The Accidental Enthusiast

It's difficult to keep track of time when it's so wibbly wobbly-like, but as such things are conventionally reckoned I am a relative newcomer to the grand British tradition of Doctor Who. That said, though I jumped right in to the middle of Series 6 of the revived version I wasted no time (hah) and am now fully caught up and anxiously awaiting the Series 7 finale this Saturday. So what does this all mean, anyway?

Well, the ENTIRE idea OF Doctor Who has gotten into my head. I also feel that I must impart that my approach to the entire franchise is from a decidedly Anglophilic place rather than one of geekery - whatever that means anymore.  And we all know what happens when things get stuck in my head, don't we?

They say you never forget your first Doctor and they are so, SO, right. Continuing in the Timey-Wimey tradition, the Eleventh Doctor - portrayed by the brilliant Matt Smith - was my first.  He remained strongly so even as I tagged along following the exploits of the Ninth and the Tenth.  The Ninth wasn't around long enough, and the Tenth was a little too lovestruck for me.* Whereas the ELEVENTH, now..!

It seems to me that this "youngest" of Doctors is - by far - the best of the bunch.**  He's very young and very old, very silly and very wise, very familiar and very alien ALL AT THE SAME TIME, and he is absolutely brilliant. When it comes time for the Eleventh Doctor to regenerate, I will be the soppy mess weeping my eyes out over there in the corner.  And those bow ties...

It was really only a matter of time (again, hah,) before Doctor Who mittens*** happened. Here's the first ones.  Oh look, they've got bow ties on - because bow ties are cool.

Allow me to introduce my newest mittens - the first(!) of my Doctor Who themed patterns - called Bow Tie Mittens are Cool.  You can grab your own copy here on Ravelry and  here in my Etsy Shop.  Care for some details?

Everyone's favourite time traveller just wouldn't be the same without his iconic neckwear.  Capture a little of that timey wimey magic with these mitts festooned with bow ties in classic, masculine colours - the same as those worn by the Doctor himself.

Instructions are included in the pattern to produce both mittens and fingerless mitts.

Never knit colourwork before? Since these mittens only use one contrast colour at a time these ones would be a great place to start!

Know a Time Lord or Companion with larger hands? These mitts are easily sized up by going up in yarn weight and needle size. Please note that in this case additional yardage may be required!

I have been dropping hints all this week on my Twitter about the second(!) of my Doctor Who patterns to be released.  They might have something to do with a certain large blue box...

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* I was fully expecting to be swept away by David Tennant's brooding Scottish glare, and while this DID happen, he just never seemed all that Time Lordy to me.  I just kept seeing a pretty Scottish dude with dark, shiny eyes.

** Yes, I know you like David Tennant better. He is very pretty.

*** Socks forthcoming!

Rock Lobster Mittens

Since I've been working on my knitting book-in-progress I've been effectively forced to keep any and all new projects secret. As such, the SJK patterns haven't been flying as fast or as frequently as they used to, but I am hoping to change that - RIGHT NOW - with the help of some of my little crustacean buddies.

I have always, ALWAYS loved lobsters, and I find them impossibly adorable. And while there's something cruel and tragic about keeping them in tanks in grocery stores I always did love visiting them while doing the weekly shopping. I suspect I've annoyed and/or confused more than one seafood counter assistant in my time by talking to them (the lobsters, not the seafood counter assistants) in the middle of the store. Can you see where I'm going with this yet?

And so, Nice People, I give you a new (and salty) pattern - the Rock Lobster Mittens. I do hope you'll like them!


You can catch your own copy of the Rock Lobster Mittens here on Ravelry and here in my Etsy shop.*

You all remember the B-52's song by the same name, yes? I don't know how I ever would've gotten through high school without their debut record. Perhaps a wee refresher is in order? Followed by all the mitteny details that you're dying to know, of course?

Well, here you are:

Somebody went under a dock
and there they saw a rock
it wasn’t A ROCK
it was a ROCK…LOBSTER

-‘Rock Lobster,’ The B-52s


Get out the beach towels and sunscreen, it’s time for the biggest beach-themed mitten this side of Frankie Avalon. Or grab the melted butter and plenty of paper towels, this could get messy…

Whatever your approach to everyone’s favourite crustacean these mittens - or fingerless mitts - are set to cause some motion in the ocean. Adorable lobsters cavort every which way over both the palm and back of hand. The perfect reminder of Summer and beach-ier times when you need it most.

Instructions are included in the pattern to produce both mittens and fingerless mitts.

Never knit colourwork before? Since these mittens only use one constrast colour these ones would be a great place to start!

Know a larger-claw’d lobster lover? These mitts are easily sized up by going up in yarn weight and needle size. Please note that in this case additional yardage may be required!

AND a note on yarn requirements: 2 balls of Knit Picks palette - one Main Colour (and one Contrast Colour - will give you one complete adult-sized pair of mittens (or fingerless mitts.) I used Finnley Heather as my Main Colour and Salsa Heather as my Contrast Colour in the sample mittens shown. As for what's next? Well I've recently watched Series 1-6 of Doctor Who and am currently enjoying Series 7. If you're into time travel and bow ties as I am you might be in for a couple of very pleasant surprises. Stay tuned.

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*A MAJOR re-stock and update of my Etsy shop is currently in progress/on the way.

Travelling back

I was in Toronto this past weekend to see Revealing the Early Renaissance at the AGO.* If you have been around here for a while you'll know that there's nothing I like better than a good hotel - "good" in this context meaning either very old or very new - but I must admit that there is also a place in my heart for the faceless mediocrity and "luxury" of large hotel chains. Anyway.

This time around I had the pleasure of staying at the Gladstone Hotel. The Gladstone started off life as a Victorian inn and has had a long and chequered history. In its current form it is a boutique hotel and each of its 37 rooms has been designed and decorated by a different artist. There are gallery spaces that feature rotating exhibits on each floor. It's like sleeping in the middle of an installation and it is wonderful.

The aforementioned gallery spaces - the common rooms on each floor - are all pleasingly white walls broken up by a series of identical black-lacquered doors. The space has a delicious nowhere-ness to it - like it only exists to move you on to the next place. Like something out of a C.S. Lewis novel you're very aware that you're about to enter an entirely new and fantastic world.

Fate had clearly stuck a finger in the psychic soup that night because when I opened the door and flipped on the lights I saw this: I often muse (out loud) about Science one day offering me a door - here, in my own home - with Central London on the other side of it. Well, it seemed that I had found such a door - and one that opened up onto a Victorian parlour to boot. Not quite though, because despite the faded photographs and heavy decor I was merely in Room 402 - Rayne Baron's** Victorian-inspired room called "Echame Flores."

What an absolute delight - and terror - for me. I have been slightly…uneasy around Victorian antiques as of late and this is probably because I am currently reading The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was poisoned at home, work and play. Naturally I've been looking at all Victorian items askance since. I am sure I am just being silly since I don't own very many antique Victorian pieces (yet) and I am not in the habit of licking the ones that I do. But still - in the golden glow of the (anachronistically) electric fixtures - the way that those deep green velvet curtains catch the light…well. I never did trust a curtain.

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*If you're going to the AGO you simply MUST SEE Patti Smith: Camera Solo. I saw it this past summer in Detroit and it completely blew me away. If you fancy a bit of ring structure, check out this AGO blog post where Patti Smith herself tours the Revealing the Early Renaissance exhibit and offers her insights on both St. Francis and the mystic-influenced work of Pacino di Bonaguida.


**You might be more familiar with Rayne Baron's other incarnation which is that of the incomparable Ladyfag. I knew I had heard the name somewhere before and I was delighted to learn that the room was hers.

Spicy Birds

If you'd have asked me this morning, I'd have told you that laziness is the Mother of Invention. As it turns out, I was wrong. It is, in fact, soup. At least it is in this case - soup in general and the canned tomato variety in particular. I had grown weary of my usual lunch (a ploughman-ish affair of saltines, good chutney, good cheese and sweet pickles) and found myself craving something warm in my belly. I was just getting really excited by the ensuing midday meal when I realized that there was not a cracker to be had.

Well there goes lunch, I thought - but wait! We have always wanted to bake our own crackers - why not take this opportunity to whip up our OWN handmade crispy, munchy crackers? How hard can it be?!

Turns out it is dead simple. A couple of cups of flour, add liquid and fat and mix until dough just starts to hold together. Roll thin, cut out, pop in oven - and you've got a cookie sheet's worth of the crunchy little darlings in 20 minutes.

Now flavourings - that's another kettle of fish entirely. I have never been one to opt for "normal" flavours, especially when left to my own devices. Combine this with the fact that I am a completely LAPSED baker and, well - you end up with such food-fiascos as the lovely-sounding Pine Nut Brittle with Lavender Blossoms. That time I managed to over-toast the pine nuts and was heavy-handed with the lavender. The entire affair tasted like burnt soap, and five years on it continues to engender comment.

Since I wanted to actually consume these current crackers I opted for the classic flavour combination of olive oil and freshly-ground pepper. Not being one to completely buck "tradition" I used a blend of multi-coloured peppercorns and edible flower petals. Old habits, etc. Then it was time to roll and cut the crackers and with it another chance for customization. For the first batch I cut them into penguins; the following two I opted for less-intensive squares. I couldn't believe how nicely they turned out - sweet and flaky from the olive oil, with just enough peppery kick - and they don't taste soapy in the least. And just look how cute! I toured one of my crunchy penguins around the parlour in a celebratory victory lap. He was delicious!

Stone Lion Hunt

I love lions in general and stone lions in particular - it's the unique combination of power, stateliness and feline laziness that does it for me. I can't walk past one without voicing him (yes,) with what I imagine he'd say - more often than not this is an aristocratically-lazy articulation that is somewhere along the lines of "...meuuuuhhh!"

Lion in the sun! Meuuuuhhh!
Meeting the lion atop the Bostock tomb in Abney Park this past New Year's Day merely solidified this lion-love. The Bostock lion is by far the noblest of beasts and one of the finest stone lions I have ever encountered. Just look at that well-patina'd mane!...Meuuuuhhh...sad lion..!
So when I got my paws on Grasscut's latest record Unearth and discovered the wonderfully haunting track "Stone Lions" thereon, I was overjoyed. It was then that things started getting all mixed up and muddled together, and strange lion-y coincidences started happening. It occurred to me that it was time to acquire a stone lion of my own. The lion hunt (erm,) was on.

I figured that this would be a fairly straightforward quest - find precast concrete-producing establishment; locate garden statuary; find and acquire lion. You see them by people's houses all the time - they're "A Thing!" Stone lions have been guarding edifices for tens of thousands of years! Clearly it should be nothing to find one.

Hah. The second I started looking for a stone lion there was not one to be had. I raided garden centre after garden centre; I stalked all the precast places that I could find. I found gnomes; dogs; children; angels and even firemen - but no lions. I began to feel a bit like Bruce Cockburn.NOT a lion. What are you doing with that fish? Put him back!
It was by total chance that I spotted a sign for a precast place one day while up in Guelph for the afternoon. It was in that wonderland, populated by gods and nereids, soldiers and...ducklings that I found my lion. Not too big, not too small, and happily reminiscent of the Bostock lion. Handsome, stately and paws crossed politely, he naps in the shade beneath my towering sunflowers. At last....meeuuuuhhhhhh...zzzZZZzzzZZz...

On the Bone

Yarn on the bone - it's a motif that's been haunting me of late.

Perhaps because I was naughty and snapped a picture of Olek's Body and Movement while in Chicago?
And just look what turned up in the post a few weeks back:
Actual sheep bones wrapped in handspun wool - a vivid reminder that REAL wool comes from REAL sheep - a Memento Ovii, as it were. These specimens are from Prick Your Finger in Bethnal Green, and they happily came to my hand via the remarkable Felix. Thank you Felix!

As for the chap lurking behind the sheepy bits, well, that's my friend The Clerkenwell Kid. He's sent me lots of lovely things in the post too, but no bones (yet.)

And if you'd like to see The Kid get himself in (and out of) trouble, right this way, please:

In Case You Missed it

This might be news to some of you, or perhaps not - but I am currently in the process of writing a book of patterns that will see the light of day in early 2013. It will be published in both print and digital form on Shannon Okey's fantastic Cooperative Press imprint. I am more excited about this than I can really say, and not just because big parcels of tasty yarn keep turning on my doorstep.

But if I eat it, what shall I knit my samples with? It's a problem.
I have opted to take the (possibly crazy) approach of Being My Own Test Knitter so now the fun begins - knitting all those samples myself. Some of you Nice People have told me, begged me, pleaded with me to outsource this work to ready and willing test knitters; to give me more time for the writing and for the myriad other projects I have on the go. As inviting as those idle hours sound, I still have to refuse. For me, the knitting of the sample is vital to the ultimate design of the finished product. I have to get my hands on the thing - properly dig in to it - to see what works and what doesn't. Plus, part of me would feel fairly awful about shifting what I see as MY share of work into the hands of otherwise unencumbered knitters who I'm sure would much rather knit projects of their own choosing.


So you know what that means - that I have an inordinate amount of knitting ahead of me, on top of all the knitting that I have to do for other worky things; on top of all the knitting that I want to do for the upcoming holiday season; on top of all the knitting that I want to do for myself. For a while now (oh, what, about a year?) I have lived in fear of this daunting amount of knitterly work (well, it is and it isn't,) believe me when I say that I am overjoyed to announce that I have Officially Begun Knitting For The Book!


This is huge news for me - and possibly for you - as The Book is officially, for really-real, extra-tasty-crispy going to happen. The worst part? That I am madly and deeply in love with these patterns and I can not show them/share them with you - yet. We will all have to be strong - and patient! - until the end. In the interim, however, I do plan to entertain you with pretty pictures of delicious yarn. It will have to do.


But! I do have a wee something for you - right now - that may perhaps sweeten this arrangement. I don't know if you remember my Prickly Thistle Mittens? They were originally designed for MacKintosh Yarns way back in 2009.The pattern was - and still is - for sale at MacKintosh Yarns but is now also available directly from me on Ravelry.

I love these mittens deeply, and I stand by statement that they might be one of the prettiest things that I've ever knit. So that's sort of like getting a new mitten pattern, now, isn't it? I do hope it tides you over until I have something more to share.

As for me, I am itching to knit these mittens in an alternate more sheepy colourway. but I have this pile of work-knitting in front of me...here goes nothing.

TNNA + New Curling Socks

One of my favourite parts of TNNA this past June was having the chance to loiter in Ysolda's booth - which I decided should be properly referred to as "Ysoldaland." Ysoldaland, as I see it, is a smallish, magical country somewhere in Northern Europe, populated by knitwear and yarn and tea. As you can see, I wasn't that far off the mark.
Which meant, of course, that I had the chance to finally meet both Ysolda and Sarah, who were both absolute delights. This also meant that Ysolda had the chance to meet my gnomes. She even took care to document the occasion.Clearly, they've just said something inappropriate to her. I am not surprised.

But it was amid all the yarn and knitting and gnomey beardhairs that the real magic happened - where I got to talking to the lovely Sarah, who, brandishing an elephant-shaped teapot full of steaming Earl Grey, insisted on filling and then refilling my cup. Soon the conversation turned to socks and shortly thereafter to curling and it wasn't long until the two got tangled up with each other, and then my brain got invovled and well, this happened:Socks, with curling rocks on - or "stones," rather, as they call them in Scotland. Yet another example of the Grand Canadian Tradition (as I see it) of depicting sports and hobbies on knitwear. Anyone familiar with the Mary Maxim sweaters of yesteryear will know what I am speaking about. As for those of you who don't, here is a helpful primer.Regardless, I am pleased to announce that the pattern for the Curling Socks is now available for your knitting pleasure. Here on Ravelry and SOON, on Etsy and Craftsy. You will be notified!

Happy Canada Day!

I love this great big place!

Fetishist

Am reading a book; an actual physical book.  It has a cover and pages made of paper covered with words printed in actual ink.  It only does one thing and that is be a book and tell a story.

I hold it close to my face and flick through the pages quickly, as I have always done.  I smell the smell that so thrilled me as a child - the combined scents of paper and ink; the smell of the bookstore at the smallish mall that I could walk to from my childhood home.  It is the smell of many happy hours to come. It smells wonderful.