You-are-there reading

I'm reading an enchanting book of essays, Ex Libris, by Anne Fadiman. These essays seem effortless, but like faultless craftmanship of all kinds, the appearance of effortlessness is the mark of something that is definitely not effortless. And like many great essays, these are a magic mixture of personal tone, research that does not announce itself and content that has the reader saying 'ah!'.
One of the essays is 'You Are There', an exploration of 'the practice of reading books in the places they describe'. As well as being a fan of the practice, Fadiman outlines her own, and the exploits of other passionate devotees in such places across time, including her friend Adam, 'who once read the ninth book of the Odyssey, in Greek, in what is believed to be Cyclop's cave'.
I've often felt the connection of songs to cities, but the closest I came to you-are-there reading was when I started reading Anna Funder's All That I Am while travelling through Germany last year. I understand the idea of 'you-are-there' reading, but I-was-there-when-I-was-knitting [insert name of garment or knitted object] is something that I am more familiar with.

Vegie knitting and more frills

While working through my stash I came across a ball of Morris Osten - clever name for those that remember Austin cars - that I had been given by a friend. It's very similar to a couple of balls of Katia Ondas, which I confess I had acquired at a great wool shop in Albury, NSW.
But how to knit using this stuff? There were printed instructions, and pictures too, but it wasn't until I saw the YouTube demonstration posted by the owner of the wool shop, K2Tog, that I felt confident to knit with those yarns.
Despite the awkwardness that I felt in managing the yarn in the first few rows, knitting with these yarns provides good 'veggie' knitting, the project grows quickly and looks pretty. One more scarf to go and I will have cleared these yarns from my stockpile.
Veggie knitting is mindless, rather than mindful knitting. If this style of veggie knitting is not for you, but you like veggie knitting with a purpose, each year K2Tog posts a simple pattern that can be made for Carevan, a charity in Albury.

Some things take time

This skinny scarf with a fat frill was a great disappointment to me. Yeah, I know that mistakes bring opportunities.
This one gave me the opportunity to decide that I have a way to go as a designer and I took two years off from the blog rather than post the picture.
The design would probably work well draped around a Christmas wreath, with the frills as a feature. Since Christmas falls in the hot Australian summer, a knitted wreath may look bizarre. But no more so than Christmas lights blazing in the heat.

Joined

I grafted the two ends of my scarf almost invisibly (picture soon) after reading several pages of The Principles of Knitting, by June Hemmons-Hiatt. It's a big book with close to 600 pages, but the writing is tight - before reading the instructions about grafting, the author set some pre-reading from earlier pages.

Hemmons Hiatt has an entertaining, authoritative voice along the same lines as Elizabeth Zimmerman.

My friend Paul writes for comedians, so he is always on the lookout for gags and punchlines. When he was browsing my bookshelf, he saw my copy of the book.
'The Principles of Knitting!' he chortled, 'wasn't that banned?'

Well, it is as rare as a banned book. The book was published in the 1980s and has been in scarce supply ever since. Rumours of a new edition sparks lots of anticipation on knitters' sites. Check out some of the prices for used copies here.

I didn't tell Paul the price that it is selling for on Amazon, in case he decided to abduct the book as a joke.

Mindful Knitting

Sitting and knitting did for me what sitting quietly didn't. I lasted about 5 minutes over three days. On the first day, the Philosopher Cat (pictured below) tracked me down for a cuddle as I was sitting quietly - a privilege because she generally keeps to herself. She never stays long, and when she had departed, I picked up my knitting and I focused on the pattern as a mantra.

The pattern is for a scarf with frilled ends. It’s my own creation, or as much as anything one knits can be one’s own creation. The ends have a Christmas bell kind of look, it is in a very Christmassy red 8 ply (double knitting/worsted) – a strange choice of activity and project for an unusually warm and humid post-Christmas Melbourne summer.

After quite a bit of unraveling (myself and the yarn) I’m close to grafting the two ends of the scarf together. I am quite familiar with Kitchener Stitch, particularly using it to graft seamless toes for socks, but information on grafting patterned (rib and purl) stitches is more of a challenge.

All over the shop

Such a splendid saying - I wonder where it came from. I have some suspicions.

New year, same old me. I find that am I identifying a little too much with John M. Wagner's Maxine, particularly her attitude to daily organisation. I'm thinking specifically of 11am, but not just that.

Rather than clean my desk today, I volunteered to do the household shopping. How desperate is that! First stop was the newsagent, where I bought a lifestyle magazine that featured an article on the benefits of meditating with a brief outline of how to do it.

A few years ago I bought a book about knitting meditation, Mindful Knitting. I loved reading it and then gave it away to someone who I thought would go beyond reading about it.

Tomorrow I will sit still for twenty minutes and give the method outlined in the magazine a trial.

Supernatural elements

I've finished reading Ice by Louis Nowra and The Lacemakers of Glenmara by Heather Barbieri. The former is a blend of literary fiction and literary non-fiction. The latter would be found in the popular fiction section of a bookshop. Both have a strong sense of place.

Louis Nowra's novel (now out of print) conjures up vivid images of Scotland, Ireland, Melbourne at the end of the nineteenth century and Sydney in more modern times. The multiple strands of the plot are only revealed pixel by pixel. Heather Barbieri's novel is set in Ireland as seen through the eyes of the American stranger who just happens to be a designer and seamstress. As a reader I had a good idea about where the plot was going, but I was still happy to take the journey. I'm not convinced that the portrait of Ireland in the novel is authentic, however, hopefully Wolf Creek is not seen as an authentic portrayal of Australia either.

It took me a long time to read Ice, but I knew that I would come back to it and I think I was more satisfied by reading it over a period of months. I read The Lacemakers in one day, just because I was in the mood to read something with a straightforward plot.

What struck me about both novels is the way that supernatural elements and hauntings were interwoven into the story line - more so in the literary novel in fact - but also how easy both writers made it for the reader to take that leap.

Readers seem to have developed a sharpened appetite for paranormal elements in the past few years. I wonder why that is.