absolute favourite has to be The Mitten by Jan Brett.

I'm sure you know it well, but this anniversary edition is so exquisite I am charmed afresh every time I turn over the pages. Just look at the granny knitting by the porcelain stove, and Nicki bringing armsful of white wool for her to make the special mittens. Every page is a delight for the detail of the Ukranian countryside and lifestyle, not to mention the animals. Illustrations can make the simplest of stories into an enriching experience, can't they? (Must dig out those Russian fairy tales with the wonderful illustrations by Ivan Bilibin - often wanted to copy the glorious costumes depicted there.)

Now, like the rest of you, I've been working flat out on gift knitting. A new baby friend arrived last week, a little girl, so I decided she needed a nice red hat for Christmas. I wish I could show you the sequence of pictures, but I can hear Blogger threatening softly in the background so I'll content myself with telling you that the main part of the hat was worked on the sock machine, and I then picked up the stitches for a crochet cast off for the brim (which rolled nicely) and then the stitches to decrease for the crown. Finally I was working a 4-st i-cord to make a decorative top, and thought, 'this is just like that nice cord-maker I have in the workshop...

It took a bit of doing to coax the i-cord already made up through the little machine and then to hook the stitches on to the needles, but once that had been done, and a good bit of yarn pulled through to work the last bit, gosh it was a quick job! Just turn the handle and it's done! (I have several cord-makers but this one, made I think by Bond, is the best, probably because it has real steel needles and a good weight to hang on the work.

And here are some of the dozens of pairs of wristwarmers I made on the sock machine and then finished with frilly crochet edgings. They're such a handy gift for nice people in shops and post offices and places. Here you see them with the waste yarn still holding the main stitches, waiting for me to work the edgings. Wish I could show you some of the finished pairs, but see above re Blogger...

But the postman's socks deserve their own picture and they're going to get it. Our postman is particularly nice and helpful and friendly, so when he didn't turn up for a few days last month I worried about him. Enquired of the stand-in, who told me that postie had been in hospital for an operation. Well, what do you do when someone nice has had an operation? Well of course you make him a pair of socks! Time was tight, so the tube in black wool was made on the sock machine, and then toes, heels and cuffs hand-knitted in a bright red. Finished them on Dec 23, washed and dried them overnight, and handed them in to the post office for onward transmission via a helpful workmate on Christmas Eve. Just in time!

OK, that's the story so far. So many more things I wanted to tell you about and to show you via DH's lovely pictures - the huge fir tree we cut from the top of an enormous one in our garden, which just brushes the ceiling in the hall; the frosty scene from my study window for the past few mornings; the dogs skidding wildly on the driveway this morning as sleety rain fell on top of hard frost. But better not to push my luck. It's really been a bad couple of days with Blogger and I'd rather get down and check the festive dinner really. The next posting (tomorrow hopefully) will tell the tale of The Secret Solstice Road across the lake.

Oh yes, did get some rather nice books for myself as a treat this Christmas. Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top, plus her first book of patterns; and both Knitting and Spinning in the Old Way by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts. Oh, and Knitting Around by the diva herself, EZ. All texts I really should have owned long ago, and all awaiting a lovely browsing session.

Now, off to tackle that top-down sweater in Incense. Yes, yes, and check on the turkey as well...

Don't forget to give me any - ANY suggestions as how to deal with Blogger. It is really frustrating not to be able to march up to its (their?) door and just clock it hard over the head. So much more satisfactory than trawling through irritatingly useless Help pages.

In Which Thanks Are Given For Good Knitting Friends, And Floodwaters Continue To Rise.

2009-11-22T10:50:00.021Z

I've said it before but it bears reiterating yet again - you lot are the absolute best.

I was in despair, total despair, over that blue cabled jacket where a cable cross had been omitted. I thought there was nothing for it but the Black Hole of Failed Projects. But you came through. Did you EVER come through, bearing not only comfort and consolation, but reviving hope and finally hugely practical suggestions. Heidi's advice on using a larger needle to reknit was invaluable. Katie K (sorry, can't find your blog address, Katie) rowed in with the most practical advice re using lifelines for the top needles, pinning down the working area, counting odd and even rows, and more. Helen emphasised working s-l-o-w-l-y, and not even thinking of a stiff drink until it was done (how well you knew I needed that advice, Helen!) My dear long-time blogging friend Pacalaga assured me that any uneven tight/loose bits would sort themselves out over time. And everybody else was so supportive and encouraging it almost made me cry. But I didn't. I resolved to be worthy of all this support and get down to the job.

AND IT WORKED!

You would never know anything had gone wrong. It just needed time and care, not my usual lightning-smash-grab-with-the-nearest-crochet-hook-and-if-it-isn't-sorted-in-ten-seconds-I'm-giving-up approach.

It's done, it's beautiful. But... I'm not sure after all about the side and back slits. They make it a bit too floaty. Designer catwalk stuff, possibly, everyday use, no. So I tried sewing them up.

What do you think? Vents or no vents? Cuddle factor or floaty effect? Still undecided. But grateful, so very grateful, that you were THERE. Take a huge collective bow and make yourselves individual mugs of hot chocolate.

That second picture of the jacket was taken indoors. This is because it hasn't stopped raining for more than half an hour for the last two weeks. I had to time it to the second to dash out with my latest Celtic Memory Shawl Kit and take photographs.

This neat little kit is the Mermaid's Garden colourway, with fourteen different 50yd skeins so that you can create your own work of art.

One of Jane Thornley's vest designs would look wonderful in these. They're up on eBay now. The next one, Forest Magic, with all the greens and greys and soft shades of the deep woods, will be up at the beginning of December.

That same constant rain, allied to the successful completion of the crop cable jacket, led to an uncontrollable desire to START SOMETHING NEW. And as chance would have it, Ruth had just started a gansey KAL on the Pennyroses group in Ravelry. And it was just a week before Thanksgiving, she happened to mention. So of course Celtic Memory, who has no sense WHATSOEVER, decided she'd try to make a gansey. In one week. And wear it at Thanksgiving (we don't actually celebrate that particular event here, preferring to wait until late December, but I've been observing it since blogging and Ravelry opened up such a wonderful world of friends in every corner of the globe).

Now I'm not completely daft, only partially, so clearly a sweater knitted with thread on toothpicks wasn't appropriate for this particular deadline. No, Polperro, from Country Weekend Knits (and included in a few other books too, I think) was the ideal choice, worked as it is with chunky yarn on large needles.

Here it is so far. A chunky 50/50 merino and baby alpaca blend, hand-dyed by me, on 6.5mm circular. Pockets are inset, I'm almost up to the armhole divisions. Will we make it? Read the next instalment.

(No, I don't need reminding about the book deadline. I'm trying to forget it.)

The constant rain, allied to quite frightening gales, has brought disaster to a great deal of West Cork, and DH has been out and about at all hours, recording the floods and flood damage.

This is a little road I often drive when going to Cork city. The water rose to a point where it simply poured across with immense force, and broke down the wall at the other side. No going that way for a while, then.

This view, taken from the bridge by the Angler's Rest country pub, should show sweeping green fields, with the winding River Lee way over to the left, where you can just see a white dot on what was the river bank. It's now a raging Amazon of a river.

This rather expensive hotel on the outskirts of the city was having a bad time, but DH couldn't resist the car park notices.

Guests were being evacuated to the backs of lorries with all their bags. Some Americans that DH met were being exceptionally good natured and amused about it all. Another Cork hotel (on higher ground) took them in and looked after them. Shouldn't be surprised at all if hot toddies and Irish coffees were in demand.

These houses look so beautiful, seeming to float on the tranquil water. However, this isn't Venice, and their ground floors don't bear thinking about.

Now I realise, of course I do, that other parts of the world get far far worse flooding and indeed far harsher weather conditions than we do in Cork. It's just a shock when it happens here. It's not uncommon to get some flooding in a wet winter - a deep pool or two on a country road, maybe even a street or two under some inches of water in the city. But to this extent, never. To make things even more worrying, the gales and torrential rain are set to continue for at least the next week. Fortunately we're safe and snug on our hillside here, but others are not so fortunate. Ironic though it might seem, thousands are without water supplies and don't seem likely to get it back for some time.

It will come around. It always does. The soft wind will replace the gales, and the water will fall back to its usual path. The fields - Irish fields are most competent sponges - will regain their normal green grass in no time at all. While it's here though, it does make you feel more at one with those who live in, for example, New Orleans. (You OK there, Dez?)

Incidentally, does anyone else have current problems with placing pictures on their posts? For some reason, Blogger no longer lets me move images around the page to put them in the right spot. Is it something I've clicked or failed to click? One of life's reminders that nothing stays the same? Advice welcomed. As it is, I have to put all the pictures on first, in reverse order, and then add the text between the images. Which is adequate, but not particularly conducive to stream-of-consciousness writing. (I had a student once who called that 'steam of consciousness'. Love it!)

And while I think of it, the Hit Counter has put itself back almost to 0. Well to just a few thousands anyway, nowhere near what the actual total was. No way of sorting that, I imagine. Ah well, these things are sent to try us.

Strewth, it's raining again. I was almost certain it had stopped for two whole minutes there...

Here is a view from my study window this morning, as I type. I'm surprised those russet beech leaves have hung on with the high winds we've been having. Glad I topped the eucalyptus last year though - they're as high as they used to be, but it's only light branches rather than heavy trunk, and they'll be fine.

And to finish, a nice warm little story. For this hopeless romantic anyway. We were at the local recycling centre, bringing in all our glass and plastic and cardboard and such, and DH suddenly pointed out a tiny object at the top of a heap in a lorry, about to be tipped into an enormous container about fifteen feet below on another level.

'Isn't that a little waggon? See its red wheels?'

I was over there like a streak of lightning and grasped its pull handle just as the small object was about to fall into oblivion. The man looked surprised. 'Don't know where that came from. D'you want it?'

It was wet and full of decaying leaves. The tyres on its little red wheels were in a pretty bad way. But it was solid, and sturdy. And it came home with us. It's drying out slowly and carefully right now, in the garage. Not too quickly, in case it damages the wood. And then it will come into its own at Christmas, piled with presents or yarns or other lovely things.

But I took it down to the grove first, and placed it in the very centre of a fairy ring under the crabapple tree, to have its picture taken.

Ta failte romhat, a leanbhain. You are welcome, littlest one.

Anybody know where I might get some spare tyres for a little wooden waggon?

It Was About Time For Another Disaster...

2009-11-07T17:19:00.010Z

But this one struck to the heart. I mean, Anne of Green Gables with the iron entering her soul had nothing on today's cosmic mother-of-all disasters. Nothing, I tell you!

This is the cropped jacket somewhat-after-Ragna, on which I have been working for months. Almost a year. I was knitting on this when we were in Norway in late May, I know, since I photographed the WIP by a frozen lake. It survived being lost in that roving yellow suitcase, and gradually, slowly, painfully, the pieces came together to be worked in unison to the neckline. Trying to keep track of a dozen different pattern pieces, as well as where they did and didn't overlap wasn't exactly plain sailing. But at last, during the past few weeks, I began to think that perhaps, just perhaps there was a very faint glimmering of light at the end of the tunnel. Only another repeat or so of the braided pattern and we'd be there. I had even started mulling over designs for a cabled collar.

Then - this afternoon - was it really such a short time ago that the world was bright and every prospect pleased? - I spread it out to gloat. And saw that at the centre back, where for some idiotic reason I had decided to put a double cable where two patterns met, instead of leaving them separate as I'd done everywhere else on the jacket - I'd missed out one of the double cables. A whole repeat back from where the work was now at.

What would you do? Of course hindsight (and DH) tell me that it would really really REALLY have been better to ignore the non-crossing, put in a decorative stitch or two if necessary, and GET ON TO THE FINISHING LINE.

But of course I knew better. Nah, we can fix this, can't we?

Now ripping back twenty or more rows over hundreds of complicated stitches was not an option. No it wasn't, and I don't need that voice from the back of the class, thank you! We're talking innumerable stitch markers, decreasing-point markers, different sets of stitches for this, that and the other - no, not ripping back. Not nohow.

But Celtic Memory is something of an expert on cables, isn't she? I mean, she's Irish, it's practically in the bloodstream, isn't it? Why not simply (simply, hahahahaaaa!) drop the relevant stitches right down to where the crossing should have happened, and then work them up again to the present point? Yes? Of course. Easy!

Oh ye heavens!

Here (and those of tender susceptibilities may wish to look away now) is the current situation. This is after a very unpleasant session involving several circular needles, seventeen stitch markers, three crochet hooks, two daylight lamps and a lot of swearing and hissing, which I don't want to remember. Ever.

That stitch marker is roughly the point to which I pulled back the relevant stitches. Above it is the pig's ear made of the reknitting process. Loops where there shouldn't be, holes where there shouldn't be. Skintight stitches next to wide gaping gaps. This is never going to look right. Never.

What would you do NOW?

I know what I wanted to do. I wanted to throw the whole thing on the ground, scream and stamp on it. Then hurl it out into the bushes. Possibly set fire to it if it ever stops raining round here, which it might do next May. Or give it to Muffy the Yarnslayer for her bed.

But I have spent so long on this jacket. It is (was) my pride and joy. I'd worked out all the stitch computations, the side slits, the coming together at the armholes, even kept track of the decreases across hundreds of stitches from then on. I was so looking forward to wearing it, showing it off, maybe doing a little quiet boasting here on the weblog.

It's down there now, still lying on the ironing table where I left it. I couldn't trust myself near it. I retired to an armchair with a bag of Jelly Squirms and Patrick Leigh-Fermor's A Time of Gifts. Reading about his travels through pre-war Austria, one night shivering in a hay barn, the next dressing for dinner in a crumbling schloss, had a calming effect.

But that jacket is still there, waiting. Wondering, probably, what's gone wrong, and where I am.

WHAT DO I DO?

Enough. Let's try to think of something else. Like De Book, which is still slouching heavily towards the publisher to be born.

We went hunting for a couple of pictures still needed the other day. First an ogham stone at Templebryan, not far from Shannonvale.

It's quite an awe-inspiring sight when you see it from the muddy track below, dominating the top of a little hill. It's inside an ancient enclosure which was apparently once a monastic site, but this stone is a bit older than Christianity. Ah well, not the first time the new rulers took over the old symbols. Just to the left there you can see a bullaun stone on the ground. These were specially hollowed-out rocks which held water or something else during ancient ceremonies. Best not to enquire too closely.

And we weren't alone as you see. This charming Irish draught horse colt has the confiding nature of his breed and came up to bid us welcome to his field.

Then his mama came over to check that we didn't intend any harm to her pride and joy.

And finally this wild looking little mare climbed into the enclosure to check us out. The smaller the horse, the more you should beware of their nipping tendencies so we kept a sharp eye on her as she sidled around. She may have been looking meanly at us, but you can't really tell, can you? She wasn't too impressed at being immediately christened Templebryan Tumbleweed though. Honestly. These tourists they come up here, climbing all over me field, and then call me out of me name! Honestly! As if everybody didn't know I'm Theda Bara of That Ilk!

Then we went hunting for a famed holy well down by Lough Ine. This one has a reputation built up over centuries of curing all kinds of eye ailments. You have to go up a rough track, cross a stream, and there it is, standing quietly in the woods as it has done for millennia.

It's clearly very well visited, being hung all round with every kind of token, from beads to statues, scraps of cloth to handwritten notes, shells and small stones, even ferry tickets. So many hopes, so many prayers, so many dreams.

Here is a closeup. You might like to make a virtual visit. I'm sure it would work just as well over the Net, if your intentions are clean and clear. It's a lovely quiet peaceful place, the moss-covered trees and rocks sheltering it on three sides, and the bubbling little stream on the fourth.
A good place.

The Ghost Train of Drimoleague and the Donkeys of Ceann Tuaithe

2009-10-18T17:01:00.021+01:00

Thought we'd better catch up on local matters and things knitterly after all that travelling and bearwatching. Been busy this past week, not only with the demon book but also with dyeing and skeining and generally getting into a tangle with trying to do too many things at once (don't we all?).

Here is the result of a few days with arms immersed in the dyepot. Just been listing some of these on eBay - it takes so long to list each one that now I take it in batches, three or four a day, so as not to lose the plot entirely when everything crashes and you don't know where you are. Handpainted laceweights, sockweights, Aran weight - and up there in the top left, a rare skein of fingering weight pure Suffolk in its lovely natural pale grey.

Oh incidentally, while I think of it, my friend Ana who lives in Bulgaria, and is one of the keenest, as well as one of the most talented knitters around, has just opened an Etsy shop so that she can sell some of her beautiful finished projects. If you're looking for something gorgeous and don't have the time to knit it, go look. I think she'll even knit to order - now's your chance to get that perfect sweater without all the work! Ana is Shenevski on Ravelry if you're a member, and I'm constantly amazed at the beauty of the pieces she turns out. (Which reminds me, must finish that copycat black cashmere cabled vest inspired by hers.)

Been working that 19th century sample-skein winder pretty hard too. This is the one I bought from Warren at Craftspun Yarns - or, more truthfully, forced him to sell to me. It works so smoothly and beautifully it's a pleasure to use. But it will only measure in yards, not metres. Which is why the new, limited edition, Samhain Shawl Kits, also up on eBay, are made up in lots of little 50 yd skeins.

Fourteen of them to be exact, some singles, some doubles, some triple-plied, totalling 700 yds overall. All tucked into a nice strong plastic envelope. Great fun. Kits in blues, greens, turquoises, reds, browns, will follow. I see people using these for projects like Jane Thornley's lovely wraps and vests and shawls and things.

The garden is moving into its sleepy mode at this time of year, but the little crabapple tree is still showing off its tiny crimson fruits.

They're only the size of large cherries. I must pick the whole crop (might fill a very small cereal bowl) and see if I can make a miniature pot of jelly with them.

The resident robin is getting very aggressive too at this time of year, seeing off any foreign immigrants ('this garden is taken, TAKEN, do you hear?') while the local wren is coming into the tiny straw birdhouse tucked high up in the porch at night. There is much swearing and fluttering if you go out unexpectedly after dark, so we have to try to remember to take the dogs out the back door.

May have mentioned that the bright pink boucle EZ Ribwarmer was started and completed on the Yukon trip, but you didn't really see a good picture of it.

Here's a nice back view. I'll put both views up on Ravelry when I get a minute. This Blogger is temperamental enough and I've got enough pictures to show you tonight without tempting Fate too far.

And a new little girl baby friend arrived a week or so ago, so of course she had to have a cosy raggy flannel quilt with her name on it, didn't she? You probably can't see 'Maeve' embroidered in the centre patch, but it's there. And yes, I did make a last-minute error in placing those patches, being in a rush, but I don't suppose she'll mind. I do like raggy quilts. Especially in warm snuggly flannel. Must make some more.

But a fine day arrived, and DH had some free time, so the book took priority. Down to Drimoleague first, a small and at first perhaps ordinary West Cork inland village. Acting on information unearthed though, we took a right into a car park in the centre of the main street. Once you'd got in a little way, this opened out suddenly and unexpectedly, and revealed -

A lost railway station!

Grass was growing on the platform, the ticket office was boarded up, the rails and sleepers were long gone, but the station was still there, dozing in the sunshine, with one ear open for the clang of the bell which would tell it that the down train from Cork with visitors, or the up train from Bantry with the butter, was due.

This is a remnant of the legendary West Cork Railway, whose demise in the sweeping modernisations of the trendy 1960s is still a cause for much lamentation throughout the county. Indeed, mention it in any pub from Bandon to Ballydehob and you'll soon have half a dozen voices clamouring 'It should never have been closed', 'We should get it back', 'Wouldn't it be grand altogether to travel in it now?' and more.

I like to think that the West Cork Railway is still alive in one dimension, and that on misty winter nights you can perhaps hear the shriek of the whistle and the drumming of the rails as the late down train pulls into Drimoleague Station. Doors slam, elderly ladies in the traditional hooded West Cork cloaks lift their heavy baskets to the platform, the station master comes out of his office, pocket watch in hand, and the voices of those long gone echo once more around the station yard. Actually I do believe in ghost trains. Don't you? Or, put it this way - wouldn't you like to?

On our way out of Skibbereen we came across this rather annoyed donkey who had just petulantly kicked his feed bucket to record his annoyance at being kept indoors. Note the electric fence placed strategically close to his stable door. Donkeys, as you probably know, are veritable Houdinis when it comes to escape skills. You just can't keep one in if he wants to get out. So far this farmer's strategy is working. So far...

We were on our way down to Cunnamore which is where you catch the ferry to little Heir Island, hardly any distance offshore but a bit too far to swim.

That's Heir Island in the middle of the picture there, looking down from the hill above Cunnamore Quay.

- and here's a view looking westward from the same point. Thought you might like it.

Heir Island used to be famous for its boatbuilding and its lobster fishing. The local men would fish up and down the coast, staying away from home three weeks at a time, and cooking all their meals on board. They even made bastable bread in a pot oven on deck!

I suppose you could see this as a sad reminder that those rich fishing days are gone, but in another way it's rather nice. This old boat, veteran of many a stormy sea and dangerous tide, now rests snugly within sight and sound of the ocean, tucked behind a headland and wrapped warmly round with furze and long grass. No bad way to be.

It was a donkey day definitely. This gang of comedians ('Ooh, a Nikon, take my picksher mister!') were enjoying themselves out on Ceann Tuaithe (anglicized inexplicably as Toe Head which is a dreadful misnomer - Ceann means Head certainly, but Tuaithe means a clan or community gathered under one chief, not toe for heaven's sake! I mean, it's not even attractive, is it?)

This little fellow was attractive though. He was probably thinking what a strange place the world was that had two legged creatures looking at him over the fence and cooing.

Wherever you are in West Cork, you're sure to find, sooner or later, a grassy lane leading down to the sea. In this case, giving a fine view of the Stags rocks.

A nice place to be on a quiet evening as dusk falls. And indeed nice to think about at other times, when you need something peaceful. Feel free.

Bears, Beavers, And The Best Ribs In The Klondike!

2009-10-11T19:41:00.022+01:00

If I don't get round to posting right this minute, it'll never get done. No use waiting for enough time, is there? You have to make it. Even when editors are threatening and deadlines are sitting evilly on your bedside table , eying you like vultures when you wake up in the morning.

Besides which, if I don't post now, Samhain will be past and Christmas, heaven help us, on the way. And that wouldn't do at all.

It was wonderful going back to Yukon Territory and a tiny bit of Alaska. Even without window seats, we got a few stunning glimpses of Greenland.

And Whitehorse (when we finally crawled in at 1.30 am, having left Cork at 6 am - and you can subtract another eight hours from that for the time difference, so it was well over 24 hours, with delays at this airport and that) was as charming as ever. It's nice to be in a real frontier town of the kind that faces up to nature and rough weather with total practicality, knowing it can't just assume things will always be easy - things like pottering out to do a spot of shopping, or travelling any distance without packing survival gear.

Absolutely and far away my favourite restaurant in the whole world is in Whitehorse - the Klondike Rib & Salmon on 2nd Ave - and one of my favourite people is owner, Dona, who runs the whole shebang as if it were a gigantic party. You can see queues down the street at feeding time, but she still finds time to greet every customer personally and has a wonderful relationship with her gang of cheerful young staff.

Here she is, still merry after closing time. See that Dog Sled Parking sign over her head? That's a very tempting reminder to head back to Whitehorse next February. No matter that the whole place will be frozen solid and blanketed under twenty feet of snow, that's when the Yukon Quest takes place, the dog sled race from Fairbanks Alaska to Whitehorse. The dogs and their mushers race a thousand freezing miles, and I WANT TO BE THERE. Dona, if you're reading this, can I come help make soup, coffee, man one of the checkpoints? Please? I'll knit double thick socks for both of us!

Headed out early every morning in Whitehorse, to see what was about in the dawn light.

I don't know who was more taken aback here, me, the coyote, or DH.

Is that a lens or a Gatling gun? Wow, you don't see many of those in these here woods...

Having got over his initial camera shyness, he trotted quite casually past DH, on his way to a business meeting no doubt.

The other place we spent quite a bit of time was the Whitehorse dump or recycling centre. Those with wildlife photographer acquaintances will know that dumps are very high on the list of desirable locations, and Whitehorse is one of the best. Simply everyone drops in at one time or another.

These juvenile bald eagles would far rather have Mama and Papa bring them a nice hot lunch like always, but their parents were having none of it, sitting at a distance on a tall pine, and refusing to lift a talon to help. They had to learn for themselves.

This raven was really being mean, winding up the poor hungry young eagle something rotten. He'd fly down, get a nice tasty titbit, then bring it back to the wire, and edge slowly up towards the eagle, taking delicious little nibbles and cawing, 'Oh this is nice. Oooh, this is the best titbit I've ever tasted...' He was doing it on purpose, no doubt about that. Every now and again, goaded beyond endurance, the eagle would make a dash at his tormentor, but the raven would easily evade him, chuckling all the while.

We went up to Dawson, another of my favourite places. Do you know Dawson? It was a huge place during the Klondike Gold Rush, fell into decrepitude thereafter, but was, thankfully, saved as a beautiful ghost town for future generations to enjoy. It's full of old log cabins dating from those heady days, some sinking into the soil at dangerous angles (probably where their occupants had dug right under the building in search of the elusive metal), others, on firmer ground, holding their own.

This is somewhere I think of when I can't get back to sleep at 2 am and need a peaceful old-world image. It's Robert Service's cabin. The Bard of the Yukon lived in this little hut and wrote his wonderfully evocative and popular poems here. I've quoted this verse before, but I'll do so again, because it's a good one to recall when life gets a bit too respectable:

They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,
They have steeped you in convention through and through.
They have put you in a glass case, you're a credit to their teaching,
But can't you hear The Wild - it's calling you!

Of course we went up The Dempster a little way - until the road got really rough anyway. You're supposed to tape up the headlights and put mesh over the grille and things like that if you plan to drive any distance. That's as well as food for a week, enough medical supplies to perform minor operations, and a few extra sweaters.

In Ireland you can't go three kilometres without someone offering you a cup of tea, for heaven's sake!

Dawson is a good place to watch beavers.

This chap was so busy stocking up for the winter, gathering juicy branches, still with the golden leaves attached, and carrying them down to the underwater larder, that he didn't mind us at all -

- but I simply loved watching this guy swim off and collect a huge armful of weed, then ponderously carry it all the way up to the top of his lodge to caulk any possible weak points.

From Dawson, you either retrace your steps the long long road to Whitehorse or you cross the Yukon River - just like in the song - and head into Alaska.

That's an Elizabeth Zimmermann Ribwarmer in bright pink boucle, by the way, being knitted on the ferry. Thought another layer wouldn't come amiss.

From the high road above, the early morning clouds were still hiding Dawson, but you can just see on the right where the Klondike River joins the Yukon. And then it was a long, long, LONG drive down through Chicken, Alaska (really!), back into Canada at Beaver Creek, out again just before Thirty Mile Roadhouse, where we had to stop for coffee, as this is another of my favourite places.

Unutterably cosy and comfy and welcoming after a long drive, run by several sprightly and very strict elderly ladies, it's a gathering point and information centre for the surrounding area as well as a cafe. Which makes sense in Offthemapua.

We were heading for Haines, a small port of call for cruise ships in season, but also an extremely good place to see grizzly bears if you know where to go. Which, fortunately, we did. As dusk falls each evening at this time of year, the grizzlies come down from the woods to fish for salmon in the river. There aren't any controls, no barriers or safety screens, just you, a lonely woodland road, a river - and the dark woods.

I was wandering along this road on my own in the dusk, thinking of Starmore sweaters or something, and only belatedly realised that perhaps being solo wasn't all that good an idea. I headed back to find DH round the next bend and as we met up, we heard a crashing in the woods a few yards away.

'Time to move, I think' said DH with understatement, and we got rapidly out of the path of the approaching noise. Only a few yards up the road and then we turned -

Not a very good picture, snatched at speed in the gathering dusk, but I won't let DH delete it. It is a reminder of just how close I came to being on my own in the sort of situation where you would really prefer several strong friends by your side.

There were actually three of them - Mum and two grown cubs - and they trotted across the road, glancing crossly at us, and down to the riverbank. DH switched to flash mode, which interested the youngsters exceedingly:

Gosh, maybe we shouldn't have beaten up that coyote, he was telling the truth after all! Willya look at the size of that lens?

Great heavens, I've only just this minute spotted something, when I looked at that picture. We'd both noticed the nice white markings on the bear on the left, but now it looks exactly like the face of another bear, doesn't it? What a very odd effect. Must go tell DH as soon as I've finished posting.

It's a privilege to get so close to these enormous creatures but let's face it, it's also darned dangerous. Probably won't be much longer that you can walk that river road at dusk and play peekaboo with grizzlies. And I'm still wondering what exactly I would have done if I'd been on my own when The Three Bears crossed the road. Frozen in shock? Closed my eyes and prayed? Shown them the sock I was knitting? (Reagan in Wollmeise, on size O Addi Turbos).

On the way back up to Whitehorse, completing a very big circle, we paced the White Pass Railway train, the big black steam engine puffing clouds of smoke to let us know where it was when we lost it in the hills. Wish there had been time to hike a bit of the legendary, appalling, Chilkoot Trail, but unfortunately we had a flight to catch.

Two days to get home and the jet lag from hell, lasting well over a week, but it was worth it. To be out there in those huge empty spaces with those vast skies and that clear cold air - it made you feel invigorated just to breathe.

There would be absolutely no sense, no justification whatsoever, in going back for the Yukon Quest in February, would there? No, you're quite right, there would not. There would not...

I'm Here, I'm Home, But Beset By Deadlines And Jetlag

2009-09-27T20:47:00.003+01:00

Just so's you know, nothing's happened, all is well, but got home to the jetlag from hell as well as really strict noises, verging almost on the annoyed, from the editor of our new book. A chapter has to be with him by Wednesday and right now the Deadline Monster isn't just whistling by, he's sitting on the roof of the house glowering, while we combat the desperate need for sleep by typing nonstop (me) and sorting through millions of pictures (DH).

I promise faithfully and sincerely that Wednesday night (if not dead from exhaustion), you will get the full tale of the Yukon trip, including The Three Bears And The Addi Turbos...

Of Sea Eagles, Ancient Annals, And The Inadvisability of Plying Yarn

2009-08-09T13:04:00.029+01:00

It seems like such a good idea at the time. You have this beautiful yarn, perfect colour, begging to be used, but it's too thin for your purpose. For any purpose really except fine socks or a sadistic Starmore special on triple O steel needles. So you do the sensible thing and ply it. Twice, maybe three times (Celtic Memory has been known to use four plies when occasion demands).

But... and this is where the inadvisability comes in - the project doesn't always work. In my case, it was back last January when I was battling the flu bug from Hades and got the feverish idea late one night of creating a beautiful guernsey from a book of Japanese patterns, using a particularly gorgeous cone of violet pure wool I'd snaffled on a trip to Texere Yarns in Bradford some time back.

This was the yarn, if you remember. And you may also remember if you read that post, that I realised the error of my ways about half an hour into the project and frogged what little I'd done.

Only... I'd plied the yarn double, to get it up to usable thickness, hadn't I?

And... this is undoubtedly one of the rarest and most attractive violet yarns you've ever seen, isn't it?

And... I've just got the hang of combining machine knitting with handwork, haven't I? Which opens up delectable new possibilities of working whole garments in hitherto impossible fine gauge yarns?

So it became clear that the violet yarn needed to be unplied.

No worries. Got a ball winder now. Got several skein winders. Surely two different machines can be brought into use together to return the yarn to its original gauge? (Stand by Ireland, the industrial revolution is about to hit your shores at last).

Of course it never works out as simply as you think. Even when you wind a ball casually by hand (or, in my case, flu-ridden last January, feverishly and incoherently and quite badly), you inevitably twist it. And that twist is seriously bad news for unplying. What should have been a fairly easy task of winding a skein and a ball at the same time turned into a major task, involving swearing under the breath and the bringing in of any handy local hook or knob or surface to deal with tangled loops and lengths.

There are lengths and loopings on the floor there too, if you look closely enough.

Here's a closeup of my adorable Victorian skein winder which I persuaded my dear friend Warren Ogden of Craftspun Yarns to sell to me. It's all cast iron and brass, with a lovely dial that counts up to 80 yards, and when you're winding you can't hear a thing, it all runs silently and smoothly. Love it, even if my 2 metre skein winder is a little more practical for the dyeing and selling side. You simply can't beat this wonderful old 19th century machinery. Warren called it something else, I can't remember what, but it was originally designed for making up little sample skeins for customers. He still uses one himself - pop into his lovely shop in Johnstown not far from Dublin and you'll see it in action.

I may just have mentioned a few odds and ends that I was trying to finish up in my last posting. Well I soldiered on with those, much encouraged by your support. As advised by BB, I went for the easiest one first, and completed the Tofutsies in short order.

I am enchanted by the way the colour works out on this yarn - in the ball it looks like a mixed scrimmage, but when you knit it, suddenly waves and stripes and pools appear and it's all a lot of fun.

I was so touched by the number of you who sent Tofutsies to West Cork after I offered to trade for my hand-dyed. It is certainly a winner on the sock machine and I now have enough to see how every colourway in the range looks when knitted up. The socks are cool and light for summer and wash in the machine like a dream. Thank you. You really are the best, my worldwide gang of knitter friends.

One Conwy sock is finished, and the other is started, no more than that. Been experiencing a bit of RSI in the thumb joint from fine sock work, and stiff shoulders too, so had to slow down on the thinner yarns and needles a bit while Chinese massage worked its miracles.

Oh by the way, while I think of it, you've a chance to get your own creativity and brilliance recognised! The moderators of Sock Madness are looking for pattern submissions for next year's crazy event (one of the daftest, also one of the greatest going), and you need to get started right away. Look up the rules on the Ravelry group and start working on that pattern NOW. Well of course you're on Ravelry. If you're a knitter and aren't, WHY?

The mohair boucle wrap has had another few inches added. It just goes on, that yarn. The ball never seems to get any smaller! Sooner or later I'm going to have to take a decision and cut it, bind off, finish.

What do you mean, I haven't got much done? It's only a few days since I posted - oh, gosh, is it as long as that?

Well - OK, there were a couple of distractions. Pleasant ones.

Confirmed and total handknitters, purists, look away now. I'll tell you when it's safe to come back.

I've been machine knitting. On a flatbed.

You've latched on to that already anyway, from comments further up, but here it's time to come out of the closet and admit that machine knitting can be a whole lot of fun. To be able to create acres of stocking stitch in half an hour, to whip up a pair of sleeves in no time, a vest while you're getting ready to go out, is rather marvellous when you've grown accustomed to weeks of labour and very little to show for it. More, it means you can really concentrate on the complex bits instead of being so exhausted from the endless rows that you can't be bothered. Maybe a bit like having a full-time, super-efficient nanny for the children (and an additional, soundproofed, nursery wing to the house), so that when you meet them briefly in the evening before dinner, you can lavish love and delight on them instead of being a bit too tired to care? Or maybe not.

Anyway.

All the manuals and online sources advised making little swatches to get some practice. And then making striped swatches to get more practice. Which was fine, but I don't like wasting time like that. So I started making very long striped swatches. And then more of them. And then created a patchwork vest.

This isn't put together yet. The middle strip is half the length of the (doubled) side pieces and will be the centre back. Only...

Take a look at that second-last square from the top centre. The dark one (it's navy in fact).

I'd been popping down to the workshop at all hours to do a little more on the machine, and on this particular occasion, it was late and dark. I reached for the cone of navy Shetland, threaded it in, worked the square, threaded in the pale lilac, went on, and finished off.

It was only when I came to wash and block it that I realised I'd picked up a large cone of acrylic in exactly the same shade of navy (I keep it for experimental work). Will you look at that? Hideous!

I'm undecided between making the whole strip again, thereby condemning the three perfectly virtuous Shetland squares to oblivion, or making just one square and grafting it into place. What would you do? (Apart from switching on the light when working late at night, I didn't need that crack, smarty pants!)

But my second project worked out rather better.

This is the Dangerous Kimono, discreet black until you turn or move and a flash of wicked scarlet reveals itself. Got the original idea from that lovely pattern - is it Iki? - in Vicki Square's Knit Kimono, but the design is my own. Strips were all I could do as yet on the machine, so strips it would be. Wide rectangles for the sleeves (first red, then black), two long pieces for the body, going up and over the shoulder, and also with the red facing at either end, a narrower strip for centre back, and finally two very very long strips, one in black, one in red, for the band. Oh and four little red strips for the side slit facings. The final touch was a length of i-cord worked on the machine (didn't believe it would be easy, but it was), and twisted into a Celtic symbol.

Really really chuffed with this. It's in a hideously expensive and luxurious Italian mousse merino which feels like silky velvet and costs so much that when I made a mistake halfway through one of the long pieces, the only option was to frog back two or three rows v-e-r-y gently and re-hang the whole thing on the machine. (It was a lot faster to type that last sentence than it was to carry out the awful task, I tell you.)

I am so pleased with how it turned out. It's almost like a designer version of a PhD gown, isn't it? That's OK, I'm entitled. Less chance of tripping over the folds too.

OK, purists, confirmed and certificated hand-knitters, you can start reading again now.

Another job got done too, and I hadn't posted about it beforehand because it was a secret. Socks for DH.

Modelled by the man himself. (You want me to pose with them? On my feet? Me?) A nice blend of wool and cotton, tubes worked on the sock machine, cuffs, toes and heels by hand. Can't begin to tell you how nice it is to work the bulk of dark colours on a machine. Much easier on the eyes.

The socks were for his birthday. This is our birthday weekend (mine on the Friday, his on the Saturday). He got home-made pecan fudge, among other things. You should have seen me the night before, leaping from the sock finishing to the stove and back again, picking up stitches for the afterthought heel, stirring the fudge, working the decreases, chopping the pecans, grafting the toe, beating the fudge... It all got done in time.

And yes, now that you ask, I did secure a little loot for my own birthday. Just a yard or two of yarn...

From left to right, lower row at back: black worsted spun, about fingering weight; a really rare Suffolk fingering weight (hadn't scored that particular breed before, lovely grey shade); and a big cone of superwash merino fingering weight, destined for hand-dyed sock yarn. Top row, L to R, three cones of that seductive Italian mousse yarn. Front, a cone of cashwool, that Italian fine gauge merino that feels exactly like cashmere. And in the foreground, a delightful cone winder dating, I would think, from around the 1960s, which I got from the lovely Rosina at Mostly Knitting Machines, and some little treats from DH who knows my (other) weakness. Enough to keep me going for a while maybe.

But Friday was the most special day out. I knew exactly where I wanted to go - Innisfallen Island on Lough Leane in Killarney. Innisfallen is fabled in history because it was here from the 4th century onwards that the community of monks created and continued The Annals of Innisfallen, probably our earliest and most historically valuable documentary source. The original is now in the Bodleian in Oxford, where it can be cared for as it should be, but some friends of mine at Cork University have placed a translation online where everybody can benefit from it. You can look it up here.

It's only a small little island, but it's well out in Lough Leane, and you have to take a boat from Ross Castle. Which we did. Boatman Fergus does this run all the time, in between taking people right up the three lakes to Lord Brandon's Cottage for tea.

We were halfway across when I spotted something in the sky and said, 'Holy heavens, what's that?'

Those of you living in wilder parts of North America may not consider this particularly unusual, but here in Ireland we're pretty bereft of the larger raptors. Eagles, buzzards, died out long ago. But there has recently been a drive to re-introduce both the golden and the white-tailed sea eagle, and this could be none other than the sea eagle.

Of course DH grabbed his 500mm lens and started firing bursts, while Fergus obligingly brought the boat around and steered towards the thicket of trees on Innisfallen where the bird seemed to have landed. But as we got closer we saw something horrible.

Oh no, no, no, it can't be. Please don't let it be. How could the bird be dead? We'd only just seen it flying. Or - was it another one, caught and somehow trapped, unable to free itself, some time ago? Was the other one searching for it? All kinds of thoughts and half-finished sentences were running around as we edged in closer.

Thank heaven! After a few agonising minutes, it suddenly seemed to come back to life, flapped those huge wings, and got itself upright on the branch. It had to be a young bird, virtually on its first flight, then. We've seen this with smaller birds leaving the nest - often they crash land on a branch and then slip right round, their claws firmly grasping the twig, but unable to keep upright. They're fine once they work out what's happened. And so it must have been with this huge beautiful bird. Which meant that it could only just have been released. Immediately rang our friends who were masterminding the reintroduction project and they confirmed that yes, half a dozen of the birds recently donated from Norway (thanks Norway!), had been let loose that morning from a secret location way in the heart of the mountains.

This, then, with the prominent wing tag (and radio transmitter which you can't see) is the female, Feenagh. May you have a long and happy life here with us in Ireland, Feenagh, and may the wind be always underneath your wings.

It was good to have seen her land on Innisfallen too; one of my favourite poems, which dates from just about the time the Annals were being written, is an Anglo-Saxon one, The Seafarer, with the line,

The erne screams, icy-feathered...

Erne being the old name for the sea eagle (and you'll still find it as a clue in crossword puzzles to this day!)

It was a lovely birthday present for DH as well. Couldn't have timed it better, that bird.

And so the boat's keel finally grounded on the pebbly shore of Innisfallen and we entered an older world.

Although the abbey dates from the 4th century, most of the buildings are later, around the 14th century. Some scraps of the original do remain though, built into the walls of the medieval structure.

This tiny cross was discovered in the lake some years ago, and brought back to the island from whence it must surely have originated.

Hundreds of coins had been placed carefully, reverently, around and even on the little cross. There are some instinctive beliefs and rituals that lie unsuspected below the surface in all of us, until one day we are in a place where we have never been before, and suddenly know what we must do.

This is the view of the mainland and McGillicuddy's Reeks much as the monks must have seen it as they took a break from their slow illuminative and scribing work, blowing on their cramped fingers and unstiffening their joints, bent too long over a sheet of vellum.

Didn't want to leave that peaceful place, but evening was drawing on. We saw these fishermen on the lough on the way back, and one was determined to show us just how big the one that got away was!

Ross Castle really looks at its best when you come to it by water, doesn't it?

Everything went right on this day. We drove into the woods to see if we could find any of our native red deer, and we did.

This doe was protective of her young fawn who still had his dappled spots.

And then the stag came along and ushered them both away to safety. So we withdrew as quietly as we could. It's their woodland, not ours, after all.

And finally we took a long and winding and extremely circuitous route over the hills and far away. Coming down at last as dusk fell to a secret valley and the Last Homely House - or, more exactly, Gougane Barra and our dear friends at the hotel there, for a wonderful dinner. Altogether a magical day.