Things I learned this week

1. Spraying moth killing chemicals may exterminate more than moths - a thorough-going spritz of moth-be-gone can lead to definite deadening of the brain cells and some fairly intense moments of feeling a bit fluttery myself.  Still, personal sacrifices aside, I showed no mercy.  Seriously moth, be gone.

2. Those midnight moments of inspiration (possibly related to the inhalation of large quantities of toxic material) do need some kind of concrete base of knowledge to follow through on and prevent embarrassment.  I'm convinced that my dissertation idea has legs for further research, but the fact it came to me in the middle of the night and converges on some fairly massive historical and theological themes of which I have less than a minimal grasp does make it problematic (nothing like a good understatement).  Couple that with a pathological fear of history after a tricky encounter with a teacher in secondary school means that I have a very steep hill to climb in terms of getting a proposal ready and obviously actually delivering something of any use at the end of it.

3. If one doesn't learn something at school, then it might be at least partly the teacher's fault for not teaching it properly.  Now I'm not writing that to discount my responsibility for not knowing things that I jolly well should know but as an aside, I was chatting with several friends about their childrens' experience of school.  In each case, a teacher had made a statement about the child, effectively labelling them as shy, not academic, creative but no good at science or vice versa and, in one quite alarming case, "a lost cause."  In the latter case, she's now head of an academic faculty.  Anyway, it got me thinking that often teachers will label a child something quite early on and then it's the child's fault and their problem to overcome.  There seems to be a lack of reflection that, as the teacher and, more specifically, the adult in the relationship, it might be their responsibility to make the effort, to reach across the void to the child who isn't grasping their concepts and may not be grasping them because the teacher isn't articulating them in a way that accesses that child's imagination.

No doubt everyone has seen this, but I was particularly struck by this quite old now TED lecture with Ken Robinson and it really got me pondering for many days.  In another of his lectures he refers to teaching not as a "delivery system" but as a creative profession; he makes the point that what great teachers do beyond teaching itself is "mentor, stimulate, provoke, engage" rather than simply transmitting facts for learning by rote.  It must be very boring for teachers who are hamstrung by protocols preventing them taking on these other exciting elements of their role, placing them instead in thrall to the spectre of examinations.  

So that isn't to say there aren't lots of fantastic teachers out there, I'm not trying to write off a whole profession.  It just that I'm not that keen on the labelling of children early on, and it seems odd to me that so many of my friends with children - including very young children who are still at nursery - have experienced that moment where their child is labelled.  It strikes me as very limiting because if one hears something at such a formative moment, it could become a defining feature.  Shyness is a particularly personal label that I resist.  I've been reading Quiet by Susan Cain which has resonated loudly.  When I was little I was told I was shy and should speak up.  One particular experience at the hairdresser springs to mind: because of my unwillingness to loudly tell the hairdresser what I wanted, I was gifted an extraordinarily short hair cut, and my newly scalped self was informed on my first day at school, by another new girl (with long flowing locks),  "that this isn't a school for boys."  Consequently I'm a chatter box who feels very uncomfortable being a chatter box, but I struggle to break the habit because I've always been told it's what's expected of me.  It's impossible to say how much I envy those quiet types, who can sit in total silence while all around them are competing for air space, and seem totally at ease bucking the conventional wisdom that you have to speak up to be heard.  I wish I had been brave enough before, it's a bit embarrassing to be only realising it at my age.

On a less curmudgeonly note, and because this is supposed to be a blog about textiles and craft, Liberty new season fabrics are out and two of them leaped out at me as particularly lovely.  The first is beautiful just because it is.  The Isabel Susan in this colour way takes my breath away and reminds me of a William Morris wallpaper we had in our bathroom (smallest room in the house so the only affordable place to put the stuff) when I was growing up.  It was the house we moved into after my parents divorced and my mother couldn't bear to stay in the old house any more - it was also the first house she got to have total autonomy over decorating.  I remember, when I was about 14, disputing vigorously with her about the wallpaper and claiming it was hideous; actually I think she was really on to something which either means I am getting old or confirms that I was probably a bit of a plonker for not realising that the boldness of the wallpaper was really her way of saying she was feeling bolder … anyway, it's the meandering of the tendrils and the setting side by side of the colours in a pattern that when you squint, almost leap out like lacework that gets me.  

Isabel Susan A Tana Lawn, image from Liberty.co.uk

William Morris, Chrysanthemum Wallpaper, V&A catalogue

The second fabric that particularly struck me is Heidi Maria and I love this because it is sufficiently abstract not to be twee, and sufficiently obviously plants and seed heads not to be oppressive in this colour.  

Heidi Maria C Tana Lawn, image from Liberty.co.uk

It also reminds me of Blackwork techniques with the range of density of darks and lights across it, and it prompted lots of doodles which may or may not end up being incorporated into the Blackwork project I will eventually do when I manage to pick up my RSN certificate later this year when I'm back from Glasgow.

The scourge of the moth ...

I knew there was something wrong, but I've had my head in the sand.  Eventually, new year and all that, I had to face facts - the jumper I started many moons ago (literally years), knit lovingly to just that point that you can't get past, and then left lurking in a basket somewhere for ages, had been devoured by the evil moth. 

Now, my yarn is all kept in big plastic boxes (organised into colour families you know) with moth balls and lumps of cedar liberally scattered amongst them.  Then, I was not so savvy.  I had a feeling something was wrong, but didn't really want to confront it.  And worse, the bag it was in was a lovely Jigsaw bag, the sort one buys oneself as a treat - that's been eaten too.  The Bastards.  

So the wool is in the bin.  The jumper's in the bin.  The bag is in the bin.  I feel sad and more than a little silly - I knew it, and did nothing about it.  A lesson in not putting things off until tomorrow if the moth needs to be murdered today ...

The last of the antlers …

Christmas Eve and the reindeers arrive ...

It's always a little gloomy when the festivity is over and the antlers get packed up for another year but there's also something reassuring about the world returning to normal and the return to a routine.  This year I indulged in epic amounts of Soprano, discovered a new cocktail of sloe gin and champagne (I'd run out of tonic water, but you can only manage one so on a cost per drink basis I think very economical, and knit my Port O'Leith sweater and collar.  I ended up making a bonus cuff as well (see below for notes on displacement activity).  Husband described this as "anachronistic" but today in the sudden hail storm that swept over St Albans, my hands couldn't have been warmer.  

The hail storm might have made a change from the recent trend for a Deluge a Day except that it came shortly on the heels of the hail.  What a relief, it would have been very disorientating not to have flash flooding on our unfinished road, and I'm not sure what my feet would have thought if they had finally dried out after several weeks of near trench-foot conditions.  Anyhoo, I wore my new sweater and it's fantastically warm - can't speak highly enough of the S&J chunky from its lustrous hand to its sheen in the finished garment; just lovely.  And … here it is, the finished jumper with notes on my Ravelry page:

That is my third Toft Beginners Beret perched aloft the sweater there - it keeps taking itself off on adventures and having to be reknit but it's so quick to do and I love it, so it keeps on keeping on in new incarnations.  

As is always the case, I've managed to procrastinate and sniffle my way through the break in a fug of Vicks and Lemsip steam (you can just make out the red nose in the picture above) without achieving half the things I wanted to.  So I'm sitting at the dining table now, this is the last bit of displacement activity and then I'm knuckling down to some proper reading, writing and general busyness.  You hear, that's what I'm doing.  No more distractions.  Not a one.  Hang on, I think there's some fluff over there, I should hoover that up.  And lordy, look at the cobwebs, best deal with those.  Actually the fire is on, and the reading is interesting so there's really no excuse.  If I turn one of the lights off, I can't see the cobwebs or dust so I really am knuckling down now.  Honest.  

I will just cut myself a slice of Christmas cake - ought to try and get it finished, not least because I've another jar of the Pink Whisk's amazing boozy fruit to make up into another cake and if I don't get them eaten soon, when will the healthy living for which January is famed get started. 

Nothing changes really does it - a habit for easy distraction is a difficult one to break, what are the chances that 2014 will be the year it happens ...

Notes on Glasgow and London life

St Albans on a misty Wednesday morning

Although in theory of course I should not be saying London life anymore as I'm out in the semi-rural provinces.  Actually, that's unfair but St Albans is quite different to SE London and the other day I dialled a friend's number only for the line to be dead and it took me two attempts to realise I had to dial the London area code.  I always thought when I moved out of London I'd head out of London properly - a small holding somewhere, total change in lifestyle.  And in some ways it is, just not in the way I expected.  In the first place, I've never lived so close to a high street and shops and places for coffee and lunch.  My flat in SE London was a good ten minute walk to the nearest approximation of a spot for brunch and there was nowhere really to stock up on groceries that wasn't a twenty minute walk.  Saying that, I loved it - I had my own garden overlooking an allotment so it was very peaceful and all only a 12 minute train ride to London Bridge, and the Womble (the Overground Underground) opened up the whole of town for travels and adventures.  The arrival of Sainsbury Local near the station at my old stomping ground has caused a furore and the potential closure of up to forty local businesses which I'm sad about.  The convenience of being able to pick up a bag of salad (apparently the most frequently discarded thing from the bottom of most people's fridges) on the way home doesn't really offset the warm feeling of popping into a shop and knowing the person behind the counter sufficiently well to say hello and exchange pleasantries.  Although objectively I know all the arguments about why these 'developments' are good, I can't help but feel a bit sad for all the things that you lose with the arrival of so-called progress.  It is a bit of London where we do say hello on the street and I can't help wondering if this particular type of progress means losing other more socially beneficial things over time.  It would be lovely to be proved wrong, but the part of London I grew up in saw exactly this type of gentrification and it hasn't benefited in my view.   

St Albans is gorgeous with it's wonky little houses, beautiful old buildings, the Abbey is stunning and saturated with history, and our neighbours are lovely.  It's only been four months I think since we moved in, but already when someone says they're going into town, I assume they mean the high street.  It is bloody expensive travelling into London so I'm having to curb my urbanite tendencies and that means I'm turning into something of a Country Mouse when I do go into central London - I got manhandled at Holborn the other week, and not in a good way, but a woman who decided I simply wasn't moving through the barriers rapidly enough just grabbed my shoulders and steered me out of the way.  Cheeky so-and-so, but you see how it becomes a self-fulfilling thing where going into town seems less pleasant, you put it off, then when you do you're alert to any unpleasantness.

So have I been making anything?  Not as much as I'd like - the change of pace everyone anticipated when I said I was going to do a masters has been the reverse of all the "slacker student" jibes I've had.  And I've had a lot.  I'm realising every day how enormous the gaps in my knowledge are and so I end up doing long hours of reading, writing, panicking … I've also come up with an idea for my dissertation that I'm convinced will make an interesting form of extended research so am trying to cram information about that before I make a total fool of myself meeting potential supervisors in the New Year.  

In terms of actual things made, I knit a scarf for Husband for Christmas.  In some ways this is the ultimate form of masochism and I'd be interested if anyone else has thoughts on this because for some reason men do not seem that interested in hand made things; women seem to understand the idea of nurture knit into every stitch and I don't know if it's all chaps or just him, but he thinks this idea is bonkers.  He is also wedded to acrylic in all its forms and looked most put out when I suggested that instead of spending £10 on a horrible scarf knit from plastic, I could make him one from lovely bouncy wool from an actual real sheep.  In fact, he has only once worn the lovely skiing hat I made him and the socks I knit him for our wedding over a year ago saw their first outing only last weekend.  Having refused to wear them before he begrudgingly acknowledged that they're very comfortable. Personally, I can't stop wearing my hand knit socks - they fit perfectly and the Jawoll (which I partly love just for the name - must be that half-German heritage) keeps the feet warm and dry.  I wore them on a chilly day in Glasgow just wearing shoes - normally my naturally chilly self would wear boots with tights and socks - and my feet were joyful all day.  It is not an exaggeration to say that warm feet = a happy soul.  So I might be on a hiding to nothing with the scarf - it's a long stripy merino super wash (which is not what I'd normally knit with but gets him close to the finish he likes) from this pattern (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/handsome-scarf) - I changed the stripes so they run longways along the scarf and used several colours and stripes of varying depths but I really like this rib as it creates an interesting effect but is still sufficiently manly (in my view) to not immediately put him off.  Will take a photo once it's unwrapped - it's under the tree at the moment.  If the scarf also ends up in the "unworn" pile then the guilt I often feel for not making him a sweater will be put to one side forever - that is a time commitment no one can afford to waste.  

I'm currently knitting Kate Davies's Port O'Leith jumper for myself (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/port-o-leith) in Charcoal.  I started yesterday and it's absolutely addictive so my plan to read all day was scuppered.  I did the tension swatch and decided to make the smallest size, going  down a needle size to 4mm to match gauge, but then decided I wanted to make the next size up to have a lovely slouchy sweater for wearing with skinny jeans and concealing the inevitable post-Christmas indulgence - also useful for wearing with my stretchy topped trousers which I like to whip out on Christmas Eve after the big meal (we do Christmas on the 24th) a la Joey from Friends with his turkey maternity pants.  It's a great look.  Anyway, that means I cast on three times yesterday and got varying amounts of jumper knit before frogging.  Third time's the charm though and it's powering along again now.  The wool itself is stunning - it's got a real lustre to it, and the Charcoal colour way has such a depth and variety of shading to it, so it's lovely to work with.  I've had to ban myself from knitting at all this morning because I knew I'd get sucked in and the whole day would pass.  

A few years ago I bought some dark green wool crepe from Linton Tweeds  which I've just washed and gently pressed to make into another Merchant & Mills Trapeze dress which I find an very chic style and also very wearable - the shoulders are a lovely petite fit offsetting the swing skirt.  I hadn't realised how stretchy the crepe would be, and I want to line this version, so it is likely to be a challenge for my sewing skills but I hope to get to that this Christmas break, reading and essay writing aside.  Another pair of socks might get cast on for all the sitting in the car I'm doing this year too - nothing like seeing a sock appearing before your eyes to take your mind off the travel.  That's socks appeal (oh dear, and I've not a drop of mulled wine yet).

It's a cliche, but I really can't believe how much has happened this year and that it's nearly over.  2013 has been a challenge in lots of ways and I'll be glad to see the back of it, but also incredibly grateful for all the opportunities it has presented.  I've finally realised my ambition to study full-time and it's wonderful, not least because I can see it opening other doors into the future.  So roll on 2014 and all the ups and downs that a new year brings.  New Years resolutions to follow and I can't wait …

Happy Christmas.  

And Miss Margo says ...

Three weeks in already - it must be a function of my advanced years (comparatively at least) that the weeks keep flying past.  The flatmates - who are proper postgraduates and therefore a good ten years younger than me - are very kind and welcoming, but clearly do not feel the time is going quickly; in fact, they seem to have all the time in the world.  They do not seem to feel the fear when I say that it's already nearly the end of week three.  Surely they feel the same "eep, only twenty weeks of actual teaching on one of these masters thingies". 

I do already have an MA, but I did it over two years while I was working so there's a lot of latitude in lots of ways.  Here I am so profoundly aware of the gaps in my knowledge that every day feels like a struggle to catch up.  Is it bad that I decided Fabric of Britain was a suitable part of the work schedule and watched it for research?  It is interesting in many ways, and moving in others - I had a lump in my throat looking at the jumpers knit by prisoners of war in the German camps, and thinking of the embroideries destroyed during the Reformation.  It was timely as I had spent the morning reading Margaret Scott's Medieval Fashion and Dress and am feeling very in the spirit, especially after several hours spent dawdling around the cathedral at St Albans on Saturday afternoon.

It is a funny thing to be splitting my time between two homes.  Of course, it means I don't get to enjoy the life of living out of London which was part of the original ambition, or much of the life living in St Albans either.  I am always in lectures, at the library or at my desk in Glasgow, and always running around like a loon when I'm back in London.  Of course, I'm not in London but I can't quite get that out of my system yet either.  Actually, in Glasgow, I invested in a giant cushion so I could read on the bed-the-width-of-a-park-bench and that has been pretty good.  Those swivel chairs they stick in halls are a killer on the back.  

And two weekends into the commute and Husband is no longer speaking to me which leads me to question whether he really supports this quest or not.  Hmm, it's quite the head scratcher.  I have found this a particularly gendered and vexed issue though.  I know at least three other couples where the chap has sauntered off for a year - commuting back and forth during the week for study or to fulfil a dream to live abroad and of course that is fine and does not show a lack of commitment or "team work" which is a term I particularly despise when it comes to relationships because we are not playing some kind of competitive sport or trying to tie up a particularly knotty legal transaction. 

For some reason, it seems, my womanishness is the issue - I should want to be at home fulfilling my domestic function of caring for a grown man.  The fact I get home and do five loads of laundry on Fridays apparently does not quite cut it, and neither does the storm I cook up or the Christmas cake fruit I set off with stewing in the boozy concoction of marvellousness ready for baking after a few weeks of loving nurture.  The fact I am ambitious and value my career is not apparently as valuable.  I know it is not as financially valuable - I am still in a career that earns less primarily because it is still seen as dominated by women.  So I am perplexed as to why it is different for me to be studying for a year, having supported Husband in achieving several of his own ambitions - when other couples seem to be happy for their menfolk to go off to realise some yen they have.  I'm in danger of over-associating the reading I've been doing about the emergence of social and legislative control over women's bodies with my own situation but it is quite a good way of de-personalising.  It all just seems a bit ... erm, silly.  It is jolly peaceful though and I've got an awful lot of my blanket knit and reading done while I've been at home in the chilly silence.

Anyway, despite that St Albans is a delightful place which doesn't mean I don't miss the fun and uniqueness of SE London, or my lovely neighbours (who are keeping an eye on the pumpkin that continues to grow with apparently nothing curbing its enormousness - did you know pumpkins have no natural predators?), and the postman who I hallooed on my way to the station.  But I am having my 80-something year old neighbour round for tea - she looks not a day over 65 and is a hoot - so am starting to find ways into the local neighbourhood.  Small towns (and yes, I know it's a city) are different and you do have to get to know the ways; but nonetheless, there's almost nothing that a good cup of tea and a chat can't overcome is there now.

Still getting my head around the study and the commute but I'm already swirling with ideas for my dissertation while having to knuckle down to actual writing for essays due now.  The world of work has at least prepared me for time pressures, even if it does materially change the way you need to think about things which has made accessing the language and style of academic life a challenge, but that's no bad thing - it is supposed to be a challenge after all.  And it certainly is.