A Good Read, An Exhibition and a New Knit

It seems a while since I've blogged, so this is a February round up! The month began with a nice gift from Mum:

Then I went to the fantastic Masterpieces: Art and East Anglia exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich. I just squeezed the visit in before it closed and I was so glad I'd made the effort. Because the link between the pieces was only that they were produced in, or inspired by, or found in East Anglia, there was a huge range of exhibits in a variety of media. There were fabrics, Anglo-Saxon objects, paintings, silks and sculpture. This made for a fascinating time wandering round and looking at everything. One slightly surprising detail: East Anglia was defined as just Norfolk and Suffolk! No Cambridgeshire?!

Norwich looked beautiful in the sun last week:

As a great fan of Elizabeth Jane Howard, I was pleased to spot this celebratory table in Norwich Waterstones:

At the moment, though, my reading time is being completely devoted to the wonderful Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. This is a completely marvellous book and, as it has had masses of press coverage, I won't describe it fully. Nevertheless, the recommendation from (another great novelist) Hilary Mantel on the cover is well-deserved. Atkinson's writing is precise; the settings and situations seem very true to life (in World War II, for example) and the characterisation is superb. At the start, I tried to keep flicking back to the list of dates at the front to see which of Ursula's 'lives' I was reading. I wouldn't recommend trying to keep track of things in this way; I soon gave up and enjoyed the book much more because of it. Atkinson's use of motifs such as the fox and snow struck me as particularly ingenious: they are as much fun to spot, linking the episodes in the novel, for the reader as they are for the characters. This is a unique novel which would bear reading again and again - rather like Ursula's episodic, near-magical life.

Oh, and finally - before the the weather turns too hot, I've just got time to knit a new hot water bottle cover from Knits To Give by Debbie Bliss. More on this once it's done, but I'm enjoying doing it in luxurious merino Aran:

Hope everyone is enjoying the sun!

 

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First FO of 2014, a Norfolk flat white and a brilliant novel

First Finished Object of 2014! This is a lovely little baby top from my Patons Learn To Knit book. It's suitable for a near-beginner, I'd say, as the cable-effect twists involve one stitch-twisting technique rather than a cable needle. Being baby-sized, too, it knitted up quite quickly. The only problem, really, was finding 4-ply wool which wasn't a sickly pastel colour. This is Jarol Heritage yarn and it's lovely - possibly a little too 'woolly' for the pattern, which specifies cotton, but it does look really nice. I've sent it off to friends with a new baby - I hope they like it!

Over Christmas, I read Grace McCleen's unique and fabulous novel, The Professor of Poetry. This is her second novel, apparently, but I hadn't even heard of her before (very remiss of me!). This novel has an unusual protagonist, as I noted in an earlier blog entry when I'd started the book - a single, female, middle-aged academic. Recovering from a serious illness, she returns to the university city of her youth and her old tutor, and waits for her Big Idea to arrive. She is well drawn, as is the tutor, but the real star of the novel, I felt, was the university city. I thought this was unmistakeably Oxford, though it isn't named. Very occasionally, I thought little details suggested perhaps Cambridge - but then the description of the Upper Reading Room at the Bodleian was so clear and realistic that I felt Oxford was the setting. I wish she had simply named the city; it didn't need to be mysterious and it would not have been to the detriment of the story in any way to have named it. Anyway, McCleen's description of the atmosphere of the city in all lights and weathers is just superb. Well worth reading - and I'm going to hunt down her first novel very soon.

And, finally - I like my café shots, as you know, so here is the rather nice newish Chapters café in the Books department of Norwich's finest department store, Jarrolds. Here, we had a delicious flat white while surrounded by books. Lovely.

 

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Knitting, Coffee, Norwich & A Novel

This novel, Margaret Forster's The Unknown Bridesmaid, has been my holiday reading. I often ended up reading it at 5am, too hot to sleep.

This is a bleak but brilliant book. Forster's writing is nuanced and precise; she has a gift for portraying all the shades and subtleties of the character of Julia, her protagonist, as Forster charts Julia's life from childhood to adulthood. The novel alternates between these stages of Julia's life so that the reader is invited to see the effect that Julia's childhood has on her adult life, and Julia's adult profession as a child psychologist serves to reinforce these links between past and present. Forster's gift is also clear, I think, in her ability to create a protagonist who is ordinary yet interesting; not quite likeable - not admirable, nor warm - but whose actions and character are engaging nonetheless. Julia's character drives this novel, though her mother and aunt Maureen, her cousin Iris and school friend Caroline, are also beautifully drawn. There are some peculiarities to the novel: for example some major events in Julia's life are only alluded to, rather than depicted. Still, I read this avidly, though uneasily, until the final paragraph, which seems to offer a resolution.

In between bouts of reading this, I went to Norwich, a city which I love because of its gorgeous medieval buildings and tiny bars and cafes. I've mentioned its wool shops, too, before: lots of lovely yarn to be seen in Jarrolds and Crafty Ewe. I didn't buy anything, though - which sounds virtuous until I admit that I have the yarn for two adult projects and a baby project in my wardrobe... Anyway! We hunted for a house which has (supposedly) beams in it from the Spanish Armada. You can just see one, I think, on the left by the door at the bottom in this photo:

I loved these great posters. I have also been busy knitting my vintage-style cardigan in a colour called, er, Marmalade - it is rather mustardy and bright, but I am hoping I'll like the finished colour when it's done. It's Sublime yarn, and it's lovely - it doesn't split, and the stitches show up really nicely. I seem to have an awful lot of it, though, as I looked at the yardage (which I don't usually do) of the yarn Sirdar suggested first and made sure I had the equivalent - but there are just balls of it everywhere I look! Cardigans are dicey because the sizing always seems a bit unsatisfactory somehow - but we shall see! Fingers crossed!

 

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#HandmadeMonday - at last, I've finished knitting something!

 

Now, I have turned into my Grandma. No bad thing, really: but, I did feel rather *old* as  I realised I was working out how to make a teddy bear's jumper on a Saturday afternoon ... clearly, I need to get out more.  Still, my nephew wanted "a little black bear" for his birthday. We managed to find the bear above during a day's shopping in Norwich, but he was a wearing a torn red hoodie and, well, that just wouldn't do! I can't claim this pattern for my own: it's adapted in minor ways from Tracy Chapman's book, Toys to Knit.

 

 

The jumper she designed was a little smaller, so I just used some bits of DK I had in my knitting bag (plus a teeny bit extra from Jarrolds haberdashery - can't resist!) and followed the tension on the wool band. It all worked out well; I didn't do separate sleeves but just slip-stitched the neck seams together a little, then picked up stitches for little cuff sleeves. This book had some beautiful patterns - most of all, a great knitted doll which I rather sadly want for myself. Still, I was pleased with the jumper and so was my nephew - it was his birthday this weekend. Now, back to the rather more time-consuming work of an adult-sized jumper!

Busy, Busy: A Trip to Norwich's Newest Place to Buy Wool, Crafty Ewe

 

A trip to Norwich began with a peppermint tea in Biddy's tearoom, in the Norwich Lanes: http://www.biddystearoom.com/

 

This tea room is vintage heaven: tea sets, tea pots and cosy old furniture. Even though this was a busy, busy shopping day, the tea room was warm and quiet, and I had a great catch-up with a lovely friend there. I noticed that, had I been there on a Tuesday, I could have knitted, too! Mind you, my Inner Pedant was really tempted to add the other 't' in 'Stitch' with my lippy...but I managed to restrain myself!

 

Then, an exploratory trip to Norwich's new, independent wool shop, Crafty Ewe, which opened this summer:

 

 

Norwich is quite well served for wool already, with selections in Jarrolds and John Lewis, but despite this, Crafty Ewe really does seem to offer something different. The sales assistant told me they'd decided not to stock Debbie Bliss or Rowan, because these are well stocked elsewhere. Instead, they wanted to offer something 'a bit different.' I wondered what else there could be - but then I started rootling around the shop. For a start, they had a range of wools I'd never seen before, by Australian designer Jo Sharp: http://www.josharp.com/ These wools were lovely and luxurious - a bit like Rowan, in fact - and in gorgeous, autumnal shades. Some good patterns, too. However, I am trying to buy British wool - and when I mentioned this, the assistant showed me some *lovely* yarns by John Arbon Textiles, based in Devon: http://www.jarbon.com/ Yippee: these were *gorgeous*. Beautiful colours and a rich, true-wool texture. The shop had a very good range of tempting colours (though my photo didn't do them justice at all - so haven't included it!) and they can order in more shades. If I needed more (more!?) wool, this is exactly what I'd buy. John Arbon are responsible for the Excelana range of yarns as well as Knit By Numbers. Crafty Ewe told me that the Knit By Numbers yarns come in a skein bcause it's cheaper for the customer this way - it's cheaper not to have the yarn balled. Brilliant: making a ball from a skein takes me back to sitting with my Grandma (a great knitter) with my arms out, holding a skein of wool she had steamed loose after unpicking it from something else ... A pleasure.

 

 

Looking at this picture, there is definitely a 2012 LYS look - the white shelves, the flat patties of expensive yarn ... but, hey, it works! I really need a new project so that I can go back here and buy some lovely British wool. Now, I'm sure I've got time for a quick Ravelry pattern-search before Skyfall....