Newsflash! Other Crafts Claim Equal Rights With Knitting!

Isn't email great? I've had some lovely messages recently. One was from Dez who came over from Yarn Harlot's site - welcome to Ireland, Dez! Your Irish great grandmother came from Co. Clare near the mouth of the Shannon, and you hope some day to visit here yourself and stand where she might have done before leaving for ever. Dez, I can't resist such thoughts! I'm hunting through the image collection right NOW and will post some pictures of where your roots lie just as soon as I can.

And I had a really nice email from the Ukraine which restores all my faith in eBay buying. I'd ordered this gorgeous-looking laceweight yarn in silver, but when it arrived it was more of an untreated-flax-brown. I didn't have much hope, but sent a message to the seller via eBay. I got a prompt reply in very careful English, asking me to send it back. Which I did. (Funny thing, my post office didn't even raise an eyebrow at a Ukraine address - I wouldn't have been able to resist shrieking, 'Wow - the Ukraine - now there's somewhere fascinating' - but then that's probably why I'm not a postmistress.) And today I got another message, telling me they'd received it safely AND sending an image of three balls in a row to choose from.



Now doesn't a business like that deserve support? (You'll find these yarns on eBay under Lace-Weight Fine Wool Yarn SILVER (or whatever colour) 400 gr at a great price. Go Ukraine!)

Last night I succumbed to the siren call of the ocean and ordered not just one but two skeins of Sea Silk in Berry from Knitty-Noddy. Yes, I know I said I'd wait until I got to Canada next month, but the way things are going in the airline world, I'm wondering if I'll even have my purse, let alone a suitcase when I do get there. Anyway, it will be a practice run (albeit an expensive one) for buying MORE when I get there.

I was delighted to read that Peg doesn't like Addi Turbos either. I held forth at length on this topic in Knitter's Review Forum but thought it worth saying again. THESE DON'T WORK FOR ME. I was cajoled and dragooned into buying a pair last time I was across the herring pond, but despite all the claims for beauty and simplicity and speed and happiness, they were a no-no from the start. Unlike Colonial rosewoods or Lantern Moon which were instant love affairs. I'm offering mine to whoever wants them when I can find where I hurled them in a fit of rage.

And still on the topic of needles, I have been finding working that Elann cardi sleeve on either one or two circulars really hard work for some reason. OK, I'll try dpns. But this is Ireland. 6mm dpns? Gosh no, there's no call for those (the usual dismissal when you ask for something other than the blindingly obvious). But in my LYS in Cork, the ever-helpful Bernadette asked why I didn't simply get a pair of bamboos and cut them in half? Cut them in half? Well yes, why not? Maureen, she said, her fellow-shop owner, always turned her broken bamboos into cable needles. So I got a pair, took them home, and spent a happy half hour in the basement workshop cutting and sanding (a pencil sharpener did fine on the rough work for the tips).



How do they look? (The cardi had to be bundled up - it's getting way too long and tangly and awkward at this teenage, hoydenish stage.) Yes, you do see rubber bands around the needles. That's because - yes, OK, they're a bit too short. But I'll MANAGE. I'm not going back and buying two more pairs to get four too-long dpns... at least I don't think I am.

It was reassuring to find that others enjoy thrift stores too. Anne talked wistfully of the days she used to get old sweaters to make into hooked rugs, before knitting became king. And Angie remembered a dream she had of finding or at least recreating those wonderful traditional English smocks which she'd seen in a local museum. Which brought on another soapbox surge from your Irish correspondent. Listen now, and put down your knitting for a moment. There is nothing, do you hear me, NOTHING wrong with hooking rugs. Nor is there anything wrong with smocking, embroidery, lacemaking, macrame, any other fibre craft, or indeed any craft at all - be it woodwork or sculpture from discarded freezers. Quite the contrary, all of these are wonderful, important, vital, and beautiful activities, without which the world would be a poorer place. How would we get on without those divine spindles, those crochet hooks, those circulars from Jenkins Woodworking , tell me that? You don't need rugs on your floor? Chairs at your table? Curtains at your window? A work of art on the landing? You've never knowingly allowed a lace item into your house? (You don't have a house because you don't think woodworking or dovetailing or jointing or whatever is an acceptable craft?) Come on!

I'm shouting this extra loud because I have come across weblogs where people are positively snobbish about 'other' (and by implication, lesser) crafts. Crochet, for example, is considered downmarket, not the real thing by more than one. Why? Isn't it beautiful? Yes. Isn't it intricate and clever? Yes. Well? Just because you may not be good at one particular craft doesn't mean you can't admire it - not unless you have a very small mind indeed. I can't conquer tatting, no matter how much I try - but others make some beautiful and fashionable chokers and bracelets. My silk spinning and dyeing aren't as good as they could be - but boy can I admire other cleverclogs who create incredible yarns that way. One day I will be able to work in wood, if I live long enough. In the meantime, I'll envy and buy from those who already have this talent. I'm no elitist and I don't think anyone else has the right to be either. The world would be a pretty depressing place, not to say uninteresting (and possibly dangerously unbalanced), if we were all devoted to just one craft.

I've stopped shouting now so you can take your hands down from your ears. I went looking for those venerable volumes of Golden Hands last night and found a treasure trove. I mean, some of the things being illustrated in those weekly issues almost forty years ago are stunning. Here are just a few I photographed for you.



Just look at that jerkin of many colours. Do you think this is where Kaffe Fassett got his inspiration? What a skilful choice of colours and shapes. Actually I think I prefer it to Kaffe's designs - it's cleaner, less fussy. Here's another.



No, it's not crochet, it's macrame. Not a craft in which I'm very experienced, but I'd certainly like to try this. It's pretty fashionable for today's teenagers, I think too. Now take a deep breath and look at this one.



Ignore the two dated guys and feast your eyes on that knitted lace wedding coat. It's trimmed with tiny pearls as buttons all the way up the front. I don't have a wedding coming up, I don't know anyone who has a wedding coming up, but I sure want to try out that utterly beautiful garment. It would need to be in a very light yarn, otherwise there would be a risk of the weight dragging downwards. Isn't it superb, though? If anyone really wants it, I'll work out a way of getting it to you. (What do you mean, life's too short? Do you mean to tell me that if you sat up on your deathbed and found you had finished and tidied away every single project, you'd be happy? Of course not. You'd cast on for another gansey immediately.)

Old Patterns: Is Retro Knitting The New Chic?

It doesn't really seem possible, but I'm in agreement with Wanda that autumn definitely seems to have arrived. Of course up where Lene is, it's probably freezing at night by now, is it, Lene? Anyway, here in West Cork the mornings are misty and cool and the leaves are starting to fall ever so slightly. That could be due to the unnaturally hot dry summer - the farmers can't complain about their hay, but are getting a bit worried about other growth, while we are keeping a sharp eye on our water supply from the well - but for whatever reason, it is time to start reaching for a second layer in the mornings before taking the dogs out. Not woolly sweater time yet, but certainly a little cabled cotton vest, a fortuitous find from a thrift store on Sanibel Island, Fl.

Do you search thrift stores? I keep an eye out for them wherever I go, and thought I was the only weirdo until I met several women Stateside who planned journeys the length and breadth of the U.S. to take in as many as possible. I have several English friends, though, who throw up their hands in horror at the very idea. 'How can you possibly buy something someone else has worn?' they hiss. I vaguely mention washing machines, and indicate their fragile Victorian nightdresses, purchased at great cost in antique costumiers, their piles of snowy Edwardian bedlinen, eagerly bid for at a stately home auction. 'That's different,' they huff. But you never know what you will find in a thrift store. It's a bit like life - you find lots of rubbish and then, just often enough to keep you hooked, a real jewel. Best of all are big piles of old knitting and craft magazines, although those can cause real trouble on the homeward flight.

And speaking of old magazines, I came across a lovely little pamphlet in a junk shop the other day.



As far as I can date it from internal evidence (there being no obvious information) it's just pre-Second World War. There are marvellous patterns for baby, child and adult garments, including little frocks, bonnets, shawls, bed jackets, and even some rather serious ladies' underwear (oh for heaven's sake, serious underwear, not necessarily serious ladies - although I don't know...) OK, OK, OK, don't all shout at once. Here are some of the shawls and bed jackets:



There are instructive one-line homilies at the bottom of each closely-printed page (you only get a picture to look at here and there, this is serious stuff, 1930s knitting), advising you, for example, that 'Beehive Real Eider Wool is ideal for shawls' (I expect it would be, anyone want to come robbing eider nests with me?); or, 'Baby Deserves the Best and Daintiest Materials - Beehive Lady Betty Fleecy.'

It also contains extremely sensible and practical advice on every aspect of knitting, from casting on to designing lace patterns. And yes, there are lots and lots of socks too. Plus stockings - gosh, I can remember being forced to wear warm woolly stockings in childhood winters, although I resented them furiously and yearned to have the kind of mother who let her child come to school in short socks and light jacket no matter how cold the season - honestly, my mother had no consideration! However, she did have a stocking machine, which made it all to fatally easy for her to turn out lengths of fawn depression (my school colours were fawn and green - really really exciting for little girls, yes?) Anyone here knitted full-length stockings? Seeing as how it's taking me all my time to get ankle-wards, how long would it take to go that long, so to speak?




And just to impress you with how clued up housewives were expected to be in the 1930s, they really got into the toe and heel thing. At the bottom of the picture here there are illustrations for both round and flat toe designs, plus the French heel and the Dutch one. Above those are nifty designs from which to choose the top to enchant your husband, son or daughter.

It's only one thin little pamphlet, but it has absolutely everything in there you could possibly need. OK, it doesn't have gorgeous models posing, it doesn't have big print (something of a problem admittedly), or glossy pages, and it's a bit - shall we say severe in its dictatorial style. But it does have all you need. So why do I go on buying new books on knitting as soon as they come out? Why do any of us? The publishers aren't daft - they wouldn't take these on unless they knew they'd sell to complete addicts like ourselves. There is something about scanning a shelf and seeing, with a leap of the heart, a book that is completely NEW, that hasn't been seen before, that gets the credit card out and the treasure bagged before we have time to consider what perfectly adequate information may already be available in the seventeen floor-to-ceiling bookshelves at home.

Now that I come to think of it, in teenage days I faithfully subscribed to a now-classic called Golden Hands. It came out in weekly issues and I tucked each one into its place in a big folder. I don't think I've looked at them since. They've travelled wherever I have wandered - all six heavy folders - but haven't been opened. I only thought of them when I saw a pattern for sale on eBay last night and realised it was from Golden Hands. You remember (you mightn't, but take my word for it) the fashionable bookseller's habit of pulling old illustrated texts apart and selling the plates? Well apparently that's what they're doing with Golden Hands. I'm going to go right down to the library when I've finished posting this and drag mine out. There are probably patterns in there that I'd pay good money for now! It's only 39-40 years old after all. They can't have dated that much. Might even be back in fashion.

Stop waffling, you cry. You're avoiding the topic. What has happened to the Elann jacket? Well, I was sort of saving it for last. Wait for it. There's been a breakthrough! That's why this posting is later than usual. I spent all of yesterday in a feverish haze of k. 2 togs and yo's, determined somehow to make the end of the pass and get out into the valley beyond before the wolves closed in. And I did it! By late afternoon, when the dogs had despaired and taken themselves out for a walk round the garden, muttering under their breath about far fields beyond and thoughtless selfish owners, I finally made it to the desired shoulder length and was able to divide up for back, fronts and sleeves.

Ye gods, that was a tricky bit! So many on one length of ribbon for left front. So many for the sleeve on to a circular. Back on another, longer bit of ribbon. Ribbons, stitch markers - getting like a funfair here. Other sleeve - drat, do I have a second circular in the same size? Miracle of miracles, I do. But hell, it's kinked to all tarnation. Downstairs. Put on kettle (yes, in winter it would be simmering on the woodburning stove you little homelovers you, but not in August, however autumnal the weather). Wait for water to boil (it is a measure of my desperation at this point that I didn't even think of finding the little socks and working a row or two while waiting. I just stood there and hyperventilated). Flatten out kinked cable in hot water. Fish it out. Burn fingers (this is a metal circular, this second one). Test it. Still kinked. Back in. Out again. Burn fingers again. Utter the eternal phrase, 'Ah 'twill do', and hasten back to the chair of destiny.

After all that, I sat and knitted dozens of rounds of Milanese Lace on the first sleeve, terrified to stop in case I lost the thread of the argument, my place on the freeway, this narrow passage to freedom. (The instructions suggested working both sleeves at the same time on two circulars, but I know a deliberate and cynical attempt to shanghai a hapless knitter when I see it.) By the time I'd finished, I didn't even have the energy to photograph it as far as it had got. I had to leave that until this morning.



See it? Can you see a shape emerging, ever so slowly? That's a real sleeve over there on the right. Only another few dozen rows to do on that one, a bind off in Picot (no, don't ask, I hope it's in the instructions) - oh, and THEN the same thing all over again on the other side. Yes, I can see now why they suggested doing both at once. But I can also see where it would have led me. To the nearest bottle of strong liquor... Speaking of which - but no, I'll tell you about poteen another day.

The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Lace Cardi

Today was a busy one. Knitted a whole row on the Elann crop cardi. Spun some more merino top on the Ladakhi spindle from Jenkins Woodworking. Knitted another row on the Elann. Forced self to keep going on another four rows. Yielded to temptation and started another motif for the Irish crochet lace top.



Reluctantly returned to another session with the Elann. Deserved a treat. Genuinely looked forward to picking up the little Interlacement socks. They and I have a cosy relationship now. It's a pleasure doing one little row, then another little row - unlike SOME projects one could mention (more about that Elann heavyweight later). Then I realised that the blackberries we picked yesterday weren't going to last for ever. With a sigh, got down the big copper pan from the top of the cupboard. Of course it needed a good scrub since it hasn't been used since last year. Checked the cupboard and realised that sugar was needed too. Into Macroom. Out again. Put on the blackberries to simmer. Hey - here's a whole lot of spare time standing at the stove which could be utilised! Can one knit socks and stir jam at the same time? YESSSS! Especially if you tuck the ball in your pocket.



In case you're wondering, the bags of sugar aren't behaving like a fire risk. They're getting warmed up, in preparation for their entry into the jam arena. Stirring and knitting was quite a relaxing exercise. Made me feel at one with nature and the cycle of the seasons (jam and warm socks for the winter, nice thought, mm?) And when it was all done, and the jam in pots and labelled, that was a really good feeling. It must be some remnant of the hunter-gatherer instinct - after all, we know we could go out and buy the stuff any old time, but making your own is really really satisfying.




Howzat? Ten pots of Sophie's Special Blackberry Jam. (The three dogs take it in turn to have the latest batch of jam named after them, and it was little white wuv-bucket's turn this time.) There was a little left over, which meant JAM BUTTY time! The socks (several rows the better for the kitchen session ) were precipitately retired to a safe distance to avoid unintended additional dyeing, and the bread-and-jam nursery treat enjoyed thoroughly.

Then it was time for another row of the Elann lace crop cardi. After all, Bantry Show is on September 3, and entries have to be registered by August 22 so it's going to be decision time soon - which of the many projects on the go do I concentrate on? Wanda very sensibly advised entering something that was different to the usual; and that probably does mean the Elann, since Irish crochet lace is usually well represented. I don't think they are likely to have seen anything like the lace crop cardi though. Come to that, I haven't seen anything like it!

I have to say that I'm beginning to get a bit stressed over the Elann design. What am I saying? I am already HUGELY stressed over it. It's just so - demanding. It's not that the pattern is difficult - it isn't. But there are all those increases to be incorporated on every wrongside row, and coped with on the following rightside row. The sheer width and weight and uncooperativeness of the thing. Not to mention the stitch markers (already in their dozens and still more needed) every few inches to make some vain attempt at keeping me on the correct count.

This afternoon it seemed like a good idea to check stitch counts and see if both sides roughly matched. They didn't. In one section there were fourteen whereas on the matching opposite side there were only twelve. Clearly two increased too many had been worked on one and not on the other. Or - was it that increases had failed to be worked on the other side? Which one is wrong? How can I correct something when I don't know what I've done? Answers on a postcard please.

(Actually there was no way on earth that this gal was going to reduce the number of stitches anywhere, NO WAY. It's been hell enough already getting this far, you're asking me to take a backward step? The radical solution adopted was simply to sneak in an extra increase on rightside rows in the offending section until they matched up again. So what? Who's going to notice? I did it, and I'm glad I tell you, glad, glad, glad!)

So how is it looking now? Frankly, I'm beginning to think I will never reach the shoulder or the armpit or whatever part of my torso it's supposed to reach before I can begin breaking it up into understandable wodges like sleeves and fronts and back. It's just going to go on and on like this forever, one interminable and ever-increasing row after another. How many stitches do I have now? You're going to laugh, but I don't KNOW. I simply do not have the courage to count them en masse (those checks I ran this afternoon were only tiny ones in specific areas, between stitch markers). All I do know is that there are LOTS. And I mean really really LOTS. I have never had so many stitches on a circular needle in my life. They're sliding off the ends by this time, and it isn't a short circular either. It's rattling with stitch markers and getting seriously overcrowded in the middle like a rush-hour train, and I'M AFRAID TO COUNT THE STITCHES in case I lose it altogether.



To get it into some sort of shape for this picture I had to squash all the middle up and even then the end stitches were drifting off into the open air. I have this horrible nightmare that they're all going to escape during the night and I'll open the sitting room door and find millions of tiny blue stitches running all over the place, climbing up the fireplace, trying to get out the window, swinging from the chandelier... It's got to end soon. It's got to end soon. I got so worked up that I had to go and take a picture of the peaceful scene outside the window by way of a calming down exercise.



The sun was getting low, and sending shafts of light across the shadows on the cornfield while the hills behind were still bright. And the birds were chirping, and flitting about happily. They weren't knitting.

Did you see that marvellous list of Things Done Or Still To Do where you tick off your own achievements? Rho had it on her posting this morning and it got me thinking of a few that I must get round to doing. I still haven't seen the Northern Lights, despite making a special trip north of Dawson in Yukon Territory for that purpose. DH did see them, on a working trip to Rovanemi (isn't that near where Lene of Dances With Wool lives?) I was so jealous - and still am. Wouldn't you know, we even missed the Perseids meteor shower last night - right on cue, the clouds descended and didn't lift until morning when it was too late. Of course tonight is clear - and as I glanced out of the window just now, I saw a huge yellow moon (waning, so only about three quarters full(, hanging low over the trees. Wouldn't it be a good idea to put in another row on that Elann before bed? No it would not. A good idea would be a mug of hot chocolate and a wicked book.

The Strange Case of the Man Who Knitted Socks

I had every intention in tonight's posting of showing off a skein of purple/blue yarn that I'd spun on my little Orkney wheel, plying it cunningly with a fine strand of glitter to enhance its subtle shading. Anne, don't scoff, you gave me the idea of incorporating the bling. And I wanted to see how it would work out. And I loved it. But the yarn has disappeared on me. It simply is not to be found. Now I know it has to be somewhere. It is unlikely to have made its way down the drive, out the gates, down the lane to the main road, and on to the number 33 bus. But right now it doesn't want to be found.

Have you ever had that experience? You search high and low for something that you know perfectly well must be there, was there the last time you looked. And it isn't there. Of course the only thing to do is to say in a loud voice, 'Well, I didn't want it anyway,' and then go off and do something else. Even if your whole being is screaming with frustration and refusal to accept its absence, you have to pretend disinterest and leave the scene. When you nip back in, a couple of hours later, you can bet that the sought-after object will be sitting where you originally left it, only slightly out of breath and looking innocent. Maybe they go off on a world tour, perhaps they move into another dimension. I don't know. But my purple yarn doesn't want to come out and be seen tonight. OK. I'll catch it next time.

But in the meantime there are other things to talk about. First off, I promised to let you see the original old black and white picture of the Tailor and his wife, Ansty, dating from about 1940.



Aren't they a marvellous old couple? You can just see the crutch under his arm (he was always lame, from childhood), and Ansty is wearing her West Cork cloak in honour of the occasion. The one I was wearing the other night to spin by moonlight is a copy I made a few years ago. They were worn by all countrywomen right up to the early 20th century and were often handed down from mother to daughter, since they were expensive items, well made of fine broadcloth with a satin lining. The hood could be gathered to fit around the face or loosened to fall open on the shoulders in a capelet effect. You won't believe how I managed to make mine: I got the pattern from Folkweave in California. There was nowhere in Ireland I could have tracked down a pattern, since such cloaks were made by experienced tailors (like himself above) who would have had their own basic designs. But Folkweave are marvellous at finding classic old garments and working out the patterns from the actual garment. I think they call it the Kinsale Cloak, and others call it the Bandon or Macroom cloak, but it's the same thing.

Have you read Wanda's latest posting? She waxed so beautifully lyrical about walking in the countryside and picking blackberries that I gathered a couple of cans and hauled DH out this afternoon to do the same thing. There are so many different kinds of blackberry that you can pick fruit from mid August right up to October when the devil throws his cloak over them and they become too bitter to eat.



We gathered a huge amount and brought them home in triumph. I made two luscious blackberry pies for dinner and will make jam with the rest tomorrow. The season is on! No rest for the wicked from now on, with all the wild harvesting to be done.

If you're into spinning, then here's something to think about as you treadle the wheel peacefully this evening, enjoying the feeling of the fibres slipping through your fingers. There is a lady called Rosemary who demonstrates spinning at Blarney Woollen Mills, a tourist attraction near the famous Blarney Castle. She has spun and knitted all her life, learning from her mother who in turn learned from her mother, and all the way back, in the true traditional way.



Rosemary told me a strange tale about her grandparents, Tomas and Annie Glynn, who lived in Co. Mayo back in the troubled years of World War I, when Ireland was fighting for its own freedom.

At that time, she explained, the English used to come and take away the hotheaded young men to work in the Welsh coal mines. They needed the labour since their own young men were far away in the trenches; and they probably thought it was one way of keeping the Irish lads from conspiring against England back at home. Annie knew that her husband would in all likelihood be taken; she also knew how harsh conditions were in the Welsh mines. She had seen other young men come back crippled with frostbite, with lost limbs. And so she did the only thing she could - she taught him to spin, and then to knit sturdy warm socks.

Sure enough Tomas was taken away to Wales and sent to work in the mines in the freezing depths of winter. Conditions were appalling; but he had his secret weapon. Somehow he fashioned several spinning wheels out of bicycles - whether these were lying around or were pressed into service illegally, Rosemary didn't know and quite honestly, I would be of the opinion that all's fair in love and war. Then he taught the other men with him to collect wool from the sturdy Welsh sheep on the hillsides around, card it, and spin it. Finally he taught them how to knit socks as he himself had been taught by doughty Annie. Rosemary wasn't sure what they did for needles, but maybe they used spokes from the bicycle wheels. It might sound far-fetched in our time of double-glazing, central heating and year-round comfort, but that man's skills meant that those young Irishmen survived the war years in good warm caps, mittens and socks, and returned safe and whole to their families.

I remembered the story Rosemary had told me when I read the other day on Handmaiden's weblog about someone asking if it were true that mittens were considered very valuable in World War I. I can confirm that they certainly were - especially in the bitterly cold coal mines of Wales.

The story strengthened my belief that no-one has the right to put down, to denigrate the age-old skills of creating warm garments. It's an arrogance which might well rebound on the instigator. Imagine a man who scorned his wife's quiet knitting by the fire, suddenly finding himself lost on a hillside in fog with no warm clothes? Imagine - and this is probably far closer to home - a sudden dreadful catastrophe when comfort and security are urgently needed. Who then will be the most important - the computerised chief executive or the knitter of afghans? I am finding it increasingly hard to be accepting about today's attitude to these vital skills. Is it because they're mostly practised by women? Last year I wanted to write a preview on the Knit & Stitch Show which was coming to Dublin as well as the UK. 'Good Lord no, isn't that just knitting and things?' said the editor dismissively. I fumed, but went away murmuring the mantra, 'don't get mad, get even.' I went back next day full of manufactured excitement and enthusiasm about this great new 'fibre art' exhibition coming to Dublin. I showed him images too - one was of an entirely knitted bedroom suite, I think. 'Great,' he enthused. 'Let me have the story right away. Those art exhibits are wonderful!'

Yeah, I got my way by devious means. I just wish I could have got it the straight way. It's up to us to reclaim the status that our skills so clearly deserve. If I have to bang a few male heads together in the process, that's fine with me. How about you?

Unsuspected Yarn Located In Hidden Depths of Kerry

Despite being out late last night, it was an early start this morning, with two articles to write up and send off before breakfast (the brain works best at this time. No, not well, just best, as opposed to worst, which is late at night). Then Sophie donned her red harness, the little black jeep was pressed into service, and we set off for Kerry and a mysterious woollen mills said to be somewhere west of Killarney on the road to Killorglin. Oh it took a bit of finding, since the instructions had all said turn left when they should have said turn right, and laneways that should have been there weren't, and roads had unaccountably changed direction... but in the end we got there. And stepped back two hundred years. Kerry Woollen Mills has been sitting on the banks of the Gweestin river since the late 18th century and the cobbled yard hasn't changed in the meantime. The mill itself was fast asleep, on its summer holidays, but the mill shop was open. Now don't you love mill shops with their promise of remainder baskets and tossed-aside bargains? Sophie barely got a trot on the grass before I banged her back in the black Maria and hastened to the delights in store.

Well, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by the shelves of Aran sweaters, the racks of tweed waistcoats (vests to you), the mohair scarves. After all, that's what most people want from a woollen mill. But it wasn't what I was looking for. Then at last I saw some yarn.



There was the expected display of traditional aran-weight bainin wool in natural as well as in the Jacob fleece colours of grey and brown; more entertaining were these skeins of bright reds and yellows and greens, also aran-weight, at around €7 for 200 gr which isn't bad. However, I'd spotted something far more interesting. Can you see them? Up there, above the skeins, on the high shelf? Cones. Cones of different yarns in varying weights, colours, qualities. Here's more of a close-up.



Couldn't see any sign of prices or indeed accessibility, but the hunting horn had sounded and I was off on the chase. I found several more cones, but all displayed tastefully above shelves of sweaters or swathes of scarves, which didn't suggest saleability. Time to get stroppy. This however involved waiting around, fingering gossamer-light mohair scarves and trying on tweed caps, while the hard-pressed lady behind the counter dealt, in quick succession, with an Italian family, five Americans, two Canadians, a French couple, and a very anxious Spanish woman who bought all the wool scarves she could lay her hands on but rejected anything made of cotton. Probably sick of it at home. They probably don't have much demand for wool so it must have been a real novelty. Not one single Irish visitor beside myself.

Margaret is a gentle-voiced lady who took the wind right out of my sails by admitting that yes, she'd heard of the upsurge of interest in knitting, and yes it would be a good idea if they could sell the cones, and there might well be a whole lot more of them somewhere out the back, but they mightn't all be suitable for hand knitting, and anyway the boss was away until next week and she didn't know the prices, so....

At times like this you have to be firm. Ruthless if necessary (and it always is necessary where yarn acquisition is concerned. I was not prepared to leave empty-handed.) 'How about those?', I rapped, pointing at two delectable cones of chenille on a windowsill which had been posturing provocatively and trying to catch my eye from the moment I'd entered the shop.




Margaret looked doubtful.

'Oh I don't think you could use those for -'

'Yes you could. I could.'

'Oh. Well... I suppose if you really want - I'd have to weigh them though.'

'Lead on. Take me to your weighing machine.'

She took me down through a passageway to a rather comfortless bare-walled room which did duty as an office and obviously hadn't had the decorators in since Victoria claimed to rule Ireland as well as Britain. On the table was an antique baby weighing scales complete with basket. Margaret carefully weighed the cones and suggested €15 for the two (about US$19). Done. Hand 'em over.



That traumatic transaction resolved, she relaxed and took me behind the scenes to see the weaving shed. It was a wonderful piece of industrial archaeology. Huge 19th century machines swathed in years of dust and wool reached to the ceiling. One was a carding machine with vast lengths of soft carded wool stretching twenty feet above my head. Certainly be quicker than my own two well-used hand carders. At the far end, behind a barrier, I saw sacks upon sacks of brightly dyed fleece and if I could have found a way to send Margaret back to the shop on a ruse I would have. Unfortunately she stuck close. Pity. I wouldn't have needed more than five minutes to nip over the barrier, stuff handfuls of red fleece up my jumper, the blue into my pockets, the lavender into my socks... Make a note. Always a good idea to visit these places with a large-pocketed poacher's vest atop normal garments. Make a second note. Why don't places like these offer competitions with the prize a five minute dash around the goodies with a trolley?

But I'll go back next week, when the boss returns and the machines roar into life again. After all, I've got Margaret three-quarters persuaded that they should sell not only leftover cones but also bags of prepared dyed fleece. Now all I have to do is charm the boss - the fourth generation of his family to run this mill in the heart of Kerry. Could be on to a good thing here...

The Elann lace crop cardi is proceeding, but with painful slowness. Each row takes an unconscionable time to complete, and I'm still not down to the shoulders. This evening I worked away assiduously, and then discovered half way through a complicated pattern row that I'd somehow dropped the thread of Lurex back near the beginning and had been working with the linen/cotton thread alone. I looked back and sure enough there was the Lurex sitting smirking at me. It was waiting smugly for me to work painfully back, stitch by stitch, until I reached it, picked it up, and re-did the whole row.

Well that smug little Lurex got a shock. I'm no obsessive perfectionist, and I do know when a show-off yarn needs to be taught a lesson. I simply pretended I hadn't seen it grinning, and continued steadily on my way to the end of the row. Then I turned and worked the next row, still using just the linen/cotton thread. By the time I got back to where the Lurex was sitting, it was singing a different tune, I can tell you. We've had no more trouble of that kind this evening, thank you very much. And honestly, I don't think it's very likely that anyone will notice, in the whole flippin' maelstrom of stitches and yarnovers and increases and point-laces and decorative flippertigibbets that one single row is missing its bling.

And the Interlacements socks really are progressing. I know you were wondering if I'd just let them slide, but I hadn't. The trouble now is that I'm enjoying working the straight stocking stitch so much that the heel shaping keeps on getting put off. I'll have to be firm tomorrow, and start on the really testing bit.



It is great, though, to work on both socks at the same time (thanks again,Grouchywif for the hint). It means no Second Sock Syndrome. On the other hand, it could well mean that a mistake worked on one and not spotted immediately....

I stopped off for coffee on the way back from Kerry and of course took out the socks (all this is a form of personal growth training, since it is still not the done thing in Ireland to knit in public). A woman stopped by my table to admire them and ask jokingly if I took orders. I suggested she start her own and she said, 'Oh, I couldn't possibly spare the time for that. You're lucky having so much time to do it.' Me? Time?

She then sat down nearby, looked around, found an old magazine and started reading it. Then she took out her Filofax. Aha, now I had her. I know these Filofax women. They always rush in for coffee looking busy. They always take out their beloved little black books. They always fill them in carefully. You know - riveting entries like 'Got up. Had breakfast. Filled in Filofax. Went out. Shopped. Had coffee. Filled in Filofax...' It's a way of persuading themselves that their lives are crammed with incident. Here's a totally unfair saying I've just invented:

'Them as can, do. Them as can't fill in Filofaxes.'

When she'd finished entering the story of her life for that day, she took a sip of coffee, sighed, looked around idly again, then took out her mobile phone and checked it for messages. There being none, she made a couple of lengthy calls to friends. Finally she tried her coffee again, found it had gone cold, got up, smiled and waved to me, shook her head at the socks, and left.

Come on, you tell me. How far down a sock could she have progressed in that time? Yeah, I thought about the ankle as well.

Spinning By The Light of the Moon

Tonight we managed to achieve it at last. It was after 11 pm when the moon finally rose high enough to be visible above the trees, and I hastily seized the new Ladakhi spindle all the way from Jenkins Woodworking in Oregon and some soft merino top, and got right out there. To do honour to the occasion, I even hauled out my traditional West Cork cloak with its huge gathered hood. And DH, bless his heart, clicked away while I spun, until we were both satisfied - me that the first ever new prototype Ladakhi spindle worked beautifully, and Richard that he had captured the moment appropriately.



There has to be something magical about yarn spun under the full moon. It's going to be used for something very very special. Wanda and Ed, the spindle is an absolute joy to work with. I kept a strong twist on the yarn to start with, as the merino roving was very soft and delicate and I, as I have mentioned before, am more used to working with wool that's still 'in the grease', but after a while I was able to relax and let the roving move with the spindle as it wanted to. I know a wheel does it quicker, and is lovely to work too, but yarn made in this timeless way somehow seems to create an incredibly close partnership of of spinner, working tool and material.

(I should also perhaps observe that clear moonlit nights aren't all that common here. Even in this picture you can see a few clouds hanging around waiting to obscure the moon. I wouldn't necessarily want to keep this yarn and this spindle only for using on such rare nights. It would take quite some time to get enough for a field mouse's scarf done.)

I have got to stop starting new projects. Today I should have been persevering with that Elann lace crop cardi which has to be finished in time for our equivalent of the State Fair, Bantry Show at the beginning of September. But instead I played around with that cabled silvery cotton top (I showed you the pattern in my last posting) and then made a shamrock motif to join to that rose motif I'd made in Irish crochet lace.



The finished top (no, I've moved on from the silvery cabled top, we're talking about the Irish lace now) will look beautiful. That's if it ever does get finished. I have to come clean at this point and admit that throughout my long and energetic life up to now, I have started on an Irish crochet lace blouse more than once - well, more than a dozen times in fact - and never completed any of them. I get so far, and then another, newer, more interesting project (usually in knitting) distracts me, or I get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work still to be done. But I must complete it once in my life. It's one of those markers, like a diploma, a rite of passage, something to look back on and say, 'I did that. I finished it.' Maybe like that utterly
stunning moth wing shawl that Anne is designing - anyone who made one of those could feel justifiably proud. Have you seen it? Like a dream of gossamer lace. Fantasy land.

It wasn't so bad waiting until after 11 pm to do the moonlight spinning because we'd been out for the evening, at Gougane Barra, that magical hidden glen in the hills beyond Ballingeary. The local hotel there (you might remember Breda who wants to hold storytelling sessions in the kitchen), has put up a marquee in the garden for a theatre company which is staging The Tailor and Ansty all through the summer. The visitors are thronging in, and it's great to see tent theatre prospering here again. There was a time you could see tent
shows all over the country but they died out in the 1950s and 60s with the advent of television. England lost them even earlier, in the late 19th century; in America, though, I think you still have them in some regions, don't you? I once gave a paper at a conference in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, which was held in a museum dedicated to travelling shows. What a marvellous place! Someday when I have time I'll research the history of showboats and the plays they presented.

But The Tailor and Ansty. This is a recreation of a true story about an old couple who actually lived in Gougane Barra about seventy years ago. The Tailor was a storyteller, a shanachie, a repository of the old folk tales and traditional wisdom, while Ansty his wife was a feisty, energetic, busy foil to his relaxed style. Everybody came to visit their cottage and listen to the talk - my own parents loved to come out from Cork city in their young married days, and others travelled from even further afield. One visitor, an Englishman named Eric Cross, spent much time with the couple and wrote a book about them. In the book he faithfully reproduced not only the tales but also the simple earthy direct language of the Irish countryside where a spade was called a spade and a bull a bull. The Irish government was appalled at this perceived slur on the purity and nobility of the peasantry, and the book was instantly banned. Worse, some officious priests took it upon themselves to visit the tailor and his wife and force them to burn their own copy of the book at the very fireside where so many of the tales had first been heard. The bewildered old couple were heartbroken.

The Tailor and Ansty have long lain peacefully in the tiny graveyard at Gougane, but country memories are long; and when it was first announced that the play would be presented in the valley, everyone wanted to come and see it. It's been packed out every night so far this summer.



I loved hearing the tailor talking on stage tonight about the old ways of making cloth when he was a boy (in the mid 19th century).

'Everything was different in those days. There were none of the mills and the factories that there are now. In every parish there was a man called a clothier. When you would shear the sheep you would spin and card and warp so many pounds of wool for him, according to your family, and he would take it to the weaver and get it woven into flannel and frieze and bring the cloth back to you. The weaver had an old sort of measure called a bandel. It was two feet long and he would charge five shillings a score of bandels for the weaving. Now it is all statute measure, yards and feet, whatever good that does them...'

After the cheers had died away, and the valley was quiet again, I wandered across and leaned over the stone wall of the graveyard to pay my respects. I think they would have been delighted to know that so much love for them was still to be found in the place where they lived and died. I have a very old black and white picture of the real tailor and his wife tucked away somewhere. If I can find it, I'll show it to you next time.

To Knit Or Knot? To Unknot the Knit?

Joy oh joy, the new Lantern Moon rosewood circulars arrived this morning from Knitty Noddy. And oh boy are they beautiful. That brass connection from rosewood to cable is supersmooth and the cable doesn't even kink. Don't know how they do it there in Vietnam but I'm in love. I shall order more straight away. I'd show them to you, but I pressed them into service immediately on the Elann lace crop cardi and they're a bit enveloped in there, what with all the stitches and stitch markers and whatnot.

Speaking of stitch markers, how do you stand on making your own? I've seen some cute little sets on websites, but they all cost, and they don't look that difficult to construct. I'm talking here about the dangly kind, like tiny earrings for knitting needles (which is what they are, I suppose). There is a nice little craft shop in Cork which has a great range of beads and fixings, so I might see if I can get all the relevant bits - rings, some little attachments, and of course lovely BEADS. This could be a whole new side interest, couldn't it? After all, it looks like the relationship is going to continue for some time. I'm starting to get used to the darn things.



Does this picture look any way familiar? If it doesn't, then you're lucky and clearly have more sense than I do. The yarn here is a very nice linen/cotton blend, quite fine, in a pleasant ecru shade. I have two large cones of it (never buy a ball if you can get a cone is my motto). A couple of years ago I had the brilliant idea of plying four strands together to make a nice chunky yarn for some now long-forgotten project. The idea didn't work, I frogged it back and tucked the ball away. Some months later I wanted to try something in a fine yarn and hauled this out. Oops, forgot I'd plied it by four. Let's see if we can retrieve the separate strands.... Several hours later the resultant mess was tucked away again. This afternoon I found it and wondered what others do when faced with previous bright ideas gone wrong.

It's not the first time I've done this and it probably won't be the last unless I tattoo 'Do Not Ply Unless Absolutely Absolutely Sure' on the back of my hand. And there really isn't a way to solve it. DH, bless his heart, although vastly skilled at handy household tasks, says he cannot wind a ball to save his life. The only method I have evolved so far is to separate a few feet of yarn, wind each on its own ball, separate a few more feet... and so on. You never get to the end of the ball that way. What I need is several like-minded knitting friends to stop by for an evening, and each take one end and work away. I'll stick this mess back with the other mistakenly-plied balls until that happy event occurs. Maybe if I offered free beer?

The reason I was looking at that linen/cotton mix is because I succumbed this morning while just popping into my RYS (that's the one in Clonakilty, you may recall) to say hi and show her my Interlacement socks (she was entranced and couldn't believe that you could get sock yarns like that - boy is she going to have fun when she discovers the Internet!). A book of patterns was open at this one and I just had to have it.



I realise the model looks a little too good to be true but actually she's a very nice person and a young mother to boot (this is an Irish pattern from Tivoli Spinners and I do know Vivienne, honestly!) It's a lightweight top with nicely twisted cables, including an unusual cabled collar and waistband, plus lace insets, and it's exactly where I've been trying to go with what I would call 'Aran' designs - that is, anything involving cables and twists. It's about time they were re-invented in finer yarns and lighter garments.

Will someone please explain to me how it is that no matter how vast your stash, how varied the colour range, textures, gauges and fibres therein, it is absolutely certain that you will not be able to find the right one for any new project? Is it Yarn's Law? I must have spent hours throwing cones and balls of yarn around until eventually I found a huge cone of 4 ply white cotton and to bring it up to the DK required, added a fine silver yarn that I was given as a gift in France recently (well, I'd just bought rather a lot of yarn at the factory shop of a famous name, and they threw in two balls of this silver because it had all become unwound and tangled. Still is.) Of course I couldn't wait to get started but found I had no circulars fine enough. HORROR! Had to go back to straights and it wasn't a pleasant re-encounter. I've got used to the lightness and safety of circulars and these heavy long metal things are awkward and difficult. Plus I just know they're going to seize the first opportunity to slide merrily out of the stitches in mid-row, leaving me stranded (or unstranded, really, I suppose). So far I'm on row 2. ..

But then there was the Elann cardi to get on with, and the socks of course, and that lavender/blue roving to spin, and the new Ladakhi spindle to try out. Wanda and everyone else, I promise I will get a picture of that spindle being used by moonlight. It's just that every night since the spindle arrived, the moon has remained obstinately hidden behind clouds. It's doing it on purpose. Maybe the spindle doesn't want to be pictured by moonlight. Maybe it's bad luck in Himalayan kingdoms, you wouldn't know.

Thank you for the nice comments on the Irish crochet lace. It's no big deal, honestly - if you've been doing motifs like that since childhood, they become automatic (although they still take ages). Angie , referring to the time involved in making an evening top, suggested I just do a border of the motifs on something else. Angie you are brilliant! You have cleared my mind and showed me the way forward. It was so obvious once you'd triggered the thought. I remembered that traditional Irish crochet lace was always done as individual motifs on a background filling of loops and picots. Why couldn't I simply make several motifs for the most obvious parts of the top, and then extend out and around from these to make the rest of the garment? That probably isn't very clear, but here's an illustration from that grand old book Irish Crochet Lace by Eithne Darcy.



Don't go into shock. There is no way I could make something like that (or even want to try - life's too short, for heaven's sake). But you see how the different motifs have been placed and then surrounded with a mesh background? I'm going to try something like that, albeit on a far simpler scale. Thanks, Angie!

I've just sent off an email to Tivoli Spinners (you can look up their website yourself if you like and see the yarns they make) indicating my interest in featuring one of their workers in my weekly column called Busy Today. It looks like the only way of getting inside that factory and seeing the yarns up close for myself. I'll let you know how I get on.

From Ladakh to Oregon to Ireland - The Spindle Has Arrived

Gosh, the most exciting news in weeks, months, years, lifetimes! The Ladakhi drop spindle has arrived from Oregon! You may remember that I posted a picture of a Buddhist monk spinning a few weeks ago. Wanda had asked if her husband could try to reproduce it (Jenkins Woodworking, see link on sidebar). I was delighted, since I hadn't been able to buy one when I was in that lofty kingdom some years ago (it's so high that it's difficult to breathe even when walking along the road, but the people are so lovely there that it makes any discomfort wonderfully worthwhile. It's like Tibet once must have been. But don't go if you have respiratory problems or if you get nervous at any distance from luxuries like refrigerators or spas.)

Anyway, I realised that I simply must have the very first Ladakhi spindle created in Oregon and ordered it accordingly. And now it's arrived! We had no post since Friday, as Monday was a bank holiday, and when I got back from shopping this morning there was no mail in the box. Crestfallen. But then when I got to the front door, there was a whole pile of mail, including the long cardboard box from Jenkins! Postie had brought it right up to the door for me. I was so excited I could hardly open it, but eventually I managed and there was my most beautiful, personally created drop spindle in original Ladakhi style.



Isn't it beautiful? The cross arms are made of apple wood and the shaft is ironwood and it came safely secured between two strips of plywood (a good way to send delicate works of art). And Wanda even sent her instruction booklet for spinning Turkish style - the two spindles aren't quite the same but near enough to make the instructions very helpful. I feel so privileged.

I had every intention of getting a picture taken tonight of me spinning by the full moon in the orchard, but wouldn't you know it, the Irish skies immediately decided to go cloudy and I can't see the moon at all. But tomorrow night without fail, my beautiful spindle shall be brought into play.

Now here's a contentious item. I've been working secretly on a crochet motif. I know, I know, the purist knitters among you will turn aside in horror. But all my life I have wanted to create just one perfect evening top in Irish crochet lace. I know perfectly well how to make the motifs - the trouble is there are so many of them needed for the briefest top, and I always got fed up before the final stages. Now, however, with the backing of all of you behind me, I'm going to try once more. Here's the first motif:



This is the rose pattern, with several layers of rose petals that are a b-r to do. All through my childhood I wondered what it would be like if I dared to omit two of the petal layers and eventually tried it on this one. It didn't work. Damn it, it didn't work. The motif demands those three layers. So I conformed. Now I need to make a shamrock motif to match it, and so on, alternating rose and shamrock until I have the shape of alittle sleeveless top (you don't honestly think I'm going to go the distance with a long-sleeved top, do you? Have you any idea how long it takes to make even one of these?) Trouble is, the eventual garment does depend a lot on the size of the individual motif. This one has worked out at 7 inches across which is awkward to work into a chequerboard of motifs for a top. But I'll manage. I'm sure as hell not going to rip it out and start again with a smaller needle. All that work for nothing? You must be joking!

In the midst of all my celebration over the arrival of the Ladakhi spindle, a sudden thought crossed my mind. We are now at August 8, and Bantry Show, if my memory serves me rightly, is in early September. What about that Elann jacket with which I intended to dazzle the judges? Hadn't I better get a move on? The answer is definitely yes. It's not progressed much further since I highlighted it last.



All right, all right, you don't need to go ON about it. I know it hasn't grown much. There were those divine little socks to get on with, and then that trip to Dublin, and that brief affair with the Irish crochet lace.... It's not my fault, so stop looking at me with that knowing expression! I know a few things about your WIP basket you wouldn't like exposed, so don't push me.

No, no, tell me truthfully. I'm sorry, come back, I didn't MEAN it, OK? Look - what do you think my chances are of finishing it within the next four weeks? What? Oh, I'm still on the way out over the shoulders. The instructions say I should measure the distance to the armpits. How can I measure from the neck to the armpits? Isn't the usual route out along the shoulder and down the arm? Am I getting this wrong again? WHAT HAVE ARMPITS TO DO WITH IT? And there are still all those awful increases to do on every wrongside row whenever I meet an increase marker (let's not go into that again, OK?) It's not as if you can cheerfully rattle off a dozen rows while waiting for the kettle to boil. Each row takes blood, sweat, tears (all of which I am giving generously) and concentration (no, not so good on that one). The slightest falter in attention and you find yourself sailing off in entirely the wrong direction, merrily knitting two together where you should have yarn-overed, and increasing where you should have decreased. I'm going to be a wreck before I ever reach those bloody armpits. And then I still have to face into sleeves worked in Milanese lace and points to be finished individually - oh hell, why did I ever start this? It's the loneliness of the long distance lace knitter, no doubt about it.

And I've yielded cravenly on those stitch markers. Now I just keep a large tin, with a lid punctured at regular intervals, and filled with stitch markers, next to the Elann cardi bag. Whenever I feel the need, I just shake the tin over the work in progress and add another few dozen markers. I'm beginning to feel safer with them around. Isn't that the first sign of mental aberration? Yes, I thought it was.

To the comments on my Dublin weekend. Wanda suggested I could surely have taken the sock into the stadium in a less see-through bag. Hey Wanda, I'm not that daft! See that Nikon 300mm lens case? THAT'S how the sock arrived in Croke Park. I only kept it in the plastic case because the rain was bucketing down and I didn't want to wet the Interlacements yarn.

Angeluna sympathised with my search for Dublin yarn and said that on a trip she took, she bought a triptych mirror by way of consolation for the Irish yarn she couldn't find. As she said, you can't pull extra baggage tricks like that these days (although I recently packed back a lil' red wagon from the States - it
looks great at midwinter piled with holly and gifts.) Julia asked if Springwools were not still in existence.
You're absolutely right, Julia, they are there - but Walkinstown is so far outside Dublin that it's another trip really. It wouldn't have been feasible to get out there and back in the time I had. In fact I just might go up there one day and avoid Dublin city traffic altogether by the simple expedient of staying outside.

And for the seventeen thousand, eight hundred and fifty five who enquired, the young man with curly black hair in the hurling picture is Sean Og O'h'Ailpin. Yes, he's still single and available, but you'd better get in line. Most of Ireland's fair young womanhood is after him - not to mention quite a few of the older lassies too. It's the way he swings that hurley...

Report From The Front Line: The First Sock Knitter EVER at Croke Park!

I'm back from my travels and so pleased to be able to start posting again. I had specially brought my laptop to Dublin plus all the attendant cords and cables, but for some reason could not get on to the Net in the hotel. Used Richard's laptop to send a couple of emails, but was frustrated in my desire to sit down and have a really good chatting session with my friends, which is what weblogging is all about. I could not have believed how the habit takes hold after so short a time. (Last week I had trouble logging on to Blogger one night and my whole world virtually fell apart. How can I communicate with everybody, I cried frantically, emailing the Blogger helpdesk at the rate of one missive per minute. What will happen if we never talk to each other again?. Happily the system was only down for a short time but it was a salutary reminder of how much importance we attach to this ability to exchange ideas and comments with like-minded friends across the world.)

Left very early on Saturday morning as the entire population of Cork city and county was headed for Dublin, most of them rigged out in red and white. Cars sported red and white flags too, and even the occasional windsock in the county colours. Richard went off to Croke Park to cover a minor match and I hit the legendary streets of old Dublin, hell bent on discovering if ANY yarn could be run to earth in this city of Dean Swift and Oscar Wilde, Sean O'Casey and Bernard Shaw, Sheridan and Goldsmith, James Joyce and Brendan Behan. All that wonderful writing, yet no worsted? Superb storytellers and no sock stitching? Amazing anecdotes and no Aran?

Well Aran there was aplenty, but all of it well made up and on display in windows for the delectation of tourists with more money than sense. Lovely scarves too, of the finest wool and mohair, plus rugs, throws, caps and jackets, everything in fact that could be made from quality Irish yarn - but not the magical ingredient itself in its original state. I searched all the well known fashionable streets, and then headed for the scruffier end of town. Here I struck - well not exactly gold, but at least something. In the basement of a fabric store I found one whole corner devoted to yarn.



It was mostly bumper balls of pseudo-Aran, plus that shaded yarn in huge packs from Tivoli, but at least it was yarn of some kind. I was so relieved to find it that I stayed there ages and bought a book of crochet patterns I didn't need because there weren't any good knitting books (no knitting books at all in fact). Then I went down on to the quays and found a shop called Dublin Woollen Mills which had two small shelves of pastel acrylics. And that was it. I don't know what it is about Dublin and Dubliners, but remind me not to go there again unless I have a pretty large stash in my bag to keep me going. Galway has some great places, Cork has a few at least - but our capital city is pretty badly provided. My thanks to those who reminded me of the website listing Irish yarn shops - I've checked that out many a time, usually hoping to see some changes for the good, but all I ever find is that another couple of the listings thereon should be excised because the shops have shut. However, my experience has determined me to storm the doors of Tivoli Yarns here in Cork next week and see what's going on in there. I know they create some lovely stuff and send it all over the world (I've come across it in the Yukon, for heaven's sake!), but I want to know why they aren't opening outlets all over their own home country. I gather they don't welcome visitors, but try and stop this Sherman tank when she's on a mission...

And so to Sunday and Croke Park. This is one big stadium by Irish standards, with a capacity of around 82,000, and it was packed yesterday, the red and white of Cork contrasting sharply with the blue and white of Waterford. By a bit of crafty teamwork, I was smuggled on to the sidelines in the guise of an official photographer and, with incredible courage, smuggled the Interlacements socks with me so that they could experience the place too. I was petrified! I mean, this was undoubtedly the first time EVER that anyone, let alone an official photographer, took out a half-knitted sock and a ball of yarn on the sideline at a hurling semi-final. If the television cameras had picked me up I would probably have been frogmarched out of the stadium and banned for evermore for bringing the game into disrepute.



Hurling, as I have mentioned before, is our national game and is taken rather seriously. Angie asked if it was anything like hockey. Well, they do play with curved sticks, but after that the rules diverge somewhat. Hurling can get pretty violent and the 'clash of the ash' or the collision of one hurley with another often leads to broken pieces of wood flying in all directions, and injuries are, well, not infrequent. I got DH to give me one of his press pictures so that you could get an idea.




Fortunately Cork won through and so goes into the final in September. It was my first experience of a major sporting event at close quarters and although I am not, and never will be, a sports enthusiast (I'm totally with my father who, when once asked his favourite sport, said 'Anything that doesn't require me to take part'), there was something quite compelling about the deep-throated roar of 80,000 fans. It made me wonder what being part of a spectacular in the Colosseum in Caligula's Rome must have been like.

Cuchulainn, the legendary Irish hero of ancient times, got his name through hurling. When he was only a youth he was known as Setanta. One evening he was bidden to a feast at the hall of the great lord Chulainn but didn't go at the same time as his friends because he wanted to finish his game of hurling. When he had finished he set off, striking his silver ball along with his golden hurley as he ran in the gathering dusk. But when he arrived at the hall of Chulainn, the gates had been closed and the feasting had begun. Nowise dismayed, Setanta leapt the wall and made his way to the door of the hall. But the great hound of Chulainn had been loosed to guard the hall and he came rushing round the building and leapt straight at Setanta. Quick as thought, Setanta lifted his hurley and struck his silver ball straight down the throat of the hound, killing him instantly. Everyone came out from the hall and Chulainn bemoaned the loss of his great hound. But Setanta went to his lord and knelt on one knee and said, 'I have killed your hound so from now on I shall be your hound and your protector.' And so he became known as Cu-Chulainn, the hound of Chulainn, and afterwards the greatest hero Ireland had ever known.

We came back across country on a wonderful evening of pink and gold sunset followed by purple dusk over the boglands and the slopes of the Silvermines, arriving home exhausted at midnight. Today, however, was special. Richard and I have the good fortune to celebrate our birthdays on succeeding days and each year try to get out and away from everything into the depths of the countryside. We took all three dogs (quite a hazardous undertaking since one is daft, one is self-willed to the point of obduracy, and one just demands love constantly, even while crossing rivers on stepping stones), and headed to a favourite spot, the Black Valley beyond Killarney and the Gap of Dunloe. This is a wonderfully empty landscape, although if you know where to look you can see the remains of once bustling villages which lost their populations during the Famine and have since been overgrown by rampant bracken and bramble. It is a particularly cherished dream of ours to one day publish a book of photographs and texts entitled Echoes of the Past, about places like these. We wandered, we paddled in streams, the dogs swam happily, we picked bunches of bog myrtle to ward off moths in cupboards at home, and had a lovely time. And best of all I was able to knit on those much-travelled Interlacements with the scented wind blowing across the valley and the spectacular landscape stretching out to the horizon.

Of Knitting, Spinning And Hurling...

Things are in a bit of a rush tonight. DH has to drive to Dublin tomorrow and stay overnight because the honour of Cork is at stake, not just once but TWICE on the hallowed ground of Croke Park and he has to take the pictures! Cork's football team meets Donegal in a semi-final tomorrow, and on Sunday the hurling team takes on Waterford, also in a semi-final. Whatever about the football, Cork's position in hurling (our national game after all) is something prized above all else. It isn't a matter of life and death - it's much more serious than that. A tide of red will be flooding towards the capital tomorrow (Cork's colours are red and white or, as they are often described, and quite accurately if you know the game of hurling, 'blood and bandages'.) Now it's only 160 miles 'twixt the two cities but Irish roads are not like those of America or Canada (or even England for that matter). They twist, they turn, they leap off delightedly to greet tiny villages like long-lost friends. It takes three hours at illegal speeds (some chance) on a good day to get there: tomorrow it will be more like seven or eight with the crowds. Yes, all the flights and trains are full too. We take hurling seriously. I'd put in a picture for you, but I think you should get one fresh from the field on Sunday rather than an old one. Hurling goes back as far as any records in Ireland, and probably quite a lot further than that. It was certainly well established when Cuchulainn was around. The game of shinty in Scotland is similar although perhaps not quite so bloodthirsty.

Anyway the point is that I'm going up with Richard both for moral support and to help with the driving there and back (if I drive coming home, he can work on the pictures on his laptop and send them to the paper as we travel which means we just might get to bed before dawn on Monday morning). So not sure about my posting tomorrow night. Right now I'm packing my really seriously important things to bring - the Interlacements socks which are nearly down to the exciting bit of turning the heel, and a big cone of a fine shiny beaded yarn in white with which I intend to try an Irish crochet lace experiment. Let tomorrow's game drag on as long as it wants, I'll be happy in the car park. On Sunday of course I'll try to get on the sideline with DH and his 500mm lens to cheer Cork on. There are times (though admittedly few) when even knitting has to take a back seat.

The happy news from today is that after spinning a couple of skeins of raw wool from that new fleece, I decided to have another go at those so-soft rovings I'd bought from Warm Threads earlier in the year. I mentioned in a previous posting that when I tried to spin them on my wheel I couldn't manage them at all - they kept breaking. Obviously I'd got too used to the ease of 'wool in the grease' which clings together very helpfully. I went back to a drop spindle with the soft rovings which was fine but a little slow. Today I got up the courage to try again with the Orkney wheel, and it WORKED!



I really am distinctly chuffed about this. I had been getting so jealous of Anne and the way she seemed able to spin both fine wool and delicate silk with offhanded ease. Now I might be able to tackle some of those other lovely coloured rovings that had been languishing in a box on the top shelf in the workroom. And I wonder if I could try to incorporate a very fine thread of glitter at the plying stage?

(I must learn Navajo plying. It can't be that difficult...)

Yesterday afternoon was so hot and airless that we took some time off and went for a walk in the woods near Ballyvourney, on the Cork/Kerry border.



Sophie is pretty handy at clambering up trees; this one was covered with thick moss and when we came down we both smelt beautifully of earth and moss and green growing things. I love the varying shades of green and the ferns and bracken, and the shapes the trees take in the woods, like figures out of Tolkien or portals to an enchanted world.



I was looking through the pictures from our recent trip to France and came across this one of a crochet curtain on a shop window - I think it might have been an art gallery - in Brittany, which had intrigued me. As a curtain it wasn't much cop (you wouldn't want to be changing your clothes behind it), but as a decoration I thought it was rather elegant.




The French have an exasperating way of doing everything with style and panache. Even a busy housewife on her way to the market looks like something out of Vogue. I don't know how they do it.

I shall search Dublin diligently for yarns tomorrow, but I don't feel very hopeful. For some reason our capital city is an arid desert when it comes to craft materials, although you can buy the finished products easily enough. I have been following a thread on Knitter's Review Forum about good shops and discovered a query from someone coming to Ireland for a week end. Where, she asked excitedly, were the best yarn stores. I was so embarrassed. I promise you that if there is a stock of yarn anywhere, be it even pastel acrylic, I will track it down.

What You Do When You're Really Desperate For Yarn

You might have noticed that you haven't heard too much of the Anny Blatt jacket lately. Oh boy is that a sore subject! I finished all the pieces. I sewed them together - why oh WHY is that one of the worst tasks in the business? Then I started on the neck and front bands.

The mistake was probably to think I could slip in a quick bit of crochet and get the bands done in double quick time. Why bother casting on 7 stitches and working 5000 rows when a crochet hook could do it in a quarter of the time? Why indeed? Well because for one thing, a knitted band can be pinned in place as you go, and if you count the rows, you can use the same length either side, thereby GETTING AN EVEN BALANCE on the fronts.

Which I didn't, of course. I roared off up the straight, congratulating myself on my cleverness and thinking sympathetically of all those poor souls who never touch a crochet hook in case it corrupts their knitting skills. I carefully tightened up the rather loose edging to make a nice firm band, and even remembered to put in buttonholes (2 ch, miss 2 sts, continue in dc, work the 2 ch in dc on the next row).



You can see it, can't you? Those fronts (albeit not finished) are too tight, too short for the rest of the jacket. I didn't want to see it, or believe it. I just kept on hooking with determination, that tiny voice in my brain ignored. This morning, however, I gave in and tried it on. Bleedin' bloody 'ell as the twelfth Earl of Gurney would have said. It was no use pretending any longer. I tore it off in fury, ripped back the banding and hurled the jacket into the WIP basket. I never want to see it again. And yet, I did spend a lot of time working out the colour scheme and incorporating some rather exclusive yarns. I can't just leave it like that. Sooner or later I will have to face up to the worst job of all: taking up a project you are already completely sick of and can't imagine why you ever started, and slowly, painstakingly, doing the job properly.

And you know something even worse? Now that I think of it, I hadn't even finished working in all those loose ends from the stripes. Now that really is a thankless task. So near and yet so far...

After I'd posted that picture of my spinning wheel, Rho said: 'You keep teasing me with that beautiful blue/purple wonder behind the spinning chair... ' Well what was behind the spinning chair was not just one but a whole heap of shawls I'd made over the past few shawl-passion-filled months. I spread them out especially for you, Rho.



In the foreground on the left is the one I think you are eyeing up, in Cherry Tree Hill's Ballerina - I think the colourway was Tropical Storm. Next to it the purplish one is in Connemara Twilight, one of my own yarns, while at the back are, reading left to right, another two of my own samples, Midnight on Mangerton and Springtime in West Cork.

I'll have to call a halt on shawls, although I know that Angie can't. I mean, I got a glorious Blue Heron beaded-effect rayon yarn from Gill at WoollyWorks not long ago. Again, it's ideal for a shawl but how many shawls can a girl make whether to wear or give away? Perhaps I should try one of those knitted-sideways Celtic Vests on Knitty-Noddy's site?



This pic shows it made in Fleece Artist's Scotian Silk, but I imagine the Blue Heron would have much the same drape. Can one have too many vests? (You do know by the way, don't you, that in the UK and Ireland a vest is still a virtuous heavyweight undergarment, worn most of the year round but never mentioned in polite company? What you call a vest we generally call a waistcoat or, if really trendy, a gilet.)

Lyn asked if the thrush at the pond in my last posting really had her tail in the water. Yes she did, and it was something neither of us had ever seen before. Birds bathing, yes, but never standing transfixed with tails dipping below the surface. Wanda was asking if it was a natural spring that fed that little pond. I wish it were, but isn't. It's totally home made in fact. We always dreamed of a place with a stream running through, but when we finally landed here, after quite a bit of wandering, we vowed never to leave. And so, we made our own tiny pond. It wasn't that difficult - a child's plastic paddling pool, some black plastic liner, a lot of spadework, and some crafty landscaping with mossy rocks and plants. Green algae was a problem until, thanks to the World Wide Web, we sourced a solar pump all the way from China. Of course we got laughed at - the idea of a solar pump in Ireland - but I always knew that we got quite a lot of sunshine actually, though not very much and never for very long. Most days we get a cheery trickle of water down through a trough I made of stones, which keeps the pond fresh and clear.

The rowan berries are ripening and soon we'll have thrushes all over them. It would be nice to have enough for rowan jelly just ONE year, but it is lovely to see the birds arriving to feed on them. I'll let you see a picture as soon as they do - it won't be long now.

We have a saying in Ireland, "walking on hungry grass." It is supposed to be a folk memory of the Famine, and refers to those times when you get a sudden desperate craving for food, and must have something immediately or you feel you'll collapse. Do you know that feeling with yarn? The urge to have something new in your sticky little paws right this minute, no matter how much stash there is at home? For some reason today I remembered just such a time I felt that desperation in a shopping mall. It was a huge, impersonal, brightly lit, noisy echoing sort of place, with all kinds of chainstore outlets selling cheap imports, but nothing, absolutely nothing to do with knitting or indeed crafts of any kind. I had had a trying day and really needed something to comfort me in an anonymous hotel room that evening. It was getting on to closing time and it didn't look as though my luck was in.

As a last resort I went into one shop selling tricksy stuff for teenagers and drifted towards the jewellery and accessories section. There I saw a whole rack of scarves marked down to half nothing. Some were bright and silky, others thick and chunky. In that moment my life was saved. I bought half a dozen and took them back to my hotel. That night I carefully unpicked, unravelled, untwisted and wound, until I had a myriad different coloured balls of yarn on my bedside table. I didn't knit anything - I didn't have needles with me - but it didn't matter. I had found yarn in some form, and that was fix enough until I could reach the safety of the home stash.

I still have those balls of unpicked yarn. They're not very good stuff really, and you wouldn't expect them to be. I probably never will use them. But they remind me of what can save your sanity in times of pressure.

Sea Otter Bravely Protects Yarn From Wild Pekingese

I managed to get round to some quiet spinning late last night, using the fleece I got from the marvellous Daniel P. Buckley. I left it there in the sitting room until I had time to go back to it again, with Sophie the Sea Otter keeping an eye on it. Sophie, I have to explain, is my surrogate dog when we go on trips. (Those easily revolted may skip the next bit). I had noticed that whenever we were far from home, I was drawn to buying a soft toy. This began to get a bit silly, when the house was crowded with fat teddy bears, cute little furry bats, raccoons, and even a wild haggis from Scotland. I definitely didn't need any more soft toys cluttering up the place. Then I realised it was because I was missing the dogs so much. After that Sophie the Sea Otter came on trips with us. She didn't take up much room in the suitcase, and she was something soft to cuddle when Tasha, Muffy and Sophie the genuine weren't there.

Anyway I was down in the basement this morning, loading the washing machine, when I heard sundry thumps and bangs upstairs. I was puzzled, but went on with what I was doing until I realised with horror that I hadn't shut the door of the sitting room firmly last night. I took those stairs at the speed of light. Yes, it was Muffy again, the bould Muffy, and she was having a high old time in there where I had left my spinning wheel and the basket of soft tempting rolags. However - the fleece was safe. Muffy had sighted Sophie the soft, Sophie the cuddly, and the lust for possession had taken over.



You are going to observe gently that it is most fortunate I happened to have a camera in hand. You are quite right. I didn't. I retrieved the situation and mentioned it to DH later on. He immediately and predictably insisted on restaging the incident so that he could get the opportunity to photograph it. 'She isn't going to do it to order,' I said pityingly. How wrong I was...

We discovered a thrush sitting on eggs in a tree down by the orchard recently and have been keeping an eye on her ever since. This morning (before the Muffy incident) we saw the mother bird sitting motionless in the little pond outside the dining room window, her eyes closed.



We worried she was ill but eventually she opened her eyes, fluttered off, and was soon back feeding the chicks. She had just been taking a little time out for herself, as any exhausted mother might do, and I was so glad we had been able to provide the private spa for her. That little pond gives so much good value. Often we get several birds down at the same time.




For those of you who think (as I do) that online shopping is Nirvana, a cautionary tale. I wanted to try Lantern Moon circulars, having heard so many rhapsodic paeans in their praise. And so I duly Googled. One very well known web shop offered them for $23. But it then transpired they wanted $28 - yes, $28, that is considerably more than the price of the needles themselves - for posting them to Ireland. Like they're that heavy? Now I know how much it costs to send something light from the US, because I order stuff all the time, so I said thanks but no thanks. Went across to Knitty-Noddy where I found the size I wanted at the same price, BUT with a choice of either $12 (extra fast) or $8 (pretty fast) postage. Went for the $8, and almost immediately got a lovely friendly personal email confirming the order and offering assistance on any other queries I might have. Good customer care, Knitty-Noddy, but that's not all. This morning I got another email from the lovely Evelyn at Knitty-Noddy saying that the needles were on their way and had, after all, cost LESS to post than she had thought, so she had refunded the difference to PayPal! Is that nice or what? A BIG clap and a gold star to Knitty-Noddy and three BOOS to the other company which shall remain nameless (but if you're in the market for yarns, so to speak, you'll find them on any search page...)



Swooned over this Lady Godiva wool/silk mix from Handmaiden which Knitty-Noddy had on their site. Can I live without it? Not for long, I can't.

I need those Lantern Moon circulars fairly quickly though because that dratted Elann lace crop cardi demands that you switch to a size larger needle each time you finish a ball of yarn. I'm using a severely kinked and rather short plastic circular at the moment and it isn't all that pleasant when you're used to rosewood. (Boy, does that sound pretentious! True in fact, but pretentious.)

All other sock projects (around three the last time I counted) have been laid on one side in favour of the utterly gorgeous little Enlacements treasures.



Aren't they coming on beautifully? I really love the way the yarn stripes itself without my having to do anything. And once you're past the rib, the stocking stitch is really soothing. I'm taking them everywhere at the moment, into cafes and offices, and very obviously knitting a row or two, since in Ireland the idea of anyone knitting in a public place is still a bit shocking. Socks should be created behind closed doors and only brought out when complete and ready to wear is the general idea. It's because we're still so very close to the time when you had to knit because there was no other way of obtaining socks, stockings, sweaters, everyday clothing. People are still a bit ashamed of the skill, feel that you shouldn't admit to it. But every time someone comes up and asks what I'm doing, or says that she used to knit those years ago and now thinks she might like to try again, I make a small private tick on an imaginary wall chart. (I realise you fought this battle ages ago in the New World and won it triumphantly, but we're still in the trenches here on this one.)

Earliest Irish Knitting Magazine Discovered?

I had never heard of Flickr until Lyn in Australia (you can see her comment on last night's post) told me she didn't have a weblog yet but had put pictures of her lace trellis scarf up there. I typed it into Google and lo and behold, up it came. And there were her pictures. The scarf looks stunning, Lyn, and thank you for showing me where I could admire it. What fun it is when every day brings a new discovery! I must look at Flickr again.

And thanks to Lorna Jay for giving me the link to a lovely English firewood poem - you can find that in the comments section too. It's a marvellous litany of which woods are best for burning and which should be avoided. The one I was thinking of (which I have now found in my copy of Irish Trees: Myths, Legends and Folklore) is translated from the Irish and has Iubdhan, king of the leprechauns, advising King Fergus:

'Do not burn the pleasing apple, drooping its spread,
Loved its white blossoms, all touch their fair heads...
Rowan, the druids' tree, burn the fair tree of berries,
Ash, dark in colour, wood for chariot wheels,
Horsewhip in horseman's hands, shaft on the battlefield...'




Rachel asked to see a picture of my little upright Orkney, made by Haldane, so here it is.



I hauled it out from the corner where it has been languishing for a while and gave it a loving polish. I tried to make the polishing feel like the strong tongue of a mother cat working over a newborn kitten, or a cow coaxing her little calf to stand up and look at the world. That wheel has seen me through bad times when I was not in the safe harbour I am in now, and it is very dear to me. But here's another wheel which shares the upstairs sitting room with the Orkney and which has not appeared in public life before:



Isn't she gorgeous? Isn't she straight out of a fairy tale?. I found her in the back of a huge barn in France that was filled with ancient mouldering furniture, and fell in love on the spot. Richard, bless him, didn't say, 'but you already have a wheel'. He just went out and made room in the back of the car while I bargained for 'le petit rouet'. Not surprisingly the woodworm had paid her a visit or two, but acting on the advice of an antique dealer friend, I took her apart and tucked her into a deep freeze for a week. Then I put her back together and gave her a drink of wax polish. I haven't tried using her yet, though I must do so soon - I think she'd like to feel useful and wanted again.

Hauled a few handfuls of fleece out of the Daniel P. Buckley sack which is hanging from the rafters in the garage and carded a whole basket of rolags in the afternoon sunshine, to spin later on this evening when I've finished posting. It will be a nice way to finish the evening and relax before bed.



Tasha kept an eye on the fleece while I took the picture.

Do you know the Spinning Song? You probably do - it's been murdered by rather too many warbling sopranos over the years - but the original is really a lovely lilting tune which just fits the timing of treadling a spinning wheel.

'Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning,
Close by the window, young Eileen is spinning,
Bent o'er the fire, her blind grandmother's sitting,
Humming and dreaming and drowsily knitting...'

The latest on that exciting find of the bog manuscript: I am now able to reveal, to you alone, dear readers, what it really was. The only bit they've been able to read so far seems to be an excerpt from the Psalms. But never judge a book by the blurb... Just look at the description given by the museum: 'A slim large format book with wraparound vellum cover... ' Sound familiar to you? It should do. They also observed, 'the extent to which other psalms or additional texts are preserved will be determined only by painstaking work by a team of experts.' I can save them the trouble! I know what it is!

Here's the story. Settle down. Get your knitting. No, not the complicated lace pattern, you need easy garter stitch for this. Now, let your mind travel back to long long ago. To around 800 AD in a wild Irish landscape. A young woman is running desperately across the remote bogland, leaping the dark peaty pools, brushing through the purple heather. As she runs she glances over her shoulder in fear, her breath coming in short gasps. Under her arm she clutches a thin bundle. As she hears a shout in the distance she sobs with frustration and, falling to her knees, thrusts the heather apart to hide her precious property deep amid its tangled roots. Quickly she rises to her feet, thrusts back her hair and turns with lifted chin and haughty demeanour to face the tall, muscular, fair-haired young warrior who leaps from his horse and strides toward her. As he lifts her in his mighty arms and throws her across the saddlebow of his horse, she makes no complaint, no cry. Just one brief glance back to where her treasure is hidden in safety is all she is granted before she is carried off - far from home, across the sea to the Norse lands, to become a Viking's bride.

Only her husband is justifiably miffed when he discovers that his captured wife has not after all brought with her the sought-after secret of Irish designs in woollen loops which create strangely warm and decorative garments. He storms up and down the longhouse, bellowing his disappointment and fury as she sits with lowered eyes and stirs the pot over the fire. 'Cheated!', he bellows. 'After all that trouble I went to.' And his wife sits and says never a word, thinking in her heart of the safely hidden secret back in an Irish bog.

In time, of course, his anger fades and by the time their fifth child is born (well, I did say he was tall and blond and therefore, by inference, a bit of a catch), she has relented enough to make warm sweaters for them all, with pretty patterns around the yoke. But never the complex stitches and designs of the Irish knits. ..

Sooner or later the museum is going to reveal that what has been found in that bog was actually the first ever issue of Modern Medieval Knits - New Designs For the Eighth Century Irishwoman.