She cooks, she knits...

I seem to have been knitting this baby jumper for some time - and the baby has already been born, so last week I thought I'd really better get a move on. It's a lovely pattern which I've blogged about before, from Joelle Hoverson's book, More Last Minute Knitted Gifts. It's knitted in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran on a circular needle, so (if you just crack on with it) it knits up quickly and there are very few seams to join up! The only reservation I have with the pattern is that there are no buttonholes, so I've added one. Now I can finally go and see the new arrival!

This has been a rather productive weekend, all things considered! It's not often I have even one thing to blog about on #HandmadeMonday! I've been meaning to make these mug-hunger samples for a lovely local cafe for ages, as something I might sell with them. So now I have these to show them later today:

And, finally - I made these gorgeous cookies from a recipe in the Guardian magazine a couple of weeks ago. You can find the recipe here: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/nov/01/nut-recipes-almonds-pecans-hazelnuts. The cookies are luscious, really chocolately, and the pecan praline tastes lovely in them. Having said that, the praline took just *ages* to make - probably because I was very nervous about burning the sugar, so I didn't turn it up high enough to melt it. Because you have to make the praline first, these biscuits take slightly longer than other cookies, but we are just loving them.

 

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In Which I Read a Book, and Finally Finish The Interminable Jumper!

Great cause for celebration! The cardigan I've been knitting for absolutely ages is done!

I'm really pleased with it. I'll put more details about how I adjusted the pattern on the pattern notes in Ravelry, but it's Sirdar 9730 and I think it's turned out really well. It does look, from that photo, rather as if I have excessively long arms, but these are at least an inch shorter than the pattern said! I'm also very glad that I made it an inch longer in the body than they said, as it's only just long enough. It's exactly what I wanted: a 1950s style cardigan which I could wear with jeans. It's made from rather luxurious Sublime yarn, which I bought on sale in Norfolk, so the whole thing cost about £30 - though I do have two balls left over. Hurrah! Most definitely going to be wearing it to Stitch & Bitch today!

Some rather nice treats to ease me into this week: I've finished The marvellous Merivel by Rose Tremain, and, as if by magic, Charlotte Mendelson's Almost English has arrived today! I ordered it from The Book People after reading this guide to ethical booksellers: http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/buyersguides/miscellaneous/booksellers.aspx.

Merivel was just fantastic. Tremain's writing is simply never awkward or verbose, despite the novel being in the first person and full of the eponymous Merivel's musings on love, sex, animals and royalty! It is superbly observant and the seventeenth century settings and characters simply spring to life. This is a unique novel - a delight.

 

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Good Books and A Good Cup of Coffee

This week has been a very good week for coffee, books and crochet! First: I've finished the excellent novel, Night Waking, by Sarah Moss.

I've been very lucky with my book choices recently. It wasn't my plan only to review books I like - but that has been what's happened, and this book is no exception. Sarah Moss wittily depicts family life on the remote Scottish island of Colsay through the voice of Anna Bennett, an academic who is supposed to be writing a book. Her husband is also an academic as well as the owner of the island. Anna's struggle with the competing demands of looking after her two boys and writing her book is brilliantly written; Moss creates a believable portrait of twenty-first century family life where Anna's husband automatically assumes his 'work' is outside the home while hers is inside - despite the fact, as she tells him, that her maternity leave ended some time ago. A discovery in the garden of their house, as well as some Victorian letters, give this novel a page-turning mysterious element, too. Every character is well drawn and the sometimes weary, sometimes incredulous commentary by Anna on her life in the rainy, lonely landscape of the island is amusing and completely convincing. This is Moss' second novel - I'm going to search now for her first!

I've also been enjoying Nicki Trench's book, Cute and Easy Crochet. I personally don't like the word, 'cute' so I can reassure you, if you have a similar dislike for it, that many things in this book are lovely, and not too 'girlie'. There are some really good present-projects in here, like mug cosies and baby gifts. There are also bags and scarves - I like the Chunky Seashell Scarf in particular. I'm currently adapting the Floral Purse into a pencil case - the instructions are clear and there is a really good number of pictures to help you make sure your project is on track. Much as I love the granny square, I was pleased to see in here that there are plenty of projects which don't rely on it! So, for quick gifts for babies and adults, I would recommend this book - pictures of the purse/pencil case soon!

And, to close - a picture of my lovely flat white coffee at Baker and Barista in Ipswich on Saturday - Heaven!

This was my treat before going to teach a Beginners' Knitting class at the wonderful Jenny Wren's Yarns. It was a great afternoon: a lively, fun group of people who really enjoyed getting to grips with their needles. Looking forward to Improvers' Knitting in November, now!

 

 

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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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This week so far: a great novel & an exhibition

Yes, this is my week so far. Coffee, cake and culture - perfect! I have done some knitting, but need more photos for a proper post, so that is on its way!

I have blogged about visiting our local art gallery, Smiths Row, before. It's a lovely, clean space and they get interesting, accessible exhibitions there. Oh, and it's free! At the moment, it's hosting two exhibitions: Caroline Wright, On Tides and Fathoms, and Elin Hoyland's The Brothers. Wright's piece is a film piece, looking at three Suffolk locations - a beach hut, a shepherd's hut and a beach lookout - and the landscape around them. On Tides and Fathoms seems to suggest the inevitability of time passing, but also to consider how these small, purposeful buildings are - or aren't - used and their role in the Suffolk landscape.

Hoyland's The Brothers is a fascinating series of black and white photographs of two elderly farming brothers in the Norwegian countryside. Lots of Scandi jumpers here, worn with utilitarian authenticity! The sparseness of the brothers' home against the mountainous countryside is beautifully recorded.

I was very excited to get Tessa Hadley's novel, Clever Girl, from the library. I've read all of her previous books and have always found them beautifully detailed in their depiction of everyday sadnesses, joys and incisions. This is a completely captivating novel. It tells the story of Stella, from her childhood with her mother (who tells her her father is dead), to her adult life as a parent, student, lover and wife in her fifties at the novel's close. The story is entirely in the first person, encouraging the reader to empathise with Stella, but also lending the dilemmas, choices and moments of indecision she experiences a vivid plausibility. If you've read any of Hadley's other works, you will be prepared for the startlingly precise scrutiny to which she subjects the world around her characters and this is part of the novel's charm: she conjures up the world of Stella's 60s childhood and adolescence lightly but convincingly. For example, Stella's observation of her boyfriend, Valentine's, family is succinct but deftly suggests his social class: "his mother had a ruined face and watery huge eyes, she wore pearls and Chinese jade earrings at the dining table in the evenings (unlike us, they actually ate in their dining room)." Hadley is willing to probe, through Stella's character, the joys and limitations experienced by parents; parental absences, whether permanent or temporary, recur. Stella's attitude to her children seems always ambivalent. She disappears in the night, then returns at will, to her son's stoical comment, "Mum's back."

A poem I've always enjoyed is Liz Lochhead's The Choosing. In it, she compares herself, carrying a pile of books from the library, to a married, perhaps pregnant school friend whose life has taken a domestic rather than an academic path. Hadley plays with the same ideas here when Stella proclaims: "Men or books? With relief, I chose books." Is that "clever"? The title, and the dreamy pencil-sketched cover portrait of a schoolgirl staring into the middle distance, make the reader wonder, at the end, what "cleverness" is.

You can hear Liz Lochhead read her poem here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00nq5l3

 

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This weekend: a cracker!

Firstly, lovely local yarnbombing spotted at the pub:

Then, feeling in need of a treat, I bought Mollie Makes, after a quick Twitter poll about which crafty magazine people rated at the moment. By the time I got to sit down and read it, we were on the coast and you can just see the sea in the distance here:

Sunday in Suffolk saw the opening of lots of gorgeous gardens in Bury St Edmunds, in aid of St Nicholas Hospice. This is such a good cause; we've been three years running now, and somehow the sun always shines! So many people take the time and trouble to open their gardens - businesses, churches and private homes of all kinds. There are so many moments where we wandered through little alleyways beside houses, only to emerge gasping at the size and beauty of people's gardens. We had some real #CuriousCounty moments: where else would you hear a recorder group play What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor while you look at an informative display of Victorian lawnmowers, or drink Pimms down a lane lined with plant and cake stalls? People must have found the gardening hard recently with the terrible weather, but all the plots looked great and the atmosphere was fantastic.

And, finally - roses from my mother's garden. Their scent is everywhere - finally, a hint that Summer may be on its way!

 

 

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I've read a brilliant book & made some crochet bunting

Yes, these are my two main achievements this week! I'm not completely convinced about the bunting; I've made it from a pattern in a motif book. It looks ok when flat, but it does curl a bit .... so I'm not posting a revised pattern just yet! It's squeaky, acrylic wool, too, so perhaps that's not helping!

Now, to the book: I haven't blogged about books that often, because I sometimes review them for www.whensallymetsally.co.uk. But as I don't think I'll review this one for them, I wanted to just note here how very brilliant this is! Susie Steiner sets Homecoming in Yorkshire and the action begins in 2005. The story covers the fortunes of the Hartles, a farming family and the people whose lives intersect with theirs. It's written entirely in the present tense and this gives the story a bleak immediacy. The observation of the minutiae of life is superb; although some parts of the novel are bleak, as I've said, much of it is gently humorous and the relationships between the various Hartle family members are beautifully drawn. The Yorkshire landscape, too, is carefully and atmospherically drawn, taking the place of an almost-character in the story. This was a library book and I'm very reluctant to give it back - a fantastic, unusual, memorable story.

 

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