Celtic Memory Yarns

In Which Thanks Are Given For Good Knitting Friends, And Floodwaters Continue To Rise.

2009-11-22T10:50:00.021Z

I've said it before but it bears reiterating yet again - you lot are the absolute best.

I was in despair, total despair, over that blue cabled jacket where a cable cross had been omitted. I thought there was nothing for it but the Black Hole of Failed Projects. But you came through. Did you EVER come through, bearing not only comfort and consolation, but reviving hope and finally hugely practical suggestions. Heidi's advice on using a larger needle to reknit was invaluable. Katie K (sorry, can't find your blog address, Katie) rowed in with the most practical advice re using lifelines for the top needles, pinning down the working area, counting odd and even rows, and more. Helen emphasised working s-l-o-w-l-y, and not even thinking of a stiff drink until it was done (how well you knew I needed that advice, Helen!) My dear long-time blogging friend Pacalaga assured me that any uneven tight/loose bits would sort themselves out over time. And everybody else was so supportive and encouraging it almost made me cry. But I didn't. I resolved to be worthy of all this support and get down to the job.

AND IT WORKED!

You would never know anything had gone wrong. It just needed time and care, not my usual lightning-smash-grab-with-the-nearest-crochet-hook-and-if-it-isn't-sorted-in-ten-seconds-I'm-giving-up approach.

It's done, it's beautiful. But... I'm not sure after all about the side and back slits. They make it a bit too floaty. Designer catwalk stuff, possibly, everyday use, no. So I tried sewing them up.

What do you think? Vents or no vents? Cuddle factor or floaty effect? Still undecided. But grateful, so very grateful, that you were THERE. Take a huge collective bow and make yourselves individual mugs of hot chocolate.

That second picture of the jacket was taken indoors. This is because it hasn't stopped raining for more than half an hour for the last two weeks. I had to time it to the second to dash out with my latest Celtic Memory Shawl Kit and take photographs.

This neat little kit is the Mermaid's Garden colourway, with fourteen different 50yd skeins so that you can create your own work of art.

One of Jane Thornley's vest designs would look wonderful in these. They're up on eBay now. The next one, Forest Magic, with all the greens and greys and soft shades of the deep woods, will be up at the beginning of December.

That same constant rain, allied to the successful completion of the crop cable jacket, led to an uncontrollable desire to START SOMETHING NEW. And as chance would have it, Ruth had just started a gansey KAL on the Pennyroses group in Ravelry. And it was just a week before Thanksgiving, she happened to mention. So of course Celtic Memory, who has no sense WHATSOEVER, decided she'd try to make a gansey. In one week. And wear it at Thanksgiving (we don't actually celebrate that particular event here, preferring to wait until late December, but I've been observing it since blogging and Ravelry opened up such a wonderful world of friends in every corner of the globe).

Now I'm not completely daft, only partially, so clearly a sweater knitted with thread on toothpicks wasn't appropriate for this particular deadline. No, Polperro, from Country Weekend Knits (and included in a few other books too, I think) was the ideal choice, worked as it is with chunky yarn on large needles.

Here it is so far. A chunky 50/50 merino and baby alpaca blend, hand-dyed by me, on 6.5mm circular. Pockets are inset, I'm almost up to the armhole divisions. Will we make it? Read the next instalment.

(No, I don't need reminding about the book deadline. I'm trying to forget it.)

The constant rain, allied to quite frightening gales, has brought disaster to a great deal of West Cork, and DH has been out and about at all hours, recording the floods and flood damage.

This is a little road I often drive when going to Cork city. The water rose to a point where it simply poured across with immense force, and broke down the wall at the other side. No going that way for a while, then.

This view, taken from the bridge by the Angler's Rest country pub, should show sweeping green fields, with the winding River Lee way over to the left, where you can just see a white dot on what was the river bank. It's now a raging Amazon of a river.

This rather expensive hotel on the outskirts of the city was having a bad time, but DH couldn't resist the car park notices.

Guests were being evacuated to the backs of lorries with all their bags. Some Americans that DH met were being exceptionally good natured and amused about it all. Another Cork hotel (on higher ground) took them in and looked after them. Shouldn't be surprised at all if hot toddies and Irish coffees were in demand.

These houses look so beautiful, seeming to float on the tranquil water. However, this isn't Venice, and their ground floors don't bear thinking about.

Now I realise, of course I do, that other parts of the world get far far worse flooding and indeed far harsher weather conditions than we do in Cork. It's just a shock when it happens here. It's not uncommon to get some flooding in a wet winter - a deep pool or two on a country road, maybe even a street or two under some inches of water in the city. But to this extent, never. To make things even more worrying, the gales and torrential rain are set to continue for at least the next week. Fortunately we're safe and snug on our hillside here, but others are not so fortunate. Ironic though it might seem, thousands are without water supplies and don't seem likely to get it back for some time.

It will come around. It always does. The soft wind will replace the gales, and the water will fall back to its usual path. The fields - Irish fields are most competent sponges - will regain their normal green grass in no time at all. While it's here though, it does make you feel more at one with those who live in, for example, New Orleans. (You OK there, Dez?)

Incidentally, does anyone else have current problems with placing pictures on their posts? For some reason, Blogger no longer lets me move images around the page to put them in the right spot. Is it something I've clicked or failed to click? One of life's reminders that nothing stays the same? Advice welcomed. As it is, I have to put all the pictures on first, in reverse order, and then add the text between the images. Which is adequate, but not particularly conducive to stream-of-consciousness writing. (I had a student once who called that 'steam of consciousness'. Love it!)

And while I think of it, the Hit Counter has put itself back almost to 0. Well to just a few thousands anyway, nowhere near what the actual total was. No way of sorting that, I imagine. Ah well, these things are sent to try us.

Strewth, it's raining again. I was almost certain it had stopped for two whole minutes there...

Here is a view from my study window this morning, as I type. I'm surprised those russet beech leaves have hung on with the high winds we've been having. Glad I topped the eucalyptus last year though - they're as high as they used to be, but it's only light branches rather than heavy trunk, and they'll be fine.

And to finish, a nice warm little story. For this hopeless romantic anyway. We were at the local recycling centre, bringing in all our glass and plastic and cardboard and such, and DH suddenly pointed out a tiny object at the top of a heap in a lorry, about to be tipped into an enormous container about fifteen feet below on another level.

'Isn't that a little waggon? See its red wheels?'

I was over there like a streak of lightning and grasped its pull handle just as the small object was about to fall into oblivion. The man looked surprised. 'Don't know where that came from. D'you want it?'

It was wet and full of decaying leaves. The tyres on its little red wheels were in a pretty bad way. But it was solid, and sturdy. And it came home with us. It's drying out slowly and carefully right now, in the garage. Not too quickly, in case it damages the wood. And then it will come into its own at Christmas, piled with presents or yarns or other lovely things.

But I took it down to the grove first, and placed it in the very centre of a fairy ring under the crabapple tree, to have its picture taken.

Ta failte romhat, a leanbhain. You are welcome, littlest one.

Anybody know where I might get some spare tyres for a little wooden waggon?

It Was About Time For Another Disaster...

2009-11-07T17:19:00.010Z

But this one struck to the heart. I mean, Anne of Green Gables with the iron entering her soul had nothing on today's cosmic mother-of-all disasters. Nothing, I tell you!

This is the cropped jacket somewhat-after-Ragna, on which I have been working for months. Almost a year. I was knitting on this when we were in Norway in late May, I know, since I photographed the WIP by a frozen lake. It survived being lost in that roving yellow suitcase, and gradually, slowly, painfully, the pieces came together to be worked in unison to the neckline. Trying to keep track of a dozen different pattern pieces, as well as where they did and didn't overlap wasn't exactly plain sailing. But at last, during the past few weeks, I began to think that perhaps, just perhaps there was a very faint glimmering of light at the end of the tunnel. Only another repeat or so of the braided pattern and we'd be there. I had even started mulling over designs for a cabled collar.

Then - this afternoon - was it really such a short time ago that the world was bright and every prospect pleased? - I spread it out to gloat. And saw that at the centre back, where for some idiotic reason I had decided to put a double cable where two patterns met, instead of leaving them separate as I'd done everywhere else on the jacket - I'd missed out one of the double cables. A whole repeat back from where the work was now at.

What would you do? Of course hindsight (and DH) tell me that it would really really REALLY have been better to ignore the non-crossing, put in a decorative stitch or two if necessary, and GET ON TO THE FINISHING LINE.

But of course I knew better. Nah, we can fix this, can't we?

Now ripping back twenty or more rows over hundreds of complicated stitches was not an option. No it wasn't, and I don't need that voice from the back of the class, thank you! We're talking innumerable stitch markers, decreasing-point markers, different sets of stitches for this, that and the other - no, not ripping back. Not nohow.

But Celtic Memory is something of an expert on cables, isn't she? I mean, she's Irish, it's practically in the bloodstream, isn't it? Why not simply (simply, hahahahaaaa!) drop the relevant stitches right down to where the crossing should have happened, and then work them up again to the present point? Yes? Of course. Easy!

Oh ye heavens!

Here (and those of tender susceptibilities may wish to look away now) is the current situation. This is after a very unpleasant session involving several circular needles, seventeen stitch markers, three crochet hooks, two daylight lamps and a lot of swearing and hissing, which I don't want to remember. Ever.

That stitch marker is roughly the point to which I pulled back the relevant stitches. Above it is the pig's ear made of the reknitting process. Loops where there shouldn't be, holes where there shouldn't be. Skintight stitches next to wide gaping gaps. This is never going to look right. Never.

What would you do NOW?

I know what I wanted to do. I wanted to throw the whole thing on the ground, scream and stamp on it. Then hurl it out into the bushes. Possibly set fire to it if it ever stops raining round here, which it might do next May. Or give it to Muffy the Yarnslayer for her bed.

But I have spent so long on this jacket. It is (was) my pride and joy. I'd worked out all the stitch computations, the side slits, the coming together at the armholes, even kept track of the decreases across hundreds of stitches from then on. I was so looking forward to wearing it, showing it off, maybe doing a little quiet boasting here on the weblog.

It's down there now, still lying on the ironing table where I left it. I couldn't trust myself near it. I retired to an armchair with a bag of Jelly Squirms and Patrick Leigh-Fermor's A Time of Gifts. Reading about his travels through pre-war Austria, one night shivering in a hay barn, the next dressing for dinner in a crumbling schloss, had a calming effect.

But that jacket is still there, waiting. Wondering, probably, what's gone wrong, and where I am.

WHAT DO I DO?

Enough. Let's try to think of something else. Like De Book, which is still slouching heavily towards the publisher to be born.

We went hunting for a couple of pictures still needed the other day. First an ogham stone at Templebryan, not far from Shannonvale.

It's quite an awe-inspiring sight when you see it from the muddy track below, dominating the top of a little hill. It's inside an ancient enclosure which was apparently once a monastic site, but this stone is a bit older than Christianity. Ah well, not the first time the new rulers took over the old symbols. Just to the left there you can see a bullaun stone on the ground. These were specially hollowed-out rocks which held water or something else during ancient ceremonies. Best not to enquire too closely.

And we weren't alone as you see. This charming Irish draught horse colt has the confiding nature of his breed and came up to bid us welcome to his field.

Then his mama came over to check that we didn't intend any harm to her pride and joy.

And finally this wild looking little mare climbed into the enclosure to check us out. The smaller the horse, the more you should beware of their nipping tendencies so we kept a sharp eye on her as she sidled around. She may have been looking meanly at us, but you can't really tell, can you? She wasn't too impressed at being immediately christened Templebryan Tumbleweed though. Honestly. These tourists they come up here, climbing all over me field, and then call me out of me name! Honestly! As if everybody didn't know I'm Theda Bara of That Ilk!

Then we went hunting for a famed holy well down by Lough Ine. This one has a reputation built up over centuries of curing all kinds of eye ailments. You have to go up a rough track, cross a stream, and there it is, standing quietly in the woods as it has done for millennia.

It's clearly very well visited, being hung all round with every kind of token, from beads to statues, scraps of cloth to handwritten notes, shells and small stones, even ferry tickets. So many hopes, so many prayers, so many dreams.

Here is a closeup. You might like to make a virtual visit. I'm sure it would work just as well over the Net, if your intentions are clean and clear. It's a lovely quiet peaceful place, the moss-covered trees and rocks sheltering it on three sides, and the bubbling little stream on the fourth.
A good place.

The Ghost Train of Drimoleague and the Donkeys of Ceann Tuaithe

2009-10-18T17:01:00.021+01:00

Thought we'd better catch up on local matters and things knitterly after all that travelling and bearwatching. Been busy this past week, not only with the demon book but also with dyeing and skeining and generally getting into a tangle with trying to do too many things at once (don't we all?).

Here is the result of a few days with arms immersed in the dyepot. Just been listing some of these on eBay - it takes so long to list each one that now I take it in batches, three or four a day, so as not to lose the plot entirely when everything crashes and you don't know where you are. Handpainted laceweights, sockweights, Aran weight - and up there in the top left, a rare skein of fingering weight pure Suffolk in its lovely natural pale grey.

Oh incidentally, while I think of it, my friend Ana who lives in Bulgaria, and is one of the keenest, as well as one of the most talented knitters around, has just opened an Etsy shop so that she can sell some of her beautiful finished projects. If you're looking for something gorgeous and don't have the time to knit it, go look. I think she'll even knit to order - now's your chance to get that perfect sweater without all the work! Ana is Shenevski on Ravelry if you're a member, and I'm constantly amazed at the beauty of the pieces she turns out. (Which reminds me, must finish that copycat black cashmere cabled vest inspired by hers.)

Been working that 19th century sample-skein winder pretty hard too. This is the one I bought from Warren at Craftspun Yarns - or, more truthfully, forced him to sell to me. It works so smoothly and beautifully it's a pleasure to use. But it will only measure in yards, not metres. Which is why the new, limited edition, Samhain Shawl Kits, also up on eBay, are made up in lots of little 50 yd skeins.

Fourteen of them to be exact, some singles, some doubles, some triple-plied, totalling 700 yds overall. All tucked into a nice strong plastic envelope. Great fun. Kits in blues, greens, turquoises, reds, browns, will follow. I see people using these for projects like Jane Thornley's lovely wraps and vests and shawls and things.

The garden is moving into its sleepy mode at this time of year, but the little crabapple tree is still showing off its tiny crimson fruits.

They're only the size of large cherries. I must pick the whole crop (might fill a very small cereal bowl) and see if I can make a miniature pot of jelly with them.

The resident robin is getting very aggressive too at this time of year, seeing off any foreign immigrants ('this garden is taken, TAKEN, do you hear?') while the local wren is coming into the tiny straw birdhouse tucked high up in the porch at night. There is much swearing and fluttering if you go out unexpectedly after dark, so we have to try to remember to take the dogs out the back door.

May have mentioned that the bright pink boucle EZ Ribwarmer was started and completed on the Yukon trip, but you didn't really see a good picture of it.

Here's a nice back view. I'll put both views up on Ravelry when I get a minute. This Blogger is temperamental enough and I've got enough pictures to show you tonight without tempting Fate too far.

And a new little girl baby friend arrived a week or so ago, so of course she had to have a cosy raggy flannel quilt with her name on it, didn't she? You probably can't see 'Maeve' embroidered in the centre patch, but it's there. And yes, I did make a last-minute error in placing those patches, being in a rush, but I don't suppose she'll mind. I do like raggy quilts. Especially in warm snuggly flannel. Must make some more.

But a fine day arrived, and DH had some free time, so the book took priority. Down to Drimoleague first, a small and at first perhaps ordinary West Cork inland village. Acting on information unearthed though, we took a right into a car park in the centre of the main street. Once you'd got in a little way, this opened out suddenly and unexpectedly, and revealed -

A lost railway station!

Grass was growing on the platform, the ticket office was boarded up, the rails and sleepers were long gone, but the station was still there, dozing in the sunshine, with one ear open for the clang of the bell which would tell it that the down train from Cork with visitors, or the up train from Bantry with the butter, was due.

This is a remnant of the legendary West Cork Railway, whose demise in the sweeping modernisations of the trendy 1960s is still a cause for much lamentation throughout the county. Indeed, mention it in any pub from Bandon to Ballydehob and you'll soon have half a dozen voices clamouring 'It should never have been closed', 'We should get it back', 'Wouldn't it be grand altogether to travel in it now?' and more.

I like to think that the West Cork Railway is still alive in one dimension, and that on misty winter nights you can perhaps hear the shriek of the whistle and the drumming of the rails as the late down train pulls into Drimoleague Station. Doors slam, elderly ladies in the traditional hooded West Cork cloaks lift their heavy baskets to the platform, the station master comes out of his office, pocket watch in hand, and the voices of those long gone echo once more around the station yard. Actually I do believe in ghost trains. Don't you? Or, put it this way - wouldn't you like to?

On our way out of Skibbereen we came across this rather annoyed donkey who had just petulantly kicked his feed bucket to record his annoyance at being kept indoors. Note the electric fence placed strategically close to his stable door. Donkeys, as you probably know, are veritable Houdinis when it comes to escape skills. You just can't keep one in if he wants to get out. So far this farmer's strategy is working. So far...

We were on our way down to Cunnamore which is where you catch the ferry to little Heir Island, hardly any distance offshore but a bit too far to swim.

That's Heir Island in the middle of the picture there, looking down from the hill above Cunnamore Quay.

- and here's a view looking westward from the same point. Thought you might like it.

Heir Island used to be famous for its boatbuilding and its lobster fishing. The local men would fish up and down the coast, staying away from home three weeks at a time, and cooking all their meals on board. They even made bastable bread in a pot oven on deck!

I suppose you could see this as a sad reminder that those rich fishing days are gone, but in another way it's rather nice. This old boat, veteran of many a stormy sea and dangerous tide, now rests snugly within sight and sound of the ocean, tucked behind a headland and wrapped warmly round with furze and long grass. No bad way to be.

It was a donkey day definitely. This gang of comedians ('Ooh, a Nikon, take my picksher mister!') were enjoying themselves out on Ceann Tuaithe (anglicized inexplicably as Toe Head which is a dreadful misnomer - Ceann means Head certainly, but Tuaithe means a clan or community gathered under one chief, not toe for heaven's sake! I mean, it's not even attractive, is it?)

This little fellow was attractive though. He was probably thinking what a strange place the world was that had two legged creatures looking at him over the fence and cooing.

Wherever you are in West Cork, you're sure to find, sooner or later, a grassy lane leading down to the sea. In this case, giving a fine view of the Stags rocks.

A nice place to be on a quiet evening as dusk falls. And indeed nice to think about at other times, when you need something peaceful. Feel free.

Bears, Beavers, And The Best Ribs In The Klondike!

2009-10-11T19:41:00.022+01:00

If I don't get round to posting right this minute, it'll never get done. No use waiting for enough time, is there? You have to make it. Even when editors are threatening and deadlines are sitting evilly on your bedside table , eying you like vultures when you wake up in the morning.

Besides which, if I don't post now, Samhain will be past and Christmas, heaven help us, on the way. And that wouldn't do at all.

It was wonderful going back to Yukon Territory and a tiny bit of Alaska. Even without window seats, we got a few stunning glimpses of Greenland.

And Whitehorse (when we finally crawled in at 1.30 am, having left Cork at 6 am - and you can subtract another eight hours from that for the time difference, so it was well over 24 hours, with delays at this airport and that) was as charming as ever. It's nice to be in a real frontier town of the kind that faces up to nature and rough weather with total practicality, knowing it can't just assume things will always be easy - things like pottering out to do a spot of shopping, or travelling any distance without packing survival gear.

Absolutely and far away my favourite restaurant in the whole world is in Whitehorse - the Klondike Rib & Salmon on 2nd Ave - and one of my favourite people is owner, Dona, who runs the whole shebang as if it were a gigantic party. You can see queues down the street at feeding time, but she still finds time to greet every customer personally and has a wonderful relationship with her gang of cheerful young staff.

Here she is, still merry after closing time. See that Dog Sled Parking sign over her head? That's a very tempting reminder to head back to Whitehorse next February. No matter that the whole place will be frozen solid and blanketed under twenty feet of snow, that's when the Yukon Quest takes place, the dog sled race from Fairbanks Alaska to Whitehorse. The dogs and their mushers race a thousand freezing miles, and I WANT TO BE THERE. Dona, if you're reading this, can I come help make soup, coffee, man one of the checkpoints? Please? I'll knit double thick socks for both of us!

Headed out early every morning in Whitehorse, to see what was about in the dawn light.

I don't know who was more taken aback here, me, the coyote, or DH.

Is that a lens or a Gatling gun? Wow, you don't see many of those in these here woods...

Having got over his initial camera shyness, he trotted quite casually past DH, on his way to a business meeting no doubt.

The other place we spent quite a bit of time was the Whitehorse dump or recycling centre. Those with wildlife photographer acquaintances will know that dumps are very high on the list of desirable locations, and Whitehorse is one of the best. Simply everyone drops in at one time or another.

These juvenile bald eagles would far rather have Mama and Papa bring them a nice hot lunch like always, but their parents were having none of it, sitting at a distance on a tall pine, and refusing to lift a talon to help. They had to learn for themselves.

This raven was really being mean, winding up the poor hungry young eagle something rotten. He'd fly down, get a nice tasty titbit, then bring it back to the wire, and edge slowly up towards the eagle, taking delicious little nibbles and cawing, 'Oh this is nice. Oooh, this is the best titbit I've ever tasted...' He was doing it on purpose, no doubt about that. Every now and again, goaded beyond endurance, the eagle would make a dash at his tormentor, but the raven would easily evade him, chuckling all the while.

We went up to Dawson, another of my favourite places. Do you know Dawson? It was a huge place during the Klondike Gold Rush, fell into decrepitude thereafter, but was, thankfully, saved as a beautiful ghost town for future generations to enjoy. It's full of old log cabins dating from those heady days, some sinking into the soil at dangerous angles (probably where their occupants had dug right under the building in search of the elusive metal), others, on firmer ground, holding their own.

This is somewhere I think of when I can't get back to sleep at 2 am and need a peaceful old-world image. It's Robert Service's cabin. The Bard of the Yukon lived in this little hut and wrote his wonderfully evocative and popular poems here. I've quoted this verse before, but I'll do so again, because it's a good one to recall when life gets a bit too respectable:

They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,
They have steeped you in convention through and through.
They have put you in a glass case, you're a credit to their teaching,
But can't you hear The Wild - it's calling you!

Of course we went up The Dempster a little way - until the road got really rough anyway. You're supposed to tape up the headlights and put mesh over the grille and things like that if you plan to drive any distance. That's as well as food for a week, enough medical supplies to perform minor operations, and a few extra sweaters.

In Ireland you can't go three kilometres without someone offering you a cup of tea, for heaven's sake!

Dawson is a good place to watch beavers.

This chap was so busy stocking up for the winter, gathering juicy branches, still with the golden leaves attached, and carrying them down to the underwater larder, that he didn't mind us at all -

- but I simply loved watching this guy swim off and collect a huge armful of weed, then ponderously carry it all the way up to the top of his lodge to caulk any possible weak points.

From Dawson, you either retrace your steps the long long road to Whitehorse or you cross the Yukon River - just like in the song - and head into Alaska.

That's an Elizabeth Zimmermann Ribwarmer in bright pink boucle, by the way, being knitted on the ferry. Thought another layer wouldn't come amiss.

From the high road above, the early morning clouds were still hiding Dawson, but you can just see on the right where the Klondike River joins the Yukon. And then it was a long, long, LONG drive down through Chicken, Alaska (really!), back into Canada at Beaver Creek, out again just before Thirty Mile Roadhouse, where we had to stop for coffee, as this is another of my favourite places.

Unutterably cosy and comfy and welcoming after a long drive, run by several sprightly and very strict elderly ladies, it's a gathering point and information centre for the surrounding area as well as a cafe. Which makes sense in Offthemapua.

We were heading for Haines, a small port of call for cruise ships in season, but also an extremely good place to see grizzly bears if you know where to go. Which, fortunately, we did. As dusk falls each evening at this time of year, the grizzlies come down from the woods to fish for salmon in the river. There aren't any controls, no barriers or safety screens, just you, a lonely woodland road, a river - and the dark woods.

I was wandering along this road on my own in the dusk, thinking of Starmore sweaters or something, and only belatedly realised that perhaps being solo wasn't all that good an idea. I headed back to find DH round the next bend and as we met up, we heard a crashing in the woods a few yards away.

'Time to move, I think' said DH with understatement, and we got rapidly out of the path of the approaching noise. Only a few yards up the road and then we turned -

Not a very good picture, snatched at speed in the gathering dusk, but I won't let DH delete it. It is a reminder of just how close I came to being on my own in the sort of situation where you would really prefer several strong friends by your side.

There were actually three of them - Mum and two grown cubs - and they trotted across the road, glancing crossly at us, and down to the riverbank. DH switched to flash mode, which interested the youngsters exceedingly:

Gosh, maybe we shouldn't have beaten up that coyote, he was telling the truth after all! Willya look at the size of that lens?

Great heavens, I've only just this minute spotted something, when I looked at that picture. We'd both noticed the nice white markings on the bear on the left, but now it looks exactly like the face of another bear, doesn't it? What a very odd effect. Must go tell DH as soon as I've finished posting.

It's a privilege to get so close to these enormous creatures but let's face it, it's also darned dangerous. Probably won't be much longer that you can walk that river road at dusk and play peekaboo with grizzlies. And I'm still wondering what exactly I would have done if I'd been on my own when The Three Bears crossed the road. Frozen in shock? Closed my eyes and prayed? Shown them the sock I was knitting? (Reagan in Wollmeise, on size O Addi Turbos).

On the way back up to Whitehorse, completing a very big circle, we paced the White Pass Railway train, the big black steam engine puffing clouds of smoke to let us know where it was when we lost it in the hills. Wish there had been time to hike a bit of the legendary, appalling, Chilkoot Trail, but unfortunately we had a flight to catch.

Two days to get home and the jet lag from hell, lasting well over a week, but it was worth it. To be out there in those huge empty spaces with those vast skies and that clear cold air - it made you feel invigorated just to breathe.

There would be absolutely no sense, no justification whatsoever, in going back for the Yukon Quest in February, would there? No, you're quite right, there would not. There would not...

I'm Here, I'm Home, But Beset By Deadlines And Jetlag

2009-09-27T20:47:00.003+01:00

Just so's you know, nothing's happened, all is well, but got home to the jetlag from hell as well as really strict noises, verging almost on the annoyed, from the editor of our new book. A chapter has to be with him by Wednesday and right now the Deadline Monster isn't just whistling by, he's sitting on the roof of the house glowering, while we combat the desperate need for sleep by typing nonstop (me) and sorting through millions of pictures (DH).

I promise faithfully and sincerely that Wednesday night (if not dead from exhaustion), you will get the full tale of the Yukon trip, including The Three Bears And The Addi Turbos...

Of Sea Eagles, Ancient Annals, And The Inadvisability of Plying Yarn

2009-08-09T13:04:00.029+01:00

It seems like such a good idea at the time. You have this beautiful yarn, perfect colour, begging to be used, but it's too thin for your purpose. For any purpose really except fine socks or a sadistic Starmore special on triple O steel needles. So you do the sensible thing and ply it. Twice, maybe three times (Celtic Memory has been known to use four plies when occasion demands).

But... and this is where the inadvisability comes in - the project doesn't always work. In my case, it was back last January when I was battling the flu bug from Hades and got the feverish idea late one night of creating a beautiful guernsey from a book of Japanese patterns, using a particularly gorgeous cone of violet pure wool I'd snaffled on a trip to Texere Yarns in Bradford some time back.

This was the yarn, if you remember. And you may also remember if you read that post, that I realised the error of my ways about half an hour into the project and frogged what little I'd done.

Only... I'd plied the yarn double, to get it up to usable thickness, hadn't I?

And... this is undoubtedly one of the rarest and most attractive violet yarns you've ever seen, isn't it?

And... I've just got the hang of combining machine knitting with handwork, haven't I? Which opens up delectable new possibilities of working whole garments in hitherto impossible fine gauge yarns?

So it became clear that the violet yarn needed to be unplied.

No worries. Got a ball winder now. Got several skein winders. Surely two different machines can be brought into use together to return the yarn to its original gauge? (Stand by Ireland, the industrial revolution is about to hit your shores at last).

Of course it never works out as simply as you think. Even when you wind a ball casually by hand (or, in my case, flu-ridden last January, feverishly and incoherently and quite badly), you inevitably twist it. And that twist is seriously bad news for unplying. What should have been a fairly easy task of winding a skein and a ball at the same time turned into a major task, involving swearing under the breath and the bringing in of any handy local hook or knob or surface to deal with tangled loops and lengths.

There are lengths and loopings on the floor there too, if you look closely enough.

Here's a closeup of my adorable Victorian skein winder which I persuaded my dear friend Warren Ogden of Craftspun Yarns to sell to me. It's all cast iron and brass, with a lovely dial that counts up to 80 yards, and when you're winding you can't hear a thing, it all runs silently and smoothly. Love it, even if my 2 metre skein winder is a little more practical for the dyeing and selling side. You simply can't beat this wonderful old 19th century machinery. Warren called it something else, I can't remember what, but it was originally designed for making up little sample skeins for customers. He still uses one himself - pop into his lovely shop in Johnstown not far from Dublin and you'll see it in action.

I may just have mentioned a few odds and ends that I was trying to finish up in my last posting. Well I soldiered on with those, much encouraged by your support. As advised by BB, I went for the easiest one first, and completed the Tofutsies in short order.

I am enchanted by the way the colour works out on this yarn - in the ball it looks like a mixed scrimmage, but when you knit it, suddenly waves and stripes and pools appear and it's all a lot of fun.

I was so touched by the number of you who sent Tofutsies to West Cork after I offered to trade for my hand-dyed. It is certainly a winner on the sock machine and I now have enough to see how every colourway in the range looks when knitted up. The socks are cool and light for summer and wash in the machine like a dream. Thank you. You really are the best, my worldwide gang of knitter friends.

One Conwy sock is finished, and the other is started, no more than that. Been experiencing a bit of RSI in the thumb joint from fine sock work, and stiff shoulders too, so had to slow down on the thinner yarns and needles a bit while Chinese massage worked its miracles.

Oh by the way, while I think of it, you've a chance to get your own creativity and brilliance recognised! The moderators of Sock Madness are looking for pattern submissions for next year's crazy event (one of the daftest, also one of the greatest going), and you need to get started right away. Look up the rules on the Ravelry group and start working on that pattern NOW. Well of course you're on Ravelry. If you're a knitter and aren't, WHY?

The mohair boucle wrap has had another few inches added. It just goes on, that yarn. The ball never seems to get any smaller! Sooner or later I'm going to have to take a decision and cut it, bind off, finish.

What do you mean, I haven't got much done? It's only a few days since I posted - oh, gosh, is it as long as that?

Well - OK, there were a couple of distractions. Pleasant ones.

Confirmed and total handknitters, purists, look away now. I'll tell you when it's safe to come back.

I've been machine knitting. On a flatbed.

You've latched on to that already anyway, from comments further up, but here it's time to come out of the closet and admit that machine knitting can be a whole lot of fun. To be able to create acres of stocking stitch in half an hour, to whip up a pair of sleeves in no time, a vest while you're getting ready to go out, is rather marvellous when you've grown accustomed to weeks of labour and very little to show for it. More, it means you can really concentrate on the complex bits instead of being so exhausted from the endless rows that you can't be bothered. Maybe a bit like having a full-time, super-efficient nanny for the children (and an additional, soundproofed, nursery wing to the house), so that when you meet them briefly in the evening before dinner, you can lavish love and delight on them instead of being a bit too tired to care? Or maybe not.

Anyway.

All the manuals and online sources advised making little swatches to get some practice. And then making striped swatches to get more practice. Which was fine, but I don't like wasting time like that. So I started making very long striped swatches. And then more of them. And then created a patchwork vest.

This isn't put together yet. The middle strip is half the length of the (doubled) side pieces and will be the centre back. Only...

Take a look at that second-last square from the top centre. The dark one (it's navy in fact).

I'd been popping down to the workshop at all hours to do a little more on the machine, and on this particular occasion, it was late and dark. I reached for the cone of navy Shetland, threaded it in, worked the square, threaded in the pale lilac, went on, and finished off.

It was only when I came to wash and block it that I realised I'd picked up a large cone of acrylic in exactly the same shade of navy (I keep it for experimental work). Will you look at that? Hideous!

I'm undecided between making the whole strip again, thereby condemning the three perfectly virtuous Shetland squares to oblivion, or making just one square and grafting it into place. What would you do? (Apart from switching on the light when working late at night, I didn't need that crack, smarty pants!)

But my second project worked out rather better.

This is the Dangerous Kimono, discreet black until you turn or move and a flash of wicked scarlet reveals itself. Got the original idea from that lovely pattern - is it Iki? - in Vicki Square's Knit Kimono, but the design is my own. Strips were all I could do as yet on the machine, so strips it would be. Wide rectangles for the sleeves (first red, then black), two long pieces for the body, going up and over the shoulder, and also with the red facing at either end, a narrower strip for centre back, and finally two very very long strips, one in black, one in red, for the band. Oh and four little red strips for the side slit facings. The final touch was a length of i-cord worked on the machine (didn't believe it would be easy, but it was), and twisted into a Celtic symbol.

Really really chuffed with this. It's in a hideously expensive and luxurious Italian mousse merino which feels like silky velvet and costs so much that when I made a mistake halfway through one of the long pieces, the only option was to frog back two or three rows v-e-r-y gently and re-hang the whole thing on the machine. (It was a lot faster to type that last sentence than it was to carry out the awful task, I tell you.)

I am so pleased with how it turned out. It's almost like a designer version of a PhD gown, isn't it? That's OK, I'm entitled. Less chance of tripping over the folds too.

OK, purists, confirmed and certificated hand-knitters, you can start reading again now.

Another job got done too, and I hadn't posted about it beforehand because it was a secret. Socks for DH.

Modelled by the man himself. (You want me to pose with them? On my feet? Me?) A nice blend of wool and cotton, tubes worked on the sock machine, cuffs, toes and heels by hand. Can't begin to tell you how nice it is to work the bulk of dark colours on a machine. Much easier on the eyes.

The socks were for his birthday. This is our birthday weekend (mine on the Friday, his on the Saturday). He got home-made pecan fudge, among other things. You should have seen me the night before, leaping from the sock finishing to the stove and back again, picking up stitches for the afterthought heel, stirring the fudge, working the decreases, chopping the pecans, grafting the toe, beating the fudge... It all got done in time.

And yes, now that you ask, I did secure a little loot for my own birthday. Just a yard or two of yarn...

From left to right, lower row at back: black worsted spun, about fingering weight; a really rare Suffolk fingering weight (hadn't scored that particular breed before, lovely grey shade); and a big cone of superwash merino fingering weight, destined for hand-dyed sock yarn. Top row, L to R, three cones of that seductive Italian mousse yarn. Front, a cone of cashwool, that Italian fine gauge merino that feels exactly like cashmere. And in the foreground, a delightful cone winder dating, I would think, from around the 1960s, which I got from the lovely Rosina at Mostly Knitting Machines, and some little treats from DH who knows my (other) weakness. Enough to keep me going for a while maybe.

But Friday was the most special day out. I knew exactly where I wanted to go - Innisfallen Island on Lough Leane in Killarney. Innisfallen is fabled in history because it was here from the 4th century onwards that the community of monks created and continued The Annals of Innisfallen, probably our earliest and most historically valuable documentary source. The original is now in the Bodleian in Oxford, where it can be cared for as it should be, but some friends of mine at Cork University have placed a translation online where everybody can benefit from it. You can look it up here.

It's only a small little island, but it's well out in Lough Leane, and you have to take a boat from Ross Castle. Which we did. Boatman Fergus does this run all the time, in between taking people right up the three lakes to Lord Brandon's Cottage for tea.

We were halfway across when I spotted something in the sky and said, 'Holy heavens, what's that?'

Those of you living in wilder parts of North America may not consider this particularly unusual, but here in Ireland we're pretty bereft of the larger raptors. Eagles, buzzards, died out long ago. But there has recently been a drive to re-introduce both the golden and the white-tailed sea eagle, and this could be none other than the sea eagle.

Of course DH grabbed his 500mm lens and started firing bursts, while Fergus obligingly brought the boat around and steered towards the thicket of trees on Innisfallen where the bird seemed to have landed. But as we got closer we saw something horrible.

Oh no, no, no, it can't be. Please don't let it be. How could the bird be dead? We'd only just seen it flying. Or - was it another one, caught and somehow trapped, unable to free itself, some time ago? Was the other one searching for it? All kinds of thoughts and half-finished sentences were running around as we edged in closer.

Thank heaven! After a few agonising minutes, it suddenly seemed to come back to life, flapped those huge wings, and got itself upright on the branch. It had to be a young bird, virtually on its first flight, then. We've seen this with smaller birds leaving the nest - often they crash land on a branch and then slip right round, their claws firmly grasping the twig, but unable to keep upright. They're fine once they work out what's happened. And so it must have been with this huge beautiful bird. Which meant that it could only just have been released. Immediately rang our friends who were masterminding the reintroduction project and they confirmed that yes, half a dozen of the birds recently donated from Norway (thanks Norway!), had been let loose that morning from a secret location way in the heart of the mountains.

This, then, with the prominent wing tag (and radio transmitter which you can't see) is the female, Feenagh. May you have a long and happy life here with us in Ireland, Feenagh, and may the wind be always underneath your wings.

It was good to have seen her land on Innisfallen too; one of my favourite poems, which dates from just about the time the Annals were being written, is an Anglo-Saxon one, The Seafarer, with the line,

The erne screams, icy-feathered...

Erne being the old name for the sea eagle (and you'll still find it as a clue in crossword puzzles to this day!)

It was a lovely birthday present for DH as well. Couldn't have timed it better, that bird.

And so the boat's keel finally grounded on the pebbly shore of Innisfallen and we entered an older world.

Although the abbey dates from the 4th century, most of the buildings are later, around the 14th century. Some scraps of the original do remain though, built into the walls of the medieval structure.

This tiny cross was discovered in the lake some years ago, and brought back to the island from whence it must surely have originated.

Hundreds of coins had been placed carefully, reverently, around and even on the little cross. There are some instinctive beliefs and rituals that lie unsuspected below the surface in all of us, until one day we are in a place where we have never been before, and suddenly know what we must do.

This is the view of the mainland and McGillicuddy's Reeks much as the monks must have seen it as they took a break from their slow illuminative and scribing work, blowing on their cramped fingers and unstiffening their joints, bent too long over a sheet of vellum.

Didn't want to leave that peaceful place, but evening was drawing on. We saw these fishermen on the lough on the way back, and one was determined to show us just how big the one that got away was!

Ross Castle really looks at its best when you come to it by water, doesn't it?

Everything went right on this day. We drove into the woods to see if we could find any of our native red deer, and we did.

This doe was protective of her young fawn who still had his dappled spots.

And then the stag came along and ushered them both away to safety. So we withdrew as quietly as we could. It's their woodland, not ours, after all.

And finally we took a long and winding and extremely circuitous route over the hills and far away. Coming down at last as dusk fell to a secret valley and the Last Homely House - or, more exactly, Gougane Barra and our dear friends at the hotel there, for a wonderful dinner. Altogether a magical day.

Seeing Off The Seven Deadly WIPs

2009-07-12T17:59:00.010+01:00

Celtic Memory is thoroughly ashamed of herself. Appalled would not be too strong a word. Lack of moral fibre, lack of any restraint whatsoever, a complete inability to stick to one thing and get it done. Or even two things. Or three.

This morning the sun was shining brightly through the window as it occasionally does during an Irish summer. It hadn't done so for a few weeks, and the resultant illumination was a nasty shock. The number of WIPs piled, draped, perched all over the dining room was frightening. No, really I mean it. Far, far too many. Socks, scarves, jackets, vests - how had things come to this pretty pass? I hauled no fewer than seven (count 'em, seven) out on to the table and into the merciless sunlight.

That, by the way, in case you're wondering, is the total of WIPs actually on view, touchable, ready to hand, in one room. No mention is being made of WIPs ageing in quiet corners, living out their lives in forgotten baskets or plastic storage boxes elsewhere in the house (or indeed car). We're only talking here of the ones on the top of the iceberg.

Enough!, I cried. There will be no more of this. Every single one of these WIPs currently on view will be finished, completed, ticked off the list before ANYTHING new is started. And by heaven I have every intention of keeping to that resolution. Forget New Year promises, this is a mid-July crisis and it's got to be sorted right NOW. No two ways about it. And why am I telling you? Well, not just so that you can enjoy a good laugh at my expense - no, I'm hoping that by coming out of the closet and confessing, I'll put myself in the position where I have to do something or look a right eejit. You'll be watching me, I'll have to!

Here, then, are the Seven Deadly WIPs.

Item One: A wrap, shawl or stole in light soft mohair boucle in a particularly gorgeous colourway of greens and turquoises and blues. It has an angled edge which pleased me exceedingly when I worked out how to do it, and when finished it will look devastating over a dark jacket or sweater. Simplicity itself to work, ideal for TV watching or long journeys.

Started: Last February, in a fever of enthusiasm, when I bought the hand-dyed skein.

Progress: about halfway. Hard to tell - there's a lot of yardage in this ball. It gets finished when the yarn does.

Item Two. A cabled cropped jacket in a blue mousse merino used double or treble or something, can't remember without going to look. Got some ideas from Elsebeth Lavold's Ragna sweater, but mostly this is my own design and I was very excited about it. There are several separate pieces or flaps which come together about six inches up the body, and the sleeves also have slits at the cuff end. Once the second sleeve is up to where it should be, the whole lot will go on one needle for raglan shaping to the neck. Haven't decided what to do then.

Started: Around January, I think.

Progress: More than three-quarters done.

Item Three. Zauberball socks in progress. This is Nancy Bush's Conwy pattern and very nice it is too.

Started: After UK Ravelry Day, where I scored the yarn, that very evening in fact. Because I was travelling, I didn't follow my usual practice of winding the yarn into two equal balls and working both socks at the same time, so there is a distinct risk of Second Sock Syndrome.

Progress: You can see for yourself. Not much more of the foot to do on Sock One. So what's keeping me?

Item Four. Tofutsies socks. These are my mixed media socks, with the tubes worked on the sock machine and then the tops, toes and heels added afterwards. (By the way, the Tofutsies, though a little fine for my liking in handwork, is just great on the sock machine, so I'm in the market for some more if anyone has any to trade for some of my hand-dyed).

Started: June sometime. The tubes take about ten minutes to knit (don't you just hate people who have sock machines?)

Progress: Again, you can see for yourself. One sock complete with ribbing, toe, and afterthought heel. Second has toe and most of the ribbing done; still the delicate and worrying task of snipping a stitch and unpicking the heel stitches so as to work the afterthought remains.

Item Five. The Noro Shawl. The pattern is the Weavers' Wool Mini Shawl by Peggy Pignato and the Silk Garden Sock shows off to excellent advantage in the simple design. Of course, at the beginning, you forget how many stitches there are going to be by the time you get even halfway...

Started: After UK Ravelry Day, again having scored the yarn.

Progress: Hard to tell. Another good yardage ball, so we'll see how far we get before it's time to cast off.

Item Six. The Mermaid Vest, inspired by Jane Thornley's beautiful Sunset Vest. This one demands so many different yarns, it was taking up space in a wide basket.

Started: Last summer sometime, when somebody had the bright idea of a Jane Thornley KAL.

Progress: You can see it on the right of the picture; had been working upwards from the bottom in stripes, but when I'd laid it out to take a picture, I realised that this was begging to be worked sideways - far more effective. Frogging will be quite a problem, since there were several yarns used in each row. But it would be a real showstopper when done. MUST get on with it, and never mind that it's a recipe for frustration, tangling and long long late nights painstakingly undoing knots.

Item Seven. The St. Enda cropped cabled jacket. This one really embarrassed me. I suddenly decided that what I should be doing was knitting items I actually needed in the wardrobe rather than shiny new distractions, took some thought, and settled on a good crop jacket in a dark colour. A staple, something like that would be, could wear it anywhere, with anything. Went virtuously off to the stash to find an appropriate yarn and pattern, saw some rough notes for St. Enda... and realised that I'd done this already, last year.

(To tell the truth, I've done it more than once. There are several charcoal or black jacket WIPs hanging around, but I haven't had the strength of will to look for the others - afraid what I'll find. And yes, there is a cream cashmere/silk St. Enda sweater also OTN, but in another room, therefore not counted during this penitential exercise.)

Started: At least a year ago, I would suspect.

Progress: Back up to the armholes. One front, with integrated side slit and pocket, plus cabled button band, almost up to the same point. Another front (this time with buttonholes), and two sleeves to get to home base, after which the entire thing will be worked as one raglan piece to the neck. Which may well have a cabled strip collar.

Seven deadly WIPs. Each one begun in a white heat of lust, greed, envy, whatever. Each one laid down just for a minute while something else caught the eye. Each one left to languish.

It's not good enough. Here comes the vow.

I, Celtic Memory, do hereby undertake most solemnly not to take on, examine, get distracted by, even consider ANY knitting (or crochet or quilting or weaving or spinning, you can't get out of it like that) project until each and every one of the seven listed above has been fully and totally completed (and yes, that does include sewing up AND the attachment of buttons, yes, even blocking where necessary).

In confirmation of which, I hereby append my X.

X

Hang on though, there is some achievement to report. Late last night, and well before expected completion time, the EZ Ribwarmer Vest MkIII made its appearance!

Simply cannot believe this got finished, and that it actually fits! Cut down on stitches and rows to get it to size, and might go down even more on the next try. Had intended to work i-cord all round the edges, which would have taken several more days, but in the end went for a simple crochet effect, which did a very good job of evening out the bulges which tend to appear where the short rows turn the corners.

Here's a back view. You might be able to see the rain battering at the windows. If I'd only slept late this morning, I'd have missed the sunshine altogether, wouldn't have noticed the burgeoning WIPs in the gloom, and you wouldn't be reading this now.

The next posting will chart progress. And perhaps a little sneak peek at The Seven Deadly Temptations which will do their utmost to upset that progress...

In Which The Source of Unspun Icelandic Is Sought, And A Sea Of Blue Lupins Discovered

2009-07-04T18:02:00.027+01:00

Myself, I blame Meg Swansen. And quite probably Sandykins and LilyMarlene would agree, wouldn't you girls? There she was at UK Ravelry Day, looking absolutely stunning in her own version of the EZ Ribwarmer (I think she calls her design Ribwarmer Revisited, but I could be wrong), and what could any knitter worthy of her needles do but instantly vow to try. Or, in my case, try again. You may or may not recall that I first attempted this cunning little bit of engineering a year or two ago with a very nice variegated boucle. Realised before even hitting the decreases that it would fit an elephant and one with no very good idea of fashion sense at that. So to the frogpond it trotted, and I eschewed the EZ Ribwarmer for ever. And ever.

But after seeing that gorgeously chic little oatmeal number, edged in i-cord in a slightly darker shade, I couldn't pretend disinterest. Came home and hunted out a cake (a wheel? A round? A big squishy flat sort of plate) of unspun yarn and started over. Now this was a particularly nice oatmeal shade, this unspun, but - let's whisper this bit - I wasn't entirely sure it was the real McCoy, the genuine unspun Icelandic. I'd bought it in Finland, so maybe it was the wrong nationality?

Surely that wouldn't make much difference? Aren't we getting just a bit too purist here? Of course we are. Cast on forthwith, worked merrily away, posted about it, boasted about it, coasted around the corners at full speed, and finished it in short order.

'Twas a bit big, even with all that careful measuring en route. No matter, a bit of felting will soon fix that. Into the pot with it.

Ah.

OK.

Now I don't really need someone to explain how a felted piece can come out with one part of it more shrunken than the other. Accidents can occur in the best regulated felting families. 'Could happen a bishop', as my mother would say comfortingly to the cats when they made the occasional idiot of themselves (you know how cats simply hate making idiots of themselves, it throws them off completely, whereas dogs don't mind in the slightest, and in fact do it all the time without even trying).

But I would like to know how one armhole came out twice the original size while the other had gone down to half its original dimensions.

I screamed and ranted about this on one of the Ravelry groups and Zemy was kind enough to suggest running a safety thread through armholes and edgings before felting. I'll try that, Zemy, next time. But to get one twice the size and one half?

The vest now resides in Muffy the Yarnslayer's bed. She likes it a lot, and does some work on it in the evenings.

The iron, however, remained in the soul. And rankled. Which is distracting, especially late at night or early in the morning. Or anytime really.

Where had I gone wrong? I mean, look up the Ribwarmer on Ravelry for heaven's sake, and it appears that every knitter in the world has laughingly thrown dozens of perfect examples off the needles in less time than it takes to say 'What an easy knit!'

WHY ME? (Or, to put it another way, why not me?)

I'd checked the gauge. I'd followed the pattern. I'd used unspun yarn...

Ah.

Maybe that was it. I had used what I considered to be an appropriate yarn, but was it the right one. Was it the very exact specific unspun specified in the specifications?

Maybe NOT.

Only one thing to do in circumstances like that, and as chance would have it (no, honestly) DH offered the one possible path of hope and opportunity.

Had fully intended to go to Woolfest last weekend, but a few days before, he instead dangled the thought of heading further north (a lot further north) so that he could look for seabirds and I could perhaps track down the elusive yarn in its natural habitat.

Did I hesitate? Did I 'eck!

And so, towards the end of June, we came at last to Iceland

and to one of the most hauntingly beautiful and remote landscapes I have ever seen. Mountains (volcanoes really, several of them still in grumbling mood), vast stretches of grassland, moss, and lava fields. This country is slightly larger than England, Scotland and Wales combined, yet it has a population of just 300,000 - that's hardly more than County Cork, for heaven's sake! Since most of them live in Reykjavik, that leaves a great deal of empty countryside,

with the occasional tiny white church emphasising the remote emptiness of it all.

But there are some industries in Iceland. Guess where this is:

Not too difficult, even if you can't read the writing on the van. How many cars have colourwork knitted fenders?

Yes, it was Alafoss, legendary old mill where Icelandic yarns have been made for generations. They have now moved production to a more modern mill, closer to Reykjavik, but the old one has been turned into an outlet where they sell knitwear and yarns at cut price.

I bet you're drooling. I could hardly wait for DH to stop the car before I was in the door.

It's a wonderful place to wander around, full of the most exquisite handwork in caps, scarves, vests, sweaters, gloves, socks...

even tapestry kits of Icelandic birds (DH liked those a lot).

Look at these lovely little knitted figures, grouped around the old hand-cranked sewing machine.

But I had come on a mission, and I wasn't going to be distracted.

Didn't dare to look at all the other yarns on offer, but concentrated on the Plotulopi, which is the unspun favoured first by EZ and now by Meg. When you find all these cakes of yarn stacked up high, in every colour you could imagine, it's hard not to lose your head entirely and run round in circles babbling feverishly. Did that for a while, before buying lots and lots and going out to reassure DH that I hadn't dived into the cellar and gone to sleep on a bale of wool.

The yarn here at Alafoss is cheaper than anywhere else at any time, but right now the Icelandic kronur is at an all-time low, so the yarn was too! Pity a poor girl who had only travelled with cabin baggage (I know, I know, but believe me if you have to go through several airports these days, you do not, repeat, do not, want to think about checked bags, really you don't. It can turn a quick weekend into a lengthy imprisonment very easily. Go check out their website - they'll ship. But don't leave it too long, can't tell how long their financial recession will last.)

After that pleasant little introduction to the country, we went out to explore a bit more of Iceland. Not the whole lot - you wouldn't expect to get around the UK in three days, and nor could you get around Iceland where they haven't heard of dual carriageways yet, let alone motorways. We confined ourselves to the Western Fjords which were quite stunning enough.

This is the must-see of this far northern land - the majestic mountain/volcano called Snaefelljokull. Why? Well for one thing it's pretty dramatic, and even when the rest of the country was basking in midsummer, it was still a land of ice and snow up there. But the real reason of course was Jules Verne.

Descend into the crater of Yocul of Sneffels, which the shade of Scartaris caresses, before the kalends of July, audacious traveller, and you will reach the centre of the earth...

Devoured the book in childhood, saw the movie, but never really thought I'd be there. And just before the kalends of July too, what good timing!

You'll have to look pretty closely to see a tiny figure down there, but take my word for it, that's me. In the crater of a volcano.

No, it wasn't actually Snaefelljokull. As you could probably gather from that previous picture, it wasn't exactly casual hiking weather up there. Besides which, I'm not that keen on exploring the centre of the earth. In fact, although I wouldn't like to admit it other than here, among friends, I was a bit nervous clambering down even into that one, which hasn't erupted for about four thousand years. Kept sort of expecting the ground to crumble away below me, and precipitate me into lakes of molten lava, you know?

Another sight people obediently trek to see in Iceland is a geyser - or Geysir in fact, the original old fellow who gave his name to the phenomenon. And the Blue Lagoon where you can sit in natural hot water by the seashore and do yourself lots of good.But we weren't in the mood for tourist attractions so we went off and found our own little smoking water supply.

When you see this from the road, it looks for all the world like a tip, with rubbish smouldering, you know the kind of thing? But when we went down to check, it was a little bubbling spring right enough, with boiling water spouting out from the sand.

You might be able to see the steam on the right of the picture here, rising from the stream as it rushes into the sea. It was too hot to hold my hand in, even there.

I only then remembered that when my father went to Iceland back around 1950 (and it was quite an adventure back in those days, he had to take one tramp steamer to Scotland and another onward to Iceland, passing St. Kilda on the way, which really made me jealous, tiny though I was at the time) he told us on his return that he washed his socks in these natural hot water springs. I think it would have felted mine. Heck, should have brought that Ribwarmer and given it a good shock!

Now in the middle of summer, there is virtually twenty-four hour daylight in Iceland, and the flowers are blooming as fast as they can, to get seed set in time before the twenty-four hour nights of winter.

Even on the rough volcanic pebbles at the sides of the roads, the wild thyme was blooming. It had a lovely scent here, almost more like lavender.

This glorious sweep of bog cotton was just the place to photograph the Noro shawl in progress.

What really took our breath away though were the lupins. Swathes, lakes, fields, whole valleys full of them. We first saw them as the plane circled before landing and couldn't believe our eyes. They were everywhere and more plentiful than I've ever seen them anywhere else. Apparently they were introduced from Alaska to help save the soil of Iceland from complete erosion by wind and sea, and they're doing a jolly good job. Tucked a few seed pods into my pocket to try out in the gentler climate of West Cork.

Of course we saw lots of sheep. Next to fishing, wool is one of the vital industries here.

Icelandic sheep very often have twin lambs. They come in a lot of colours too.

Opinions were divided as to whether this Arctic tern was collecting warm wool for its nest (me) or warning the sheep to keep its silly clumsy hooves away from aforesaid nest (DH).

And yes, we did find that rare breed, the Icelandic ponies. Lots of them.

Again, these come in every colour, from dapple grey to black, chestnut to roan, even skewbald, but all with that characteristic identifying thick mane and lovely heavy fringe over the eyes.

This one was enjoying his quiet time far too much to get up and come over, although we coaxed. We could just see one eye regarding us sleepily through the buttercups.

There were so many other lovely things to see, we didn't have half enough time.

Spectacular waterfalls cascading down dizzying cliffs.

Felted slippers , headbands, and mittens in a tourist information centre.

Delectable cakes in friendly cafes. See, Icelandic isn't that difficult after all, is it?

In fact it's a very old language indeed, and exceptionally close to the original spoken by the Vikings. So much so in fact that modern Icelanders are in the happy position of being able to read the ancient manuscripts in the original - must make research a whole lot easier! I was entranced to see that they still use the letter like a 'p' with a stroke top and bottom, which stands for 'th' in Anglo Saxon and old Norse. It links you right back across the centuries.

And on the way back, guess where we flew right over? Guess?

The Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides. Alice Starmore is down there. We probably flew right over her house!

No I did not. I simply inclined my head gracefully, waved elegantly, and flew on. I could afford to be magnanimous. I figured we were safe enough at 35 thousand feet. And that has just got to put me on the winning side, hasn't it? Now I can essay another trial on St. Brigid - maybe?

So what eventually did get crammed into the rucksack, which was already packed enough with the bare essentials like a warm sweater and a toothbrush, several spare lenses for DH's cameras, the current knitting project, a book, a spare pair of socks, a woolly hat?

Quite a few wheels of unspun (there's another of the darkest charcoal already on the needles with EZ Ribwarmer MkIII); a whole colour card for the unspun, given to me by an utterly lovely lady at Alafoss whose name I somehow omitted to get, but who spoke perfect American, and with whom I intend to strike up a deathless friendship; and a copy of Icelandic Colour Knitting, which has details on how to make those fascinating knitted inserts for shoes which I think I already saw in the Bulgarian mountains. Oh and two Colonial Rosewood circulars which happily they stocked at Alafoss. My favourite needles of all time and this is the second occasion on which I've struck lucky (-the last, if you recall, was in Talinn, in that shop which took some finding, seeing as how it had no name outside, no notice, no indication whatsoever that it was actually upstairs over a fitness gym in a side street. But I digress.)

Some of those wheels of yarn had to be squashed into little bags and tucked into side pockets. Others went in DH's pockets (well I was carrying his lenses, wasn't I, and they were a lot heavier). The lupin seeds went undetected (unless a member of the Irish Ag & Fish reads this blog in which case I'm in trouble).

An absolutely wonderful weekend. Well stocked up now with unspun, and will order more online as needed. On second thoughts though, might just go back to get it in person. Coming?

Of Coventry, A Cuddly Lamb, and A Secret Clapper Bridge

2009-06-14T19:29:00.022+01:00

Went to Coventry last week for the first ever UK Ravelry Day. The weather could hardly have been worse - downpours, black clouds, shivery temperatures - but we had fun nevertheless. I met up with Sandy, a fellow Sock Madnesser, who had flown in from Sweden and shanghaied an innocent businessmanfrom her flight into escorting her to the hotel (I heard him later on explaining on the phone to his wife that he'd met this woman on the plane from Sweden and could she please pick him up at said woman's hotel - I wonder what kind of evening they had when he got home?)

But it was great to meet Sandy in person after sharing so much terror and pressure and stress and all the other joys of Sock Madness via Ravelry. And as is usual with knitters and bloggers, we felt we knew each other pretty well already. She brought me some gorgeous yarn from Sweden and I gave her some Irish skeins in exchange so we were both well content.

I have to say that spirits were high at the event, despite the wretched weather.

I don't know if this is Sarah or Gemma from Brownberry Yarns, but she was smiling even while drips were falling from the inadequate tarpaulin right on her koala bear's head. Oh wait, Gemma's KraftyKoala, isn't she, on the Web, so maybe it's Gemma.

These alpacas were behaving beautifully, though they must have been feeling rather damp. You can't see how hard it's raining, which is perhaps just as well.

Indoors things were very crowded, since nobody who could avoid it wanted to stay outside very long, but it was all very jolly.

There were workshops, all extremely well attended,

there were knitters in every available space,

Medecins Sans Frontieres were there, a sight to gladden the heart of our own dear Yarn Harlot,

there were spinners

and of course there were lots and lots of stalls, both inside and out. I bought two pairs of Holz & Stein circulars in ebony from the lovely Frangipani or Guernsey Wool, I don't know by which title they prefer to be known, but they were exceptionally helpful and nice, again despite the rain which must have affected their sales. Bought far too much from the lovely Andy as usual - a big cone of gorgeous fingering weight merino in natural, two balls of Noro Silk Garden Sock, Cookie A's new sock book, and the new Noro Mini Knits 2 for good measure (and good weight, the rucksack was getting heavy by this time). On somebody else's stall I found the highly entertaining Crazy Zauberball yarn and bought one in red and one in blue.

If you look at that last picture above, you might see a lady at her spinning wheel. That's Kirstie Buckland from the Knitting History Forum. It's worth seeing her glorious outfit close up:

Every little detail correct. I must join the Knitting History Forum, really I must. It's fascinating to learn as much as possible about the craft.

Took a class in machine knitting with Jane, who made it all seem so simple - it's never as easy as that when you get home though, is it? Went to Meg Swansen's talk and met up with LilyMarlene, another of my old Sock Madness friends. We had so much to talk about that, after we'd enjoyed Meg's talk and queued up to look more closely at her superbly chic Ribwarmer Vest, we went out to a local Viennese cafe for coffee and cakes and a really good gossip before she had to leave to drive back to the Isle of Wight.

Met up with quite a few Irish knitters too, in the pub that night, as well as discovering a perfect treasure of a medieval drinking house, thanks to Jane who told me where to find it. These ancient buildings are wonderful, all creaky stairs and low ceilings and odd corners and angles. I sat in a tiny dark inglenook all by myself for half an hour with a glass of Old Peculiar or something, and fancied myself back in the Middle Ages.

But cities are not really Celtic Memory's thing, and I was very grateful to get back finally to the green fields and peaceful woodlands of West Cork where we had summer for a whole week while England grew steadily more sodden. The garden of course is totally untamable now, and it's difficult to find your way through the jungle without a machete, while the dogs never go out without their GPSs and whistles. I opened the window the other morning to see DH in the corner of what was once the rose garden (and could be again if I could stop knitting and get some serious pruning done), surrounded by tripods and lenses and wires -

It transpired he was photographing a particular form of fungus with the exceptionally attractive name of Stinkhorn.

Not a particularly good picture - I blew it up from a section of the previous image - but you can probably see where it got its name. Did I mention it smells as though something very dead is lying close by?

Went down to Gougane Barra a few days ago to see a new addition to the Lucey family.

Ali says she had always wanted a pet lamb, so although she was sorry that Lucky's mother had died, she was thrilled to have a little creature of her own to look after.

I tell you, he really butts at that bottle, sucking and thrusting until every drop is gone. I love his rich black coat with touches of white and have already tried to lay claim to the first fleece, but they assure me that it will change to a duller brown within the year. What a pity.

When we were leaving the valley, we headed off up a narrow side boreen on a whim, and followed its potholed and bumpy surface for a mile or so until we ended in the rocky yard of an old abandoned farmhouse. It was a fine afternoon so we went wandering down the old laneways which would once have led to the infield, the outfield, the river.

And, coming down to the bottom of the lane, where we could hear water running (you're never very far from a stream anywhere in Ireland), we turned the corner by the blackberry bush and what did we find.

A totally unsuspected, unknown, undiscovered, secret clapper bridge. A little one, all by itself, crossing a small stream in the middle of nowhere.

Built anything up to ten centuries ago or more, clapper bridges aren't uncommon in this part of Ireland, and in fact there are two well known ones within five or ten miles of this spot, but we had no idea this one was here. It certainly isn't marked on any of the ordnance survey maps and isn't listed in my archaeological reference books. It is just possible that it has escaped being recorded, being so very out of the way.

It was the perfect end to a beautiful day. Dear little bridge.

Inevitably came back from Coventry with so many creative ideas that nothing would suffice but to start several new projects all at once.

As I said, Meg Swansen looked so confoundedly elegant in her Ribwarmer that I had to try again (did try before, if you remember, using the wrong yarn and the wrong size needles, so it's hardly surprising that it turned out a total disaster). Must say this is great fun to work, especially those short rows which bring it round the corner and up the back. Using Icelandic unspun I think - bought it in Finland though, so it may be the Finnish version of that super-delicate, super-light yarn. If you even let a loop of it fall around your knee, you've had it - it separates at the slightest pressure. However, since Celtic Memory has always been known as a loose knitter, she is delighted to discover that her style is entirely suited to working with unspun. No yarns tightly wound around several fingers for her. No steely maintaining of gauge. Just throwing the yarn in the general direction of the needle and then easing it through the stitch, is all that is required. So far I've only broken the yarn twice, which isn't bad going. Yay, the ugly duckling has found the right pond! At last I'm not an outsider, mocked as a 'loosey goosey', I can do this!

Decided that the Conwy Socks from Nancy Bush's Knitting On The Road were just right for the Crazy Zauberball I scooped at UK Ravelry Day. Yes, you're right, Celtic Memory has made an inexplicable slide sideways and is actually using red and brown rather than her usual blues, turquoises and violets. Blame it on the English weather - I'll be back to normal soon. It just seemed right at the time...

Sock Madness may have ended for this year, but the fun goes on in the group. The latest idea is to create new ideas to use up all those itty bitty leftover yarn balls you tend to accumulate. Here I'm trying to make a patchwork project bag - that's one of four projected panels you can see there, and the pointed bit will become a quarter of the bottom, so it will sit flat. I think it's a bit loose on tension though, so might try with a smaller needle. A project bag needs to be fairly firm.

This is the See You Later sock, the final pattern in Sock Madness. I was working on that at Coventry. Highly entertaining, with all those wraps and loopings - you never get bored. Koigu KPPPM - or is that KKKPM? Or KPMMM? Well, Koigu yarn anyway.

Even the Seahorse Socks got finished at long last. These were made, you may recall, by first working two tubes on the old sock machine, and then working toes and cuffs before bravely snipping a thread on each tube (having carefully measured first) and unpicking stitches to make the afterthought heels. They turned out very nicely indeed. Wonder if there would be a market for Save Your Sanity And Spare Time kits, where all the boring legwork was done, and you could play round with the tops and tails?

OK, OK, this isn't the way to finish the posting, I know. You want to see the bridge again. So do I.

I wonder how many footsteps have passed over it throughout the centuries since it was first laboriously constructed? Heavy hobnailed boots going to a day's hard work; light bare feet of a girl running to a lover's tryst in the fields at evening; faltering steps of emigrants; cattle, sheep, geese being driven to market; and maybe, just maybe, in the silent dew-drenched hours before dawn, even the silver slippers of the Good People .

A Runaway Bag and a Russian River

2009-06-01T11:05:00.035+01:00

You wouldn't think it could happen twice, could you? Should have known that I was asking for trouble, taking Little Yellow Suitcase right back to Helsinki where it occurred last time. But I felt that as we were heading out, not home, and that there was no new stash loot, just WIPs in the checked bag, all would be well. Ha!

At least I'd been working on the Evelyn Clark Flower Basket Shawl on the flight, so had that to keep me occupied.

In the event, it just meant that we had to spend the night in Ivalo, northern Finland, instead of driving into Norway straight away, but that was OK, since it meant reindeer stew with lingonberries for me, and a happy encounter for DH before breakfast next morning:

The next flight up from Helsinki didn't get in until noon, so we went wandering on a nearby moor, and my lovely pink Talia's Wings socks, designed by YarnYenta for this year's Sock Madness, had their first look at a frozen lake.

Since these were the only socks I had with me, pending the arrival of Little Yellow Suitcase, they'd already had a quick overnight wash and dry, courtesy of competent Finnish hotel bathroom heating, but took to the busy life with great aplomb and kept the Celtic Memory feet cosy and warm throughout the morning. Lovely design, Heatherley, one of my favourites!

Wandered back to the sleepy little airport at noon, and saw the plane touch down amid the fir trees. Nice to be at a small country airstrip with no hassle, security, pressure or crowds whatever, just the wind blowing through the birches and the sun warming your back pleasantly while you waited.

Can you see a flash of defiant yellow on that unloading trolley?

I tell you, I gave it a good scolding. I see it all now. That first time of getting lost in Helsinki, it met up with a hunky travel bag - probably from Germany - and plans were laid to meet again the very next opportunity they got. What do I do? Change bags? Revert to cabin baggage only? (If I but could - you just try travelling with a professional photographer!)

It was high time to get going, since it's a long way, not only to Tipperary, but to Varangerfjord. Stopped for coffee just south of the Finnish/Norwegian border, and what did we find?

I'd actually seen this truck parked by our hotel in Ivalo the night before, and it had set off early, but here it was, open for business in the car park by the coffee shop. You'll never guess -

It was a mobile LYS!

It also had rolls of fabric, needles, thread, everything the competent housewife could desire. Isn't that the most marvellous idea? I want to fit out a little green van right this minute and set off around Ireland with it, taking thread to Thurles, wool to Wexford, needles to Newbridge, sock yarn to Sligo, quilting fabric to - where else - Quilty (yes, it does exist, honestly) and generally spreading joy and happiness around the land. Wouldn't even mind if much didn't get sold - it would be the spirit of the thing.

The Sunday, as it happened, was Norway National Day, and every little town and village was en fete, with people in the most beautiful traditional costumes.

Look at these gorgeous girls hurrying to shelter through an icy wind in Vardo. The embroidery on those woollen bodices and skirts was exquisite. And on that point, I found some wonderful pattern books in local shops, giving knitted designs for all kinds of Norwegian traditional dress. They were for children, but you could easily adapt those waistcoats and skirts and socks and caps for adult use. I'll put up some pictures when I get a chance. Oh hang on, I'll go try to take a shot or two now. Wait there.

Done it. Not a very good shot, took it quickly, but you get the idea? Why oh why don't we have lovely books available like this in our shops? Norway has a great pride in its traditional crafts.

The Flower Basket Shawl, made in some silk I'd hand-dyed, worked out quite well. I think it's the first lace piece I've completed, and again thanks to efficient hotel heating, managed to block and dry on a towel before taking it, with all due ceremony to that wonderful stone circle out on Varangerfjord for its christening.

I can tell you it was well cold enough to tuck that shawl inside the neck of my jacket. Had about fifteen layers on, and the wind singing through every one of them without a care.

The lichens on the ancient rock were most obliging about holding the shawl in position for a close up. Felt it was a bit of an imposition, but maybe they were austerely amused at the frivolity.

Speaking of the cold (and by 'eck was it cold up there, you genuinely didn't dare even to smile too widely for a picture because the bitter chill immediately attacked your teeth), I was fascinated by this simple image in Vardo:

I saw it more than once, with different groups. Here in Ireland, children would tuck dolly in with her face showing. Up there, the kids carefully covered the doll's pram right over with a blanket, against the cold.

Here is something else nice. Little wooden shoreline huts for storing fishing tackle, oars and nets. Can you see how carefully the rotten wood has been cut out, and the new wood fitted in? The gaps were caulked with moss. The huts are on sturdy runners, so they can be moved as need be.

It was sunny there near Vadso, but out on the Hamningberg Peninsula, it was grim and black.

It's such a dramatic coastline - you feel awestruck just driving it, and very small indeed in the immensity of it all.

We saw dozens of sea eagles, and in one very fortunate moment, several otters squeaking excitedly to each other as they fished offshore.

The road up to Batsfjord lies over high open moorland, where the snow lay thickly and the spring was still a long way away.

When you drop down to the sea at this lively fishing port, though, it's much milder and the reindeer were everywhere, taking advantage of the gentler climate.

A local fisherman told me the reindeer come down to the shore to give birth each spring. 'It is better for them here, safer too, I think.'

I have a dear friend in Batsfjord who I was hoping to see again, if I could discover her whereabouts. Dropped into the local LYS first (as you do), and who should I find coming to meet me but Else herself!

I had no idea that she was working here! She's finished her studies in Lillehammer for the summer, and what more convenient than that she should find ~~opportunity for stash enhancement~~ gainful employment in her LYS? It was lovely to meet again and hug and exchange news. Good luck with the final exam tomorrow, Else!

Had hoped to see Marianne in Vadso too, but unfortunately she was returning from a trip as we were leaving, so it wasn't to be. Next time, next time. Else, I know I promised to show you how to do a short-row heel, and Marianne, I had every intention of getting you to show me how to make those lovely felted pieces. We'll meet again...

There was a final leg to the trip to be made - out to Kirkenes, where the Hurtigruten boat calls in each day on its voyage around the endless Norwegian coastline, delivering mail and packages, and then on, up an increasingly narrow road, petering out into a rough track, to the very edge of Europe and the Russian border at Grense Jacobselv.

It was strange to drive along a track at one side of a small river, in Norway, and see the green and red painted post on the opposite bank showing that it was Russia. I grew up during the Cold War when the mystique and fear of Russia was very real, as were the tales of borders and daring escapes and tragic endings. To be there now, albeit in somewhat more relaxed times, and to see those implacable Russian mountains rising high behind the river, was quite an experience, especially as it was late in the evening and there was nobody else on that road.

There was still a solitary watchtower on the Russian side, but it didn't seem to be occupied. A merciful release for some soldier who would formerly have been doomed to a long lonely day in freezing conditions up there, watching, always watching.

The watchtower is rather nicely balanced by the King Oskar II chapel on the Norwegian bank. When relationships were very chilly after WWII, it was proposed to moor a gunboat at the mouth of the river, but an inspired soldier suggested that a chapel would be a much more effective icon, and so it was. So it is.

Knitting continued of course throughout the trip.

Here is the complex Celtic crop cardi photographed by a frozen Finnish lake. By now everything is up to the armhole stage, and it will be necessary to put frightening numbers of stitches on to one long circular to work the raglan shaping up to the neck, while at the same time (don't you love that phrase, especially if you read it too late) continuing the cabling on each individual piece. Wish me luck.

I love this felted picture in its window frame, don't y0u? Saw it at Ivalo Airport.

And when we got back, to the green and gold of early summer in West Cork, of course yarns had to be dyed and hung to dry in the breeze.

These are the new laceweights. Can't seem to do justice to their rather nice colours, no matter how hard I try with the camera. Sugar Maple, Connemara Twilight, and Magical Forest.

And these are the semisolids in merino/tencel sockweight which I have christened the Goneril & Reagan yarns after that really rather gorgeous pattern by Liz Abinante. Designed for strong-minded women who like creating a sensation, not for your wilting lilies at all. Turquoise Temptress, Predatory In Pink, Venomous Violet, and Emerald Empress. Took an age to get those listed on eBay last night. Does your PC immediately go into a slowdown when you try to get things listed? Mine takes so long that I now keep some simple knitting next to the keyboard and work a few rows while waiting for the page to refresh.

Now I know what you're sighing. Too much, and after too long a break, you're complaining. You're right of course. I'm exhausted myself and I haven't shown you half the pictures I meant to. Look, I promise, yet again, to try harder. It would be easier on both of us after all if I posted a little and often. Maybe - no, not tomorrow. Maybe three days time? I will try. I'll put a reminder to myself on my cellphone right now. Want to tell you about a day in the Black Valley and the Gap of Dunloe.

Must tell you right now though - the sun is shining in West Cork! And it's a Bank Holiday weekend! This is nothing short of a major miracle. People are out and about, smiling, laughing, talking. Beaches are crowded. Shoulders are being bared. Never mind that the temperature, at about 24 deg, would be considered a chilly spring day in Texas. It's summer in Ireland - all three days of it!

Old Roads and New Life

2009-05-09T12:31:00.017+01:00

We were talking some time back - it was probably last year - about old roads and how powerful they can be. I was referring in particular then to the Gearagh, an ancient post-glacial alluvial forest, flooded by a hydro-electric scheme, and how its old pathways can sometimes reappear in dry periods.

That's only a mile or so away, but I realised rather tardily this morning, as I went down through the orchard to see how the fruit blossom was doing (chilly for May as yet, they need a watchful eye, although I've never tried that country remedy of lighting little brush fires on frosty nights to protect their delicate petals), that I have entirely omitted to let you into a rather nice secret. Some people claim to have fairies at the bottom of their garden - Celtic Memory has an old road. Yes, a genuine stretch of old boreen, running right along the boundary. You cross the lawns, go under the rose arch, through the long grass of the orchard, and down to the fence. It's shadowy there, under the overhanging trees, but peek down about a 6' drop and what do you see?

That wall once bordered the busy little highway to Macroom. Donkeys pulling cartloads of turf, black-cloaked women taking butter to the market, herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, all made their way on the old route. The new, wider road, more suitable for fast cars and big trucks, is about forty or fifty feet beyond. The trees have grown up, and you would never know this little stretch of the old road was here unless you happened to come down into my orchard and look over the fence. Which you are very welcome to do if you are passing. I like to think that at night, if you go and stand very quietly in the orchard, leaning on an apple tree (their magic is just as powerful as that of rowan, and that's why they're planted in so many old hedgerows and boundaries), you just might hear the soft tapping of a donkey's neat hooves or the trudging of a tired woman of the roads with her heavy basket. Surely old roads must retain memories of all they have seen, all those who have passed by?

We're pretty rich in this particular corner with highways of former days in fact - across the main road, there's a stretch of another one to be seen - the route that branched off from mine and headed out across a valley, now hidden beneath a lake.

You could walk along this for half a mile or so, but after that you would need a wet suit and breathing apparatus as there is a fairly deep stretch of water between you and Macroom. Denis Murphy's farm is up to the left, and his sheep often gather down here at night or on warm summer days, enjoying the peaceful shade. Nice to have so many vestiges of the older, slower world still there to be found, if you take the trouble to look for them.

The primroses and violets are blooming all along these old ways now, undisturbed by traffic.

Out on the lakeshore, the gorse is in full bloom, and if it's a warm sunshiny day, you can get that delicious coconut scent from its flowers. (Did try to make gorse wine once or twice, but since you have to add grape concentrate, raisins, and dozens of other rich encouragements, you do wonder what part the gorse blossoms play in the preparation at all, if any. Maybe it's just the thought that counts.) Tufts of wool caught on the thorny branches tempt you to gather pocketsful and take them home to spin. When I was learning that craft, a long time ago in England's West Country, I was told very severely that this hedgerow fleece was no good at all and should not even be gathered. If it hadn't been cut directly from the sheep, then it wasn't worth using. Well, I was in fairly penurious circumstances at the time and my Irish heritage wouldn't let me leave such generous offerings unheeded (I'll even pick up dry branches laid on the road in front of me by the wood spirits, and say 'Thank you' for good measure.) I gathered lots and lots of the tufts I found on the Devon moors and it was just fine for spinning. Made several Christmas gift scarves with it. Just goes to show you can't believe everything you're told by the experts.

If you're quiet enough on these rambles, and stay in the shadow of the trees, you might be lucky enough to spot some of the residents going about their business.

Mr. Tod on his way to the fast food outlet at the local chicken run (or possibly Mrs. Tod going shopping, although this chap looks too resplendent to be an exhausted mother in springtime).

A treecreeper bringing food to its own young family

and out on the lake, a proud mama little grebe taking her firstborn for a nice swim in the sun.

DH was very excited about the fox and went off for the afternoon in the car to a spot by a grassy bank where he could park and sit very quietly with the big lens positioned at the window. He figured that where there was one, there could be more, and probably, in May, some babies as well.

He said it was a long afternoon, as he waited, afraid even to move an inch or change position, but in the end it was worth it.

Two curious little fox cubs came out to regard the car gravely, wondering what this strange shiny monster might be.

It was a warm day, and after a while, the temptation to fall asleep was overwhelming, said DH. But that was all right, since everybody felt the same.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Celtic Memory was busy dyeing up some new yarns - both sockweight and a new blend, cashmere silk laceweight.

Left to right, we have merino/tencel in Apple Blossom, pure merino superwash in Bluebell Woods, and right down there in the shadows, cashmere/silk laceweight in Mermaid's Garden.

Dyeing them up and hanging them in the grove to dry doesn't take all that long - it's the listing on eBay that can take forever. Perhaps it's because we're right at the end of the possibility line for broadband here, and the connection isn't always as fast as it could be. These days, a project is always in hand so that a few rows can be put in while waiting for a page to refresh. Surprising how much you can get done that way. Next to me now as I type are a pair of tube socks (tube worked on the sock machine, tops, toes, and heels worked by hand) in bright red, plus the latest new excitement, the start of a cropped, heavily cabled little jacket top, with side and back slits, something after the style of Elsebeth Lavold's Ragna, in blue mousse merino.

Here you can see the first panel for the back, and the second in progress above it. They, and the panel for each front, will be joined after two pattern repeats to work to the armhole shaping and after that we'll see. Maybe an Elizabeth Zimmermann raglan decrease to bring the whole thing in to the neckline, including sleeves worked in the round up to the same point (might put a sleeve slit in too).

That mousse is quadrupled to bring it up to chunky weight - not in the mood for millions of stitches right now, want quick gratification.

Which way of thinking is of course because we've just finished Round Four of Sock Madness

Lucky Diamond, designed for Round 4 of Sock Madness by Melissa Goodale.

and although the design was delightful and the result very happy indeed, these fingers don't want to see tiny stitches and endless rounds for another while. Not in fierce competition anyway (you wouldn't believe how fast some of these speedsters knit, especially the Norwegians!)

UK Ravelry Day is on June 6 in Coventry and you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to arrange a quick there-and-back-in-a-day, which is the method of travel most favoured by Celtic Memory. To put it succintly, you can't. Having explored all the options, including camel train to Ulan Bator, onward donkey to Ladakh, flight to Gander and connecting flight to the Outer Hebrides, finally accepted the inevitable and made a long weekend of it. Still, people like Northernlace are genuinely making major multiple-stop trips to get there (Kirkwall to Inverness and onward, anyone?) so CM can hardly complain at having to use Aer Lingus, get in on Friday afternoon, and not leave until Sunday afternoon, since our national airline clearly doesn't believe anybody needs to travel to Birmingham on a Saturday. Added to which, they have the lowest weight allowance for cabin baggage of any short-haul airline I know (half that of Ryanair), which further adds to the load of Celtic grievance. Large raincoats with tons of poachers' pockets are clearly indicated, to assist the carefully-measured, regulation size rucksack, and never mind that it will be June.

Cold enough for May right now, though. The flowers are emerging, as are the young leaves, since they really can't leave it any longer, but they haven't got that vigorous spring in their step that we find when it's muggy warm and damp as it usually should be at this time of year. The clematis is spectacular though, and one particularly energetic plant in the back garden gives me joy every time I look at it. I had fully intended to trim this very tall tree in the hedge last winter but didn't get round to it (knitting or something), and when I saw how the clematis had used it, I was very glad I hadn't.

Can you see how it's climbed right up and thrown its sprays around the very top of the tree? Do you know what it reminds me of? That famous portrait of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sissi) with diamonds in her hair. Let me see if I can find an image.

Yes, here's one. Well, I can see the comparison anyway. Always wanted a climber to create that effect on a dark tree, and now the clematis has done it for me. Thank you, clematis!

The lily of the valley, with their seductive scent, are blooming too, recalling memories of First Communions and confirmations when our veils were garlanded with the little perfumed bells. Picked a little bunch to keep on the desktop, to remind me that this is Maytime.

I hope the flowers are blooming for you too. Or if you are still shivering in winter, that they are nevertheless there, just underneath the ground, waiting to gladden your heart when warmer weather returns.

Oh To Be In England When The Yarn Is There...

2009-04-28T07:28:00.018+01:00

Took a quick dash last week, across to the UK. All this activity with the sock machine and, more recently, nervous essays in the operation of a battered old Brother flatbed machine, meant that MORE CONED YARN was needed. And the one place well known to Celtic Memory as having all kinds of wonderful one-offs and strange finds is Uppingham Yarns, tucked away in Rutland, England's tiniest county. I used to live in Rutland and visited this treasure trove often - in fact it probably provided the baseline for the Celtic Memory stash which now requires an entire basement room of its own and is starting to murmur about really needing an independent yarny house in the grounds with not only a basement but an attic and big windows and - sorry, where was I? Oh yes, Uppingham Yarns.

Rutland, although tiny, is a very old region and thus well placed on the Great North Road, the ancient route from London to Scotland (or Scotland to London if you prefer). Some may refer to it rather prosaically as the A1 but to me it's always the romantic Great North Road. It's quite possible to nip into Stansted airport on the early morning flight from Cork, grab a rental car, and be in Uppingham by eleven in the morning.

Now Uppingham Yarns is not one of your predictable little LYSs. It does have some ball banded yarns, true, but not many. Its huge attraction is in its vast range of coned goodies, stacked high on tall shelving units in numbers of rooms. Aladdin's Cave has nothing on this place!

Heaven bless the Traylen family who opened their business back in 1980 to provide ex-industrial supplies for home knitters, whether hand or machine. That's Nick there, explaining the difference between two gauges of cashmere (be still my beating heart). You might well have met Nick at various Woolfests or Ally Pally knit days, but his stand at those events, delightful though it may be, isn't a patch on the home ground.

This is the Shetland room - all of those lovely shades are the repeatable ones, I think, but round the sides and down at the back, you find smaller cones, discontinued colours, one-offs - you know, the kind that is even more fun to track down than the always-available sort.

Every room has more treasures, aisles to be explored carefully and painstakingly, not a corner left searched. You simply never know what you're going to find.

It's hard not to get carried away in the fancy section, where the most incredible Italian ribbons and glitters and eyelashes are piled in profusion. You get new ideas for designer combinations on every shelf.

This room is devoted to cotton. And silk. And silk tops for spinning. And some hemp. And more. Small wonder that after five minutes in the building I suggested kindly to DH that he might prefer to wander around the picturesque little town and take pictures while I totally lost myself. Being an understanding soul he did - so the images you see here were all taken fairly early on in the visit, and then he left me to get gently hysterical in peace.

Not before we made a couple of nice discoveries though -

I just don't remember these from my last visit, so maybe Nick Traylen has only just put them on display. My mother had just such an old high-standing heavy iron flatbed machine as this. I still have one of the sweaters she made me on it.

And look at this lovely thing! A sock machine with lots of shiny brass, and its own useful iron table with handy inset containers for needles and hooks and things.

But this one I'd never come across before. A circular knitting machine, but a tiny one. It has only about six needle slots. It has to be a cord maker, right? Fascinating. Love it!

Had a most enjoyable couple of hours, going around each room, going back again, starting in the opposite direction, taking turns around shelves from unexpected angles, scouring dark corners - you know how much fun it can be. And got some pretty nice loot to play with over the next while (thank heaven DH had a spacious rucksack with him as well). Always nice to revisit Uppingham Yarns and come away with treasure.

In the meantime of course, DH had been wandering happily around the town of Uppingham, which is gloriously photogenic with that unique character which rural England does so well -

The main street was basking in the warm sunshine (warm sunshine! It was pouring with rain and chilly to boot when we left Cork!) and you could hear the echo of peaceful footsteps as people went about their shopping.

The churchyard of Ss Peter & Paul was looking impossibly picturesque

- and the wallflowers were blooming on old moss-covered roofs and walls. A lovely place. I do like Uppingham and indeed all of Rutland. Multum in Parvo is the county motto, much in little.

Rutland, you may or may not know, lost its independence back in the 1970s, despite public outcry, and was hauled into neighbouring Leicestershire. The local people, however, never accepted this (a bit like Iowa taking over Nebraska maybe, or Massachusetts airily grabbing Maine) and fought constantly to get back their independent status. It is a source of gentle pride to me that I was part of that campaign, and was there in the House of Lords on the night that Rutland regained county status, in the 1990s. Good on you, Rutland! Always remember you with deep affection even though I'm back on my own native soil now.

By the way, this day trip took place during Round Three of Sock Madness, so, although you haven't seen much evidence of them, the socks were very much part of the day's activity, being worked on during the flight, in cafes, in the car when DH was driving, and even back at the airport.

A particularly lovely design this time, created by YarnYenta and called Talia's Wings.

And here's the finished pair (why does it always seem to be late at night when socks are finally done, and one has to try to photograph them under artificial light?) Very entertaining pattern to knit, and it introduced me to the sewn bind-off (they were worked toe-up, forgot to mention), which is an exceptionally useful technique, giving a stretchy attractive top to the cuff. I've already used the method on several other things, to implant it firmly in the Celtic Memory mind.

Now before Round Four of Sock Madness starts, some dyeing up has got to be done here in West Cork. No use waiting for fine weather, they'll have to hang in the greenhouse to dry. Sock yarns of course, in lovely shades of apple blossom and bluebell and all the other flowers coming out at this time of year, but also some laceweights, since so many have been asking for them. No time to lose!

Muffy the Yarnslayer Enters Sock Madness Contest!

2009-04-12T21:42:00.022+01:00

Yes, it's true. Abandon hope all ye who hitherto thought you had a chance - Muffy has entered the arena.

Said she'd had enough and more of all this fuss and was going to show us all how it should be done. Collected a few balls of yarn, unearthed two rather vicious-looking six inch nails from her store, and dragged the lot under her cupboard. She's been clicking away busily in there ever since. Can't wait to see the results. I did point out she would have to make a set of four and she looked at me like I was daft.

Well of course you have to have four socks. How many paws does anybody have, for heaven's sake? I mean, what eegit would make - say two for example? G'wan away and don't be annoying me!

She did have some justification for her sudden decision to become a late entrant for Sock Madness (don't worry, moderators, she's created her own sub-division, called, with blinding simplicity, just Muffy, so she won't be throwing anybody else out of the running) since the one who feeds her and generally looks after her welfare has been noticeably distracted this last week or so, since the second round of the aforesaid Madness started.

The pattern for Round Two was due out on Saturday of last week, on or after 1 pm Irish time. But Celtic Memory was not at home. Nope, she was travelling with DH and was, at the appointed hour, somewhere north of Dublin on an attractive estuary where himself was photographing redshanks feeding.

It was fascinating to see how quickly the gulls had learned how to avoid finding their own food; they simply marked down a redshank, and as soon as that unfortunate creature had snaffled a juicy worm, they would descend and bully it until it reluctantly yielded its prey. Kind of reminds you of some human behaviour, doesn't it?

My mind was only half on the bird activity though, as the clock approached the fateful time. When would I hear that the pattern had been issued? The signal that would mean I had to dash for the nearest Internet access? (No, they tend not to have good websites right by the water on a muddy track, bit of an oversight really, I agree.) An hour passed peacefully. DH clicked away. I worked ferociously on a pair of Jeanie Townsend's Cathedral Socks to keep my mind from fretting. What kind of pattern will it be? Can I manage it? How long will it take? Are there others much faster than me? Why do I do this? And so on.

Then it happened. The bleep of a text arriving, followed almost instantaneously by a phone call. Bless the kinship of knitters. Chris texted to say the pattern was HERE and Rosemary in Somerset actually rang, to make sure I knew. Aren't friends great?

Overriding DH's protestations (he'd spend all day like that if he could, honestly, would we knitters spend all day on something? OK, forget I said that) I got the car turned and dashed for Malahide, a little seaside town. Big hotel on outskirts looked promising, and so it proved. Sitting in the car park gave enough of a signal on their wifi to download the pattern. Really, the things we do for knitting.

Work started immediately and didn't stop for the rest of the day. Continued while DH and a bundle (a flock? A gaggle? A gathering?) of birdwatchers watched short-eared owls at dusk -

- and even when one owl swooped low enough for me to glance up and see it in between frantic rounds of ribbing.

These are beautiful birds and not at all common in Ireland which is why we came to be up in that neck of the woods on that fine Saturday.

I think this owl was rather impressed with my knitting actually. He even made a second pass to get a closer look at the colourwork.

Oo, is that stranded knitting? Lookin' good!

Knitted late into the night in the hotel, knitted in the pre-dawn light (a mistake that, meant several rows needing to be tinked back). Even knitted all the way home (don't recommend following a chart on a bumpy twisting road for more than three hours, really don't).

But we took a break on the way, to visit Warren at Craftspun Yarns in Johnstown.

He's only just moved to this new shop in the town and was still getting the stock in order.

But it's a glorious place, already almost full of the most divine yarns, and big ultra-soft cushiony balls of roving too, of several different types. (Yes, yes, he does ship, check his website.)

If I hadn't already bought tons from him, I'd have snaffled even more of these irresistible fibre goodies. But I did come away with a cone of divinely soft Aran weight Blue Faced Leicester yarn. Well, it'll always come in handy, won't it?

It took a good two and a half days to finish those socks, a beautiful two colour pattern designed by Tricia Weatherston, and called Tokena, the Maori word for sock. It's ages since Celtic Memory has done any colourwork and on size 2mm needles it can be a bit hard on the hand muscles. In fact the thumb joint is still aching. But it was worth it. It's no harm to push your abilities now and again, and the result was pretty satisfying.

Of course the usual thing happened: having completed the socks in fairly quick time, found it impossible to stop knitting the darn things. And this is where Celtic Memory has been having a great deal of fun. A LOT of fun.

You remember that lovely old sock knitting machine I inherited? Well, thanks to the assistance of several helpful friends on Ravelry, it is now working fairly well (no you can't do complex colourwork on it unfortunately, believe me I thought of it!) so the time seemed right for a little bit of experimentation. You see, although I can now crank out tubes of knitting with the best of 'em, I haven't quite mastered turning heels and shaping toes yet. So lots and lots of practice tubes.

Until - like Paul on the road to Damascus, a blinding light hit me. Why not turn these tubes into socks with the addition of some hand knitting? Simple? Undoubtedly. Somebody thought of that already? Probably. But I genuinely thought of it by myself and that's always the best way.

Drum roll please. Remember Celtic Memory decrying cutting, steeking, any form of disfigurement of a piece of knitting? Well -

Here is a tube of beautifully soft merino knit being deliberately cut! Actually it only needed one tiny snip of one stitch and then some careful unpicking. But it was a first, a definite first, and nearly gave me a heart attack. That divided the tube into two. Then picked up stitches at one end on each piece (a 2.5mm needle was just right to match the machine stitches) and knitted the toes.

Then came the heel. Another terrifying, deliberate, counter-to-all-previous-learning snip.

Thank heaven for the training received in last year's Sock Madness. I knew how to do an afterthought heel. Hadn't ever tried it from raw stitches before, but it worked. IT WORKED!

Knitting the tube, about ten minutes. Finishing heels and toes, one evening. A bit of dip-dyeing and drying.

Ta-DAH!

HowZAT?

OK, so they're plain, no patterning, cabling, lace or other decorative stitchwork there. But they were so much fun to make. And already there are ideas forming for stripy heels and toes, colourwork cuffs at the top, so many other options. You just do all that long boring bit first, and then have fun with the decorative bits.

I'll probably be drummed out of the Sock Machine group for doing it this way round, and similarly from all the handknitting sock groups, but it's such a satisfying combination of hand and machine that I'm mad about it. And I've tried cutting a single stitch and it doesn't make everything fall apart! Isn't life full of fun surprises?

Made some new friends at the weekend: Linda and her family were over from Montana to explore West Cork and Kerry, so we met up in Killarney and went down to Kerry Woollen Mills. We saw all that lovely traditional bainin yarn, and also some delectable Jacob wool fingering weight.

Here is Andrew Eadie showing Linda a new design he's rather pleased with, a beautifully soft felted knit jacket.

And here is Linda, wearing one new jacket, carrying another, with husband Bruce and daughter Kimberley, ready to head off to Killorglin for more adventures. And she brought me a skein of Mountain Colors from Montana too, bless her! Hope the rest of the trip goes really well for you Linda, and that the weather holds out.

That same weather has been a bit mixum-gatherum here for the past few weeks. Went out one day about a fortnight ago to explore some lesser-known tracks over the mountains above Inchigeelagh.

It was dank and drizzly and not at all pleasant. Just look at that mountain road winding ahead for miles. It puts you in mind of Bilbo Baggins bumping along on his pony and wishing with all his heart he was safe at home with the kettle just beginning to boil.

Yet a week later, the lambs were gambolling in the fields -

the wild plants were already flowering -

- and even on the driveway at home, a determined little clump of violets had pushed their way up through the tarmac.

If you celebrate Easter, then a joyous Eastertide to you. If you celebrate other festivals, then happiness to you this springtime.

Of March Parades, Sock Madness, And Lost Villages

2009-03-26T10:46:00.020Z

It's been a busy time. Was committed to two parades on St. Patrick's Day so a blustering bright morning found me setting up the trailer at Ballinagree, aided by a helpful piper.

It was the Kromski's first ever public appearance but it took to the open air and the birdsong and the general attention very calmly indeed. And, after adjusting to the stops and starts and bumps, I found it was quite possible to spin the Corriedale as we chugged into the village.

Yes, it's a small place, Ballinagree, but every single man, woman and child that wasn't in the parade turned out to cheer it on. Here we are outside the pub. I'm at the back, sitting on the old wooden settle with Eileen who's crocheting; in the middle are Deirdre with her Ashford Traveller, and Kathy knitting an endless scarf, while in front, standing up, is Sue demonstrating the drop spindle. People really did seem fascinated by it all, and I have lively hopes of resurrecting a once proud Irish tradition, pushed into the background by too-swift progress.

Hey all those of you down there in New Zealand who remember Deirdre with affection, here she is, getting in the warming coffee in the pub after the parade! She's getting married next month is Deirdre, and of course doing all the preparations herself from wedding dress to bridesmaids, so she's got quite enough on her plate, but she turned out for the parade like the good committed spinner that she is.

It was lively outside the pub too. We even had a harpist rattling out the tunes along with the fiddles and squeeze boxes and bodhrans. Real genuine traditional village entertainment, not created by PR companies or TV stations at all.

Nora Casey from the Alpaca Stud decided in the end that it would be enough to lead just one young lad on the day, and it's as well she did, since Vinnie, although he started out well enough, decided he'd have a rest right in the midst of the whole thing, and nothing could move him.

People shouted helpful advice, Nora tugged and pulled, the parade marshals couldn't quite keep their laughter under control, but Vinnie wasn't going anywhere.

Go away and leave me be. Moidering and messing me about. I'll walk in no more parades this day and that's the truth of it.

Eventually Pat stopped his tractor and came down to lend a hand. They lifted Vinnie into the trailer with all his pals, which is what he'd intended in the first place, and he rode in style to Macroom for the second parade.

Here we are waiting for the off in Macroom. We were really lucky with the weather - normally St. Patrick's Day is an excuse for a real downpour (not that the Irish climate really needs an excuse, it does it anyway).

Here are the Woodland String Band from Philadelphia, bringing a touch of American glitz and professionalism to the streets of Macroom town.

It was a grand day.

Two days later, it was Sock Madness 3 - or Sock Madness Forever as it's now called - and there wasn't time to think, let alone post.

The pattern came down at about midday West Cork time and by evening I was able to post a progress pic.

I put them on this Drunkard's Path pillow because the lovely pattern by Ronni (Raspberry on Ravelry) was based on that quilting design. The yarn is one of my own self-striping experiments - didn't turn out quite as intended (do they ever?) but liked it a lot all the same.

On course to finish within my two day record.

Only... the next morning dawned bright and beautiful and DH wouldn't hear of the day being spent indoors knitting. Off to West Cork with us, to gather even more material and pictures for The Book. OK, I could live with that. What did an extra day matter? The socks could come too.

Here they're being worked on Sheep's Head, on an absolutely deserted small boreen winding high above Bantry Bay. Nobody in sight or hearing, even though 'twas a Saturday (well Sophy Wackles was there, but she's being kept out of the picture for the moment).

Oh all right, here she is with some spring narcissi. Can you see the thread of sock yarn in her topknot?

And here is one of the socks, among some early wild violets (know what to call the colourway now, don't I?)

We had a good day, wandering on the lesser-frequented byways and looking for hidden beautiful places.

Like this green lane wandering up to a farmhouse on Three Castle Head -

- and this ruined village beyond Lissagriffin. You'll have to look closely to see the little stone houses blending into the landscape, with the gorse and the bracken and the ivy gradually taking them over, but the more you look, the more of them you'll see. Echoes of the past is the phrase that always comes into my mind when I see a place like this. Those tiny fields, the little houses that once held whole families, the lanes where children ran and men drove cattle - all now silent under the sun and the wind from the sea.

Oh the socks did get done, in only a little over the two days, so there is time to relax and rest the hands before the next round.

They really are divinely comfortable (now that the stitch marker left inside by accident has been located and gently removed) and I'm very happy with them. But of course it's impossible actually to stop knitting the darn things now. Found a pair of Jeanie Townsend's Cathedral Socks that I'd been working on (before Christmas for heaven's sake), and worked out where I was in the pattern (not always an easy task). They'll keep me going until Round 2. The hand resting can wait.

How Many Alpacas Can You Fit In A West Cork Car?

2009-03-12T19:02:00.018Z

St. Patrick's Day approaches and Celtic Memory is headed for the Big Time. Been asked to demonstrate the ancient art of spinning on a float at not just one but two parades! Forget New York, forget Sydney, forget all the big boys, THIS is where it's going to be AT on Tuesday next, March 17.

Or rather THESE. Of course Macroom is one of them. Could hardly be otherwise, given that it's my local town. You might remember I took you to it last year, via a blog posting, and observed that although the parade might be small, somewhat unsophisticated, it was still a lovely heartwarming event. Well compared to the other parade, Macroom is pretty well up there in the New York category. Think tiny. Yes, a busy day for your local correspondent will start at noon in Ballinagree - the same village which hosts a spinning class in the local school every Wednesday night.

Ballinagree isn't exactly huge. You could probably seat the entire population, man, woman, and child, in a New York Starbucks and not consider the place overcrowded. But what it lacks in numerical force, it more than makes up for in heart and enthusiasm. Farmers are dusting down vintage tractors to drive proudly in the parade, housewives are baking pies and cakes for the refreshments afterwards. Children are finishing their costumes and decorating the floats.

Celtic Memory will be on one trailer, along with Deirdre (Deedledum on Ravelry), lately back from New Zealand, both of us demonstrating spinning skills on our wheels. I think I'll bring the Kromski. Nice outing for it. It can get to know other wheels. Also on board will be other members of the group, with knitting, crochet, and possibly drop spindles.

Once the Ballinagree parade has finished, and everybody has partaken generously of hot strong tea and cuts of apple cake, we pack into our various vehicles and hurry down to find parking on the outskirts of Macroom, there to repeat the exercise. They have common sense in West Cork, you see, and realised many years ago that if parade times were staggered, they would all get bigger crowds and also be able to share some of the good items (bagpipers, bands, etc. are in great demand on March 17 you understand).

It wasn't my idea to be in the parade(s) instead of enjoying the role of relaxed bystander, but the inspiration of the lady behind the Ballinagree Spinners, Nora Casey. Nora and her husband Pat run an alpaca herd (or stud, they can't agree which it should be called, one says one thing and the other says the other, so I'll put them both in for safety), and for the past few years have displayed their charming charges in both parades. This year, thought Nora, it was high time to link alpaca to finished product - hence the spinning and knitting. We'll be on one float, the alpacas on the other.

I was able to offer the contribution of a little advance publicity though, and to that end went up to their farm with DH, to get some pictures.

Here is Pat (and totally wicked and unreliable Recky the Corgi in the background) putting out some treats for the herd.

- and here is Proud Mother Of One letting King Stud know in no uncertain terms that she isn't interested today, thank you very much.

They have the most adorable faces and manners, these adopted West Corkonians, and a charming bleat, while their huge eyes, and those eyelashes -

I am rather pretty, aren't I?

We had to capture Proud Mother's offspring and take him up to a nearby stable. This was not so as to upset everybody, but to give some company to another baby alpaca who was feeling somewhat poorly and was being housed in a cosy stall with lots of nice warm straw. Alpacas are very gregarious and absolutely hate being on their own, so Pat was anxious to get Ginger up to join Snowball.

It took some doing, but we finally managed to secure the woolly little bundle, and persuade him to take a nice drive.

You just never know who you're going to find in the passenger seat of a West Cork car, do you?

Nora is confident that she will be able to lead Ginger in the parade, between the two floats. Myself, my money is on Ginger. Hope he has a global positioning device to get him home to Ballinagree when he makes a break for it.

Now to knitting matters. I got a wonderful bundle a little while ago from my friend Ana (Shenevski on Ravelry) in Bulgaria. As well as some genuine homespun yarn, acquired by her mother from an old lady in the Rhodope Mountains, she sent me two pairs of exquisite traditional slippers, along with some Martenetsi (little red and white tokens exchanged in Bulgaria on March 1 - these were the little objects I found tied to trees when I was there - that's what you do with them when March is over - lovely ancient tradition), and HOOKED NEEDLES!

Here is a pair of the slippers. Can you see that wonderful plaited detail on the back of the heel? And the glorious embroidery on the front?

I'd love to use these hooked needles for Sock Madness, now inexorably approaching (am I mad, didn't I say last year never again? And the year before? Where is your strength of character, Celtic Memory?), but am a little worried that they would take rather longer than the circular to which I am accustomed. Maybe it would be safer to try them out when the mayhem is over. Ana, they are beautiful. Thank you so much.

(An interesting footnote: I asked Ana if these came in other gauges and she said no, there is only one size for knitting socks. Isn't that refreshing? Instead of agonising over 2.25 vs 2.5mm, bamboo or aluminium, Addi or Hiya Hiya, it's a simple case of: you want to knit socks, you buy these needles. I like that very much.)

We've been having wildly changeable weather here over the past few days. The other afternoon, I looked out the window to find a blizzard in progress. The snow wasn't sticking of course - it rarely does in this part of the world - but still, snow in March?

Here are Patrick's cows snatching a mouthful of hay down in the field. Yes, it was taken through the closed window. No, I was not going to open the window. Not in that wind and snow.

Yet half an hour later, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the primroses were out in the orchard.

The plum blossom had somehow survived the battering -

- and even the leggy little narcissi were still upright. Guess they're tougher than they look.

Oh speaking of Patrick and his cows, we had such a drama this morning! DH looked out the window just after sunrise and saw a tiny calf lying in a heap in the middle of the field, with some crows advancing menacingly on it. Over at the other side by the ditch was another tiny calf, this time with several cows regarding it curiously. He immediately rang Patrick and within a few minutes our neighbour was out there with a tractor. He lifted both little creatures into the cab and headed off again. We didn't want to ring him, in case they hadn't survived, and he'd have enough to do coping with that without us aggravating it, but he telephoned us just a while ago to say that both were doing fine, having had a big feed and been tucked up in a warm straw bed. Apparently they were twins, from one cow, who had, as Patrick put it, 'got a bit irrational' after calving and decided she didn't want either of them. Gosh, I was glad DH had looked out at just the right moment!

Yarns have been dyed -

(you wouldn't believe the dodging between rain showers and clouds it took to get this sunshiny picture)

- and for those who were worried, I can confirm that Start-itis is alive and well and flourishing in West Cork. These are in Panda Silk, which will be nice and cool for the summer - I think the pattern is Diagonal Eyelet Rib or somesuch, but I can't find the original pattern anywhere - worked it from memory.

And this bids fair to become a rather nice slanted-edge wrap or stole, in turquoise mohair from Just One More Row. Hadn't intended to cast on for this at all - the original idea was to join in on Ruth's KAL for her utterly lovely Mitred Scarf which she has generously made available on her blog. However, I knew I was going to be out for the day and seized this mohair and the right circular, to get going on the aforesaid mitring. Cast on, worked the first module and then realised that of course it would never - could never - succeed. Ruth had naturally advised using sock yarn, to show off the shaping and detail. So why did Celtic Memory think that mohair would do just as well? Honestly, I shouldn't be allowed out!

However, there I was with a full day ahead of me and no way of getting home to change yarns and needle, so decided to make the best of it and create a design of my own. Casting on 4, working 4 rows, casting on another 4, and so on, makes for a very nice stepped edging, which you can stop when you get to the width you want. I'm working this in k4 p4 rib, although you'd hardly know it with the scrumbling effect of the mohair, but it does give a gently pleated effect.

Ruth's lovely scarf is a treat for another day. Yes, with the right yarn, stop rubbing salt in the wound, will you?

Dawn Brocco nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger award just recently. I was thrilled and honoured. Dawn's amazing designs for float-alone cables have always entranced me. Gosh, I must go work up one of her scarves right this minute!

I'm here, I'm here!

2009-03-01T14:52:00.009Z

Just snowed under with work - and, it must be admitted, the occasional knitting project. The trouble with Ravelry (as has been said before and doubtless will again) is that unless controlled with an iron hand and unshakeable willpower, it expands to absorb every free moment (of which there are few enough at the moment).

In this case, Charity invited me to join a KAL for vests on Ravelry - Vest-uary. The idea was that you cheered up the month of February by knitting a jolly vest which was (and still is, indeed, not just in February, wouldn't you agree?) an excellent notion.

I made this Ersatz Adam's Vest, so called because at the time all I had to go on was a line drawing in an old issue of Knitter's. Used a warm merino boucle-d with a fine nylon binder, doubled, and it is so light and snug I may just wear it for the rest of the year. You never can tell in the Irish climate. Integrating the pockets into the points was fun.

The Shenevski Vest (after the beautiful design by my Bulgarian friend Ana whom you can find on Ravelry if you're there, as you should be) isn't done yet. I joined in a new ball at the armhole shaping only to perceive after much decreasing and simultaneous cabling, that something wasn't quite right. By daylight it was obvious that the yarn had changed quality and texture - the bag of Royal Cashmere had contained two rogue invaders of cashmere/silk. Very alike by artificial light, more obvious in the morning. Fortunately there's enough of the originally intended yarn to complete the project. After the laborious tinking back and picking up.

Sock Madness 3 is almost upon us too, which has necessitated much discussion on Ravelry. and then, as if preparing for that were not enough, DragonYady started a KAL for an exquisite mitred scarf of Ruth's design - the pattern's free over on her blog, go look. I mean, could you pass up something like that?

Apart from the day job and the knitting and dyeing and so on (thank heaven the gardening season hasn't started yet), DH and I are working flat out on the new book which has to be at least in rough draft form by the end of this month. As far as I'm concerned, it's his pictures that will make it, not my words, so I'm trying to match text to images.

Where do you choose, though? He has so many of this rather special place called West Cork.

This is one of my favourites - the Gearagh close to our home, the old arched bridge echoing the past when a train ran through the as-yet unflooded valley. We walk along that old road often.

I love this aerial shot of Castletownbere and Bere Island too.

- and Bantry Bay.

Deciding what to leave out will be as hard as writing text that will be a match for the ones chosen.

Don't think I can sneak Muffy The Yarnslayer into the book which is a shame. You may not know it but she was recently given an 'Ugh' award on a Ravelry group for that famous picture with the Eriskay cashmere, an honour she accepted with her customary glower.

You don't know how many tangled balls of cashmere I've got stored away in here for emergencies...

Must go write. March marches ever on.

It's Springtime!

2009-02-01T17:24:00.012Z

Can't exactly see the lengthening of the days yet, although I've been watching keenly since the Solstice. Soon, I know, it will be impossible to sleep beyond six in the morning, what with the bright skies and the carolling birds, but right now it's difficult to dig oneself out of the duvet much before eight, which is when a grudgingly paling sky indicates that the sun might just, might just condescend to climb up over the horizon in half an hour or so

But it's February 1 and the first little yellow crocus is showing bravely by the driveway. Mind you, it's likely to be blasted brutally for its promptness by the icy winds currently powering in from Mother Russia, but it is lovely to see anyway.

We celebrate Imbolc around now (today or tomorrow depending on your mood), also known as Candlemas. It's the Celtic festival of spring, marking the birth of new lambs, the consequent renewed supply of good sustaining milk, and the first shoots of brilliant green promising food for all in the months ahead. It's the month of the goddess Brigit (male-dominated Christianity couldn't obliterate her, so they changed her into the meeker St. Brigid, but the Irish went on venerating her just the same as they had always done). On Brigit's day, you are not supposed to spin or weave or do anything that involves twisting fibre. Probably means no knitting either. But you do display Brigit's Cross, made of green rushes, and if you are far-thinking, you put out a piece of cloth on Brigit's Eve and bring it in next morning, when it will have received great healing powers and will be known throughout the year as Brigit's Cloak.

Celtic Memory spent the morning finishing up the new Magic Skein, called of course Brigit. Each time I make one of these I vow 'never again' but then another lovely festival comes up on the calendar and the colours call, and the yarn beckons, and it's another session of complete chaos in the upstairs sitting room with cones and balls and tangles everywhere, the scissors disappearing with irritating regularity, and the dogs wailing mournfully outside (can't understand why Maman is shutting herself away and shrieking, 'What goes with this? No, that one won't do! This one? Nope. Ah - that looks better...)

Here is Brigit in the grove. Can't do much about the grey day, but the yarn skein is a good emblem of the growth to come, I think.

There must be eighteen or twenty different combinations in this one 285 yd skein, and each combination has up to four strands of different yarns. Tidying up the sitting room has been conveniently forgotten for the moment. Listed it on eBay this afternoon (Item ID 170299134144 if you're looking for it).

I've had several emails requesting more pictures of the traditional craftwork discovered in Bulgaria, so uploaded some more of DH's images for your delectation. Yes, the last post was only yesterday, but it was so exhausting that another one was essential, otherwise Celtic Memory might get a hang-up about it and never post again. Like getting back on a horse after being thrown.

Here are some of those lovely hand-cranked sewing machines that I had to leave behind, all with unfamiliar names to me (one suspects that Singer really made them all, and the local man simply slapped on his gold transfer, what do you think?) As a reminder of who's boss, there is a big Singer table-mounted machine looming dimly up at the back.

Gosh, just looking at those makes me want to grab a truck and drive right back across Europe.

Here's a beautiful felted jacket, with a traditional overdress hanging behind it. This was in the cafe at Narechenski Bani. And no, it wasn't for sale.

Nor was this roughly-woven shepherd's cloak in homespun, with its matching well-worn cap in what looked like raw sheepskin.

And look at these lovely knitted slippers or shoe liners. I put my hand into one, to round it out, and placed the other so you could see the shaping of the heel.

I know they're shoe liners because when we met those lovely knitting ladies up in the mountains, I noticed they all had them inside their rough outdoor footwear.

The lady in the foreground had warm thermals under her dress (you can be sure Celtic Memory had the same under her serviceable travel trousers in that icy climate), as well as the knitted slippers over socks or stockings. The lady on the right of the picture was resting her foot outside her shoe, and kindly agreed to let DH capture that for the record too.

Isn't that a nice design? The cuff looks like it might be crocheted (thanks Ana for the comment on my last posting, telling me about the way those hooked needles are used - isn't the Internet amazing?)

And to think I thought those trendy new winter liners for Crocs were an ingenious modern invention! Nothing new under the sun...

By the way, thought you might like to see these lovely Bulgarian knitters at closer quarters.

I'd like to meet them again. More than anything, I wish I had fluent Bulgarian so I could talk to them about their lives, what they'd seen, the crafts they and their menfolk still practised, everything. It gets so frustrating when you can't really exchange thoughts, doesn't it? Ana, maybe you'd go talk to them for me - no, for all of us?

I'll finish with what is probably my favourite picture of the whole trip.

This was in the village of Yugovo and was one of those instantaneous, 'get-it-now-or-lose-it' shots that DH grabbed through the windscreen. The lady in the traditional blue and red had found some spilled hay on the roadside and was scraping it together with her stick so that her clearly cherished cow could enjoy an unexpected luxury. A moment later they had trudged off together down a muddy track to her little house where I just know the cow had a comfortable warm stall close to the kitchen.

Looking at it makes me think that maybe we all need to get back to the basics a little more. Remind ourselves of what's really important.

Of Fibre Hunts And Knitting Discoveries in the Rhodope Mountains

2009-01-31T08:33:00.037Z

It might seem a little daft to head for the snow when you're trying to recover from the flu, but the big advantage of Bulgaria was that there was a direct charter flight from Cork. And there were two seats left. And it left the next day. And it was unbelievably cheap. To get all four factors together is not a common occurrence here so we organised boot camp for the dogs and packed the woolly sweaters.

Pamporovo, high up in the Rhodope Mountains of southern Bulgaria, exists for skiing and there isn't a lot more going on - it's not Davos nor yet St. Anton. However, it is considerably less demanding on your pocket than either of those august places, and the snow is beautiful - dry and powdery.

Travelling on the ski lift is always lovely: you're alone in this white silent world with all that blare and noise and loud jolly music and kerfuffle magically removed, drifting peacefully, high above the ground, on eye level with squirrels and crossbills. Unimaginably cold of course, but it's worth it for the peace.

Ceci n'est pas un snowman. It's a snowwoman. The genius loci if you like, the spirit of this silent space in the pine forest. The urge to create her, like a Greenwitch or other powerful symbol, was too strong to resist. Dry powdery snow is surprisingly difficult to shape into a snowwoman, but it was managed at last, and the current sock put into her hands to link West Cork and the Rhodopes. She was still standing there as we left, a small figure in the drifting snow but strangely powerful. She might still be there. I'm glad I played a part in her making. It felt like I was carrying on some unknown but instinctive tradition.

After that long time outdoors, restoratives were called for, and fortunately The Eagle's Nest wasn't far away.

The cheery landlord was quite pleased to hold the sock, and even checked out the circular cable with interest - clearly he'd seen his granny, if not his mother, knitting socks before. I suggested I should make a pair for him and he said carefully, 'Yes, but I am size 48 European', whereupon I dropped the idea.

If you can't discern all of the legend on that T-shirt by the way, it says, 'If U Can Read This, You Clearly Need Another Beer.' Me, I was drinking hot spiced wine. Good for the throat, y'know.

The view from the window at dawn each morning was heartstopping. But apart from that, and the skiing, there was very little going on in Pamporovo so we hired a car and headed off into the snowy side roads, deep into the mountains which border Greece and Turkey, to see what we could find.

Life doesn't look to have changed much in these mountain villages over the past century. Firewood is stacked everywhere, underneath houses, alongside, in neat piles on the streets. At the time we were there, Bulgaria was suffering the effects of a cut-off in gas supplies from Russia, but up here wood still clearly rules.

Hay for the animals is cherished too. There is a cat ensconced comfortably in this pile - if you look closely, you might be able to see a little white face on the left of the heap.

- and here is a haystack, carefully gathered on a steep hillside, and not yet brought into the village to feed the cattle.

Every back road we travelled (sometimes having to take it fairly carefully in the heavy snow and ice), we discovered more remote villages, looking beautiful under their white covering.

When we found this frail footbridge spanning an almost-frozen river, it had to be crossed, however dodgy the exercise. This was by way of a tribute to my father who died at this time last year. He would have leapt across delightedly, and probably stood on his head in the middle, to show how easy it was (yes, I did spend a lot of my childhood picking myself out of rivers or caves, mountainsides or forests and vowing disgruntedly to spend my entire adult life safe in a warm luxurious hotel). Thanks for everything, Papa, this one's for you!

Now what do you think of this? We had stopped by the roadside to listen for birdsong, and saw these scraps hanging from bushes in a little grove. Clambered up and found that they were woven bracelets or strands, some with beads, some crocheted, some twisted, carefully positioned on the bushes around this little glade. Of course you can see the same thing in Ireland at the so-called 'holy wells' which are everywhere and which were centres of worship for the old goddesses long before Christianity reached our island, but I hadn't expected to find them here. I don't know why not - these ancient beliefs are universal, I suspect.

Now you will have noticed something missing from this travel post so far, and by then I was beginning to miss it too. Shopping. Of any kind. Not necessarily the Champs Elysees or Kartnerstrasse, but some shops. Of any kind. And perhaps, just perhaps, some yarn?

It didn't seem very hopeful. Places selling anything were few and far between in these mountain regions, and when you did see one, it tended to stock plastic basins, coils of rope, buckets, and not much more. Of handcrafts, handwork, there was very little evidence (well, no evidence really, let's be truthful). But finally, at Chepelare, I saw for the very first time someone actually knitting!

Was so thrilled I burst into the shop and assailed her with questions - none of which she understood of course, until I hauled out my own knitting bag and revealed myself as a fellow fibre fiend (Celtic Memory's Bulgarian is rudimentary in the extreme and she has enough trouble coping with the shaking of the head for 'yes' and the nodding for 'no' without going into detailed discussions of LYSs).

What was clear was that she didn't sell this jolly fun-fur yarn (never was I so glad to see a novelty yarn in my life!) Crochet thread yes, severe underwear, certainly, basic toiletries, perhaps, but not yarn. Nor could she tell me where it came from - she gestured vaguely in the direction of Sofia, about a hundred miles to the north. But it was a start. Knitting and therefore yarn of some kind did exist.

You wouldn't believe where I finally found some. Talk about unlikely locations!

This is Pavelsko, somewhat off the beaten track. DH wanted to drive through to get some shots. As we skidded down that icy street, something bright pink caught my eye in that green window to the left of the picture. Was it? Could it be? Surely not...

EUREKA!

This general purpose store, which sold all the aforementioned buckets and basins and coils of rope, as well as farm implements, plastic flowers, and colouring books for children, had a stack of yarn on the windowsill!

There were novelty yarns (hi to you, orange Chepelare fun fur!) but also some genuine Bulgarian wool, all of it in good hefty skeins (well lookit, a piffling little 50g ball wouldn't cut much ice, literally or metaphorically up in these mountains, would it?) And he had aluminium circular needles for an incredibly low price - about 50c each. Bought several.

Here, with triumph, I present: two skeins of thick dark grey/brown homespun-style, enough for a woolly shepherd's vest, I would think; and above those, two skeins of fingering weight, one black, one red, each with enough for a good shawl or even a vest. ALL GENUINE BULGARIAN YARN!

Yay!

Of course with hindsight, I smack myself on the head and ask exasperatedly why oh why Ravelry had not been checked out before the trip? Well, there hadn't been time - it was a last-minute, split-second decision, grab the passports and run - and in Pamporovo the Internet access had been vague and unreliable. Plus, I hadn't thought there would be any Ravelers in that remote corner of Bulgaria.

Wrong! I could have met up with gorgeous Ana from Smolyan just down the road and she would have been pleased to show me her local yarn shop and tell me all kinds of things about Bulgarian knitting and knitters. Idiot! I'll know better next time, surely I will. And in the meantime, Ana and I have set up conversation and are going to exchange goodies, so that's a pleasure to come, isn't it? If you're on Ravelry, you'll find her there as Shenevski, so go and check out her gorgeous projects - what a girl.

Things definitely got better after the discovery of Pavelsko, though. In the village of Narechenski Bani we found what could be described as 'the strip' in a similar American town: one side of the street had a traditional restaurant, while the other side was entirely taken up with a long roofed stall on which were displayed all kinds of old objects - the kind you'd kill for back home. Butter churns, old carts, boxes, hand-cranked sewing machines (Russian ones too, oh my, no I could NOT, can you imagine security at the airport, not to mention weight restrictions?)

Now this was a find indeed! I worked my way carefully along, knowing by the things I was seeing and the twitching of my fingers, that I was getting closer to some really good discoveries...

Here were old weaving tools, shuttles, spindles, as well as those fascinating little finger tools for thatching roofs.

Here is a whole bundle of well-used, hand-carved drop spindles. Minus whorls, but I suspect from their shape, some of them were spun in a bowl or on the knee.

And here is the flyer from a long-gone spinning wheel. Did I buy this? Of course I did. What do you take me for? (Actually DH unearthed this specific one and pointed out the spun yarn still on it - he was as thrilled as I was.)

Spinners will know what this is. A simple traditional distaff for holding fleece. Have a closer look.

See the old wood, polished by years of use? And where it has split at the crook,, and been carefully bound with string? That was very touching. It's got a good home now.

And the traditional cafe across the road was a find too! They valued their old crafts and showed me that they knew how to use the drop spindle. Here the girl is fixing a wodge of fleece on to her own distaff, made of new wood quite recently, but in exactly the same way as the older one I'd just got. She even gifted me the bundle of rough brown fleece to take home, and wouldn't hear of being paid for it (we paid about 50c each for special local herbal tea with pine honey and she gave me a bundle of that herb too). They had so many wonderful things hanging up around the cosy woodstove-heated room that I can't show you them all. Rough wool shepherds' cloaks. Traditional dresses. Felted jackets. A treasure store.

Here is a sock made by her grand mother. Stunning colourwork, isn't it? She wouldn't sell me that -

- but I persuaded her to sell me these. Old, well used, many times washed, mended, utterly traditional Bulgarian design.

Eyelets are worked into the ribbing at the top, and there is a nice little twisted stitch panel running down the length of the sock. Don't you love those Bulgarian roses? (I remember buying a tiny phial of attar of roses down on the Bulgarian plains many many decades ago, when hitchiking through Eastern Europe in student days, and carrying it carefully all the way home in my rucksack to give to my mother.)

Clearly it was a good day so we kept going as long as the light lasted. Way up in the hills, on the way to the Trigrad Gorge, we met a lovely old lady with bright green socks keeping her feet warm.

She was puzzled at first (well wouldn't you be if a weird foreigner leapt out of a car and started waving her hands and pointing at your feet?), but when I produced the cure-all knitting bag, she was delighted. Kept patting me on the shoulder and saying 'Good, good'. I like to think she was pleased that someone from far away was keeping up with the old ways.

The best was yet to come. We were trundling through yet another mountain village, DH with his camera at the ready to shoot informal pictures of people, animals, anything. We saw this group of women sitting outside a shop and automatically slowed to capture them on camera while still moving (avoids problems that way).

We were ten yards up the street when it hit me.

Richard! She's knitting!

Screech of brakes, roar of car reversing rapidly.

Again, the knitting bag worked wonders. They all exclaimed, laughed, patted me on the shoulder, admired the Fleece Artist Carnival colourway (I think that's what it is). But I wanted to see their knitting.

And this excited me tremendously. They were using hooked needles!

Look, can you see them? Isn't that great? As I saw how she worked, it seemed so much more practical than the straight points on our usual needles - easier to grab the yarn by far. Why don't we all have them? It was the very first time I'd ever seen them used and I was entranced.

Incidentally, she was working a sock in exactly the same way as the old pair I had bought - eyelets at the top of the ribbing, for elastic or ribbon, and, as far as I could see, in virtually the same woollen yarn. Which I hadn't managed to find.

Making a discovery like that adds such a lustre to a trip. Hope you enjoyed it too.

Since then, my good Sock Madness comrade Leslie has obligingly messaged me to say that these are in fact known as Portuguese needles, and you can buy replicas at the Lacis museum in Berkeley, CA. Isn't this fun? How many more discoveries are there waiting out there? If I can't get a set from Bulgaria, I will certainly get some from Lacis. Yes, Celtic Memory may have to open a handicraft museum. Sort of seems to be progressing that way, doesn't it?

Heavens above, do you realise I've spent almost three hours on this post? Uploading all those pictures, removing the huge sections of blank space which Blogger always insists on inserting between each paragraph, uploading more pictures... Still, I know DH spent a lot longer sorting and filing all his images when he got home, so I shouldn't complain. Hope I gave you a taste of being there.

Postscript. Was a bit worried about getting that old distaff home. Simple length of forked wood I know, but security can be a bit funny about what it considers to be a dangerous weapon. Thought about it, then remembered tips from Angeluna on another occasion (no, neither of us will tell you about it, some things are best kept secret) and looked around for ways to disguise its shape. Found a pair of little woolly dolls that I'd bought in the hotel shop for want of any other fleecy souvenir (this was before we'd hired the car and gone exploring). Hacked a piece of ribbon from a decoration. Took a scrap of wool from that gifted to me by the cafe in Narechenski Bani...

This charming traditional ornament, bedecked and beribboned, got safely on to the plane and home to West Cork where you see it leaning against the spinning chair. There was a moment at the airport when the security guard picked it up and asked puzzledly, 'Where you get this?' After all, he probably knew he hadn't seen anything like it in any of the airport shops. 'It's a wedding ornament,' I said confidently. 'Good for fertility', said DH helpfully, nudging the guard who laughed uproariously and handed it back to me.

Whew!

It's Windy And Wet and Cold And I Want A Nice New Project!

2009-01-25T15:14:00.012Z

Thought it was about time for a quick update: 'twasn't just the 'flu keeping me offline, 'twas also a spur of the moment trip to a particularly remote corner of Eastern Europe, in the hope of finding dry cold weather to cure the lingering cough. Back from there with some glorious pictures but they're going to take so long to sort out and process and resize for posting that things were getting to that tricky stage where you can't really face doing the whole thing at one go.

You must know the feeling. At first, you think you'll do it tonight. Then you remember how many pictures there are to choose and work on. Then something else gets in the way. The next morning you feel somewhat less enthusiastic. By that evening it has assumed the semblance of a real headache. Only thing to do - tackle a portion of it at least. So housekeeping issues and nice happenings now, and the full travel post tomorrow (or maybe later tonight if there is surplus energy).

It really has been wild and woolly here (just looked out the window and the gales are now hurling the clouds from the north east, whereas half an hour ago they were driving them from the south-west, what is going on here?) DH has been marooned in France for the last two days (yes, I wish I were there too, but he says it's not all that much fun) because a major rugby fixture had to be postponed until today owing to the storms and gales (Jocerane, JudyMac, hope you're OK over there).

There have been some nice little rays of sunshine though, one of the most delightful being this unexpected gift from Dez , all the way from Louisiana:

Look at that! Divine Louisiana coffee, a pack of jambalaya mix, and the most delectable length of turquoise roving with an adorable little sheep sitting on top of it. Roving and pet mascot sheep are on my desk as I type, the coffee is going to be sampled this very afternoon, and DH is going to get a treat tomorrow night with a genuine jambalaya (or as genuine as I can make it up here in damp West Cork). Dez, as I am sure some of you know already, is going through serious worries of her own at the moment, so to find time to post this to me was the generous act of a good friend indeed. My thoughts are very much with you and Dave at the moment, Dez - the rest of you, go on over to her blog and leave good thoughts too. Or if you happen to be anywhere in the Deep South, go check out that lovely shop of hers and buy something!

You remember those gorgeous stitch markers Linda sent me? Well look at these incredible Horselords of Rohan creations she's come up with:

These came about because we'd been talking of linking our themes, and I'd mentioned that I would shortly be working on a spring Magic Skein, to mark Imbolc, or Candlemas, or Brigit's Festival with the beginning of February. Greens, we thought, since everybody yearns for the first signs of new growth, and some gold for the first flowers, and perhaps some icy whites and silvers too.

And here is the first trawl through my stash to start on Brigit. Can't you just see those markers against a shawl or wrap or throw made in these? She's even ahead of me, is Linda, since she's already got going on Lady of the Lake which will match with my Beltane or Bealtaine for the beginning of May with its water-inspired hues of blues and pearly tones.

(I just love those tiny horses she has on the Rohans - can you see them? Oh incidentally, that's Linda's own picture from her blog - I know she won't mind my showing it here too.)

Memo to self: stop blogging and go start on Brigit. You know it always takes far longer than you think, and February is only just around the corner. And while you're at it, isn't it time you did a new lot of hand-dyed sock yarns in the Lord of the Rings theme? Yes, thought you'd forgotten those...

I was very honoured to be advised recently that this has been chosen as one of the hundred best blogs dealing with Celtic culture. Normally I try to sidestep awards, since they generally require that you immediately pass them on to five or ten more, which puts them in the 'pyramid letter' category as far as I'm concerned, but this one didn't ask me to do anything, just let me know that I'd been selected. So it was nice. Must go over and check out all the others now, and see what I can find out that I didn't know about Celtic culture!

Thank you all very very much indeed for the good advice on E-k-y, hereafter referred to as the E-number. That tip on working back and front separately for a few rows is excellent - wish I'd known of it before. Now, as I said (and Celtic Memory never changes her mind, not nohow), the E-number and I are now officially strangers. I have no intention of ever testing the Fates again by deliberately and knowingly straying into that territory.

However.... I have been playing around with a very nice cone of fine Shetland spun in a lovely petrol blue shade with flecks of colour, and thought I might as well do some swatches in it. Very wide swatches, with a lot of stitches. In k1, p1, ribbing. Got one completed, but thought I needed a second. To compare, you know.

When the second swatch is completed, I might try joining them together and working in the round for a few rows. Just for fun.

It is only swatching. It is an Unidentified Swatch Of No Importance. But the wind is from the north-east, and storms are forecast - now let's see, what islands lie north-east of Ireland....?

Progress report later.

Trouble is - with all this freezing wet and windy weather, the urge is growing ever stronger to cast on for a self-indulgent, quick, easy, cuddly and comforting project. Something that feels wonderful, works up quickly, and will look stunning on a depressing Monday morning. Never mind the Unidentified Swatch Of No Importance, bother the similarly secretive piece of work not entirely unrelated to another very famous Starmore pattern which could in turn be linked to the beginning of February, never mind the seventeen pairs of socks currently occupying most of the finer circulars.

I WANT A COMFY NEW PROJECT RIGHT NOW!

Inner Child shows every sign of starting another major tantrum.

I just happened to remember this batch of suri alpaca.

The two cones at the back are the originals (no, I won't tell you where I got them, you won't get it out of me, no you won't, no matter how hard you try), and the three at the front are variations from the dyebath (funny stuff to dye, alpaca, doesn't take colour like wool, but you can get some rather nice results if you persevere).

What do you think? I'm considering a cabled vest (easy quick project) worked with doubled yarn, on nice thick needles. One that would hug the body in the cold mornings and impart a warm glow.

I wanna make it NOW! I wanna make it NOW! I don't WANT to do the ironing or the washing up or the vacuuming! An' I don't wanna blog no more NEITHER!

There are times when I do sympathise with Inner Child. But I can't let her know that.

I promise - a full, picture-heavy posting shortly of that trip to an undiscovered corner of Eastern Europe. Where at first glance any chance of finding fibre or indeed fibrecrafts seemed as remote as the location. But where perseverance and determination paid off in the end.

Here are a couple of tasters to whet your appetite:

Twelfth Night Gone - And So Is The First Challenge

2009-01-09T19:33:00.012Z

That does not mean that Eriskay is done, dusted, blocked and e'en now being shown off to an admiring public. Quite the opposite in fact.

Take note that this carefully assembled picture is the last you are going to see of said Eriskay and the poppy-red Shetland for quite some time.

Celtic Memory can be dense at times. She can persist in a patently disastrous course of action when all others have abandoned ship and swum for shore. She can persuade herself that something inherently hideous is really beautiful and worth making. She can even dispense vast amounts of coin of the realm in the purchase of yarn which is never likely to be made up into anything. Ever.

But even Celtic Memory gets the message finally.

You will recall the cheerful tone of my last posting of 2008. New challenges were needed, I declared, and therewith I pledged my troth to two in particular: to spin enough fleece for a sweater, and to try again with the fated Eriskay.

Well the spinning is going just fine, you'll be glad to hear. Slowly, due to unforeseen circumstances (of which more later) but going fine. Could have saved myself the agonising over how to spin finer or thicker yarn. Turns out Celtic Memory's yarn comes out the same every time, whether she tries to create laceweight or bulky. Sort of middle-of-the-road worsted-to-Aran, so that's OK anyway. Just hope there will be enough for a sweater when the 600g of Corriedale is all gone, but if there isn't, then it will be an ornately cabled vest. That's OK too. There are times when you just don't have the energy to worry any more over the small stuff.

Which Eriskay isn't. Wasn't. Observe deliberate amendment to past tense.

The yarns were wound and ready, the terrifyingly small gauge needles were to hand, and on New Year's Day the casting on began. It's a long job casting on for Eriskay, but CM was wise enough to take the advice of good friends like Ruth and placed little markers every 20 stitches or so, to make sure she didn't lose count and have to start all over again (you really don't want to do that with this number of stitches and they are all so small, so small - sorry, they were all so small.)

It took half the day to get the correct number cast on and then came the careful joining, ensuring that the stitches were not twisted in any way. Must have laid them out on the table, checking and re-checking, half a dozen times before making the final join.

By 6 pm, two whole rows had been worked in that eyestraining rib. Two whole rows! At this rate, the telegram marking my 100th birthday would arrive before Eriskay. But it was New Year's Day and a start had been made.

January 2, and the work was taken up with renewed vigour. Only... after working a few miles within Row 3, an unease was felt, began to grow, to deepen...

No, surely not. Couldn't be. Not this time. Look, you're an expert in this, OK? You're just imagining things.

Work on a little further. No, can't ignore the sense of impending doom any more. Take a deep breath. Get up. Spread it all out on the table and turn all the little stitches neatly in one direction...

Yep. The work was twisted.

How? How the heck should I know. Didn't I take care? OF COURSE I DID. YOU THINK I DO THIS FOR FUN? Didn't I look to see - yes I did. But did I - YES I DID THAT TOO SO STOP ASKING DAFT QUESTIONS!

And so, as I mentioned earlier, there comes a time when even Celtic Memory gets the message. The work was put gently down. The needles were gently tugged from the stitches. Each and every little stitch marker was removed and put away in the correct little bag. The yarn was gently rewound on to the ball (had to go round the outside instead of back inside, but that was OK. Who cares?)

This is definitely time, I thought, to forget all about besting Herself of Stornoway. Put it away, think of something else, forget you ever thought it attractive. Carefully composed that picture for you and you alone, and then banished book to shelves and yarn to stash.

OK, she can't do anything more to me now. Start the New Year afresh.

Did I think I'd get off so lightly, after that blatant attack on the outer bulwarks of Starmore Castle? Foolish Celtic Memory.

The headache which had been ascribed to eyestrain got worse. The snuffles which had been put down to over-attentive fluffy small dogs got even worserer. Aches and pains which could hardly be explained away by sitting stiffly over millions of tiny stitches, became impossible to ignore.

Within an hour it was clear that somehow I had been blasted right from the Hebrides by the flu bug to end all flu bugs. Nearly ended Celtic Memory, that's for sure.

Yes, those of you with good recall will query this. 'Surely you got exactly the same bug at exactly the same time last year?' they will ask disbelievingly. Yes, I did. And I'll give you three guesses what I was working on at the time. Predictable or what?

It has been a pretty bad week since then. After four days of no sleep, incessant coughing, and an inability to eat even a grain of muesli, gave in and went in search of a doctor. A cheerful young Australian locum checked me out and gave it as his considered opinion that there wasn't too much wrong with me at all. Readers, at this point I was slumped in a heap on the floor, quite incapable of rising without assistance. I was a wreck, alternately feverish or icy cold, totally choked up, and feeling that death would be a release.

'Oh in a week or two you'll probably think, yes I'm coughing less than I was back then,' he said gaily, waving me out the door and trousering my not inconsiderable contribution to the medical fund. And DH drove me home and put me to bed and administered hot honey and lemon, and wiped away my tears, bless him.

So bad indeed was I that knitting seemed a vague triviality. Who cared? (There was one point when, feverishly unable to sleep, I got up in the middle of the night and cast on for a violet guernsey, from a Japanese pattern book. Next morning I realised the error of my ways and frogged that too.

The remains of what will definitely NOT be a Japanese guernsey. With or without flu bugs.

January 6 was Little Christmas or Women's Christmas and no way was I going to miss that. Grannies, girls, mothers and daughters, women all over Cork were heading out for a great evening on the town and I didn't want to be left behind. DH took my bedraggled shadow into the city for a cheer-up dinner which included a seriously strong hot toddy.

DH was the only man in Luigi Malone's that night, apart from the waiters. Every table was jammed with women of all ages having a wild night out and enjoying exactly what they wanted, from steak to creamy desserts.

By way of distraction from my miseries, I went on DH's jobs with him that evening, to all the different events being put on for women around the city. When we got to the Abba tribute show at the Opera House though, I decided to stay put for a while and enjoy the atmosphere. Whatever you might think of their music, you can't deny it's eminently suitable for dancing along to. Which women were doing. In the aisles. Great fun.

'Does your mother know that you're out?'

When DH was carting me back to the car to go home to bed, there were cheerful groups heading to all the pubs, to continue the celebrations. It's a great idea. Why don't we have a virtual one online next year? You know, like the bleachers in Sock Madness?

I had a lovely surprise yesterday when a package of exquisite stitch markers arrived from my good friend Linda Burklin. Linda's designs are always in demand and I know she was rushed off her feet over Christmas meeting orders, but she still found time to make these beautiful ones for me, all delicate green leaves and pearly beauty.

She always makes one that is a little bit different to the others, stands out as the 'lead marker'. In this set it's one on the right that has a gold bead at the very tip of the leaf, like dew with the sun on it. We're talking, Linda and I, about theming hand-dyed sock yarns to her stitch marker designs and bringing them out at the same time - say a Lord of the Rings theme or similar. That would be fun.

Enough. I'm recovered to the stage where I think I just might go on living. And that at some point in the future knitting might even be fun again. But it's slow work.

And you will oblige me by not enquiring after that particular ornately-patterned gansey. Please do continue with your own interpretations of this. I imagine yours will turn out just perfectly. Peg, you emailed to enquire if it were possible to use any other than AS's own yarn for this particular project. At risk of inviting a relapse into that ghastly flu, I would declare truthfully and bravely that of course it is possible to use other yarns. Any yarn that gets you gauge is just fine. Why wouldn't it be? There are so many lovely lightweight Shetlands out there, in every colour of the rainbow. And smoother yarns too, if you don't like the fluffy halo look. Just go for it!

(Might be an idea to lay in stocks of flu remedies first though...)

A New Year Should Mean New Challenges

2008-12-28T18:32:00.020Z

In crafting terms anyway. We'll probably get quite enough of the other kind without looking for them. But instead of making daft resolutions which won't last beyond January 2, it might be a good idea to try and stretch oneself a little, try something more difficult than usual, or at least something which requires a little staying power (not Celtic Memory's strongest suit, it has to be admitted).

Which is why there are two major items on the To Start List for January 1 2009. Firstly, that albatross of ill omen, the Eriskay gansey, beautifully designed by Starmore, attempted by Celtic Memory at least twice in the past.

The first had been with a nondescript, perfectly adequate yarn, but the incredibly huge number of stitches somehow got twisted on the third round. Not the first as you might expect, but the third. No I didn't behave well. Inner Child came instantly out of hiding, screamed with rage, and wrenched the whole sorry mess from the needles before rushing off to find several other new projects to smooth over the hurt.

A year or so later, memory having blurred the worst bits, another attempt was made. This time, for some insane reason, a very fine and very beautiful pure cashmere, of which a large cone had been snaffled some time in the dim distant past, was brought into use. The casting on was a success (that, in itself, is a triumph with a Starmore special, which tends to demand in excess of 300 sts right at the beginning). The joining went fine. The working of several rows of ribbing (can you imagine just how fine this darn work is?) went well.
Then, flushed with success, Celtic Memory left the knitting on the armchair upstairs and went down for a celebratory coffee. Inadvertently leaving the door ajar...

Ok, ok, for all those of you who wanted to see it again (sadists!), here it is. Happy New Year to you too!

It's taken a little longer this time to blot out the past, but the encouragement of Ravelry and sundry friends thereon have worked the irresistible alchemy. There is now an Eriskay KAL, beginning on New Year's Day 2009. And Celtic Memory is ready, with the poppy-red Shetland wound, the frighteningly fine needles standing by. This time, maybe this time...

She'll be celebrating Hogmanay. Maybe she won't have her look-out posted in that direction. If I could even get past the initial ribbing, perhaps the spell would be broken?

You'll hear all about it here anyway.

The second challenging project for Jan 1 is the spinning of sufficient yarn for a sweater. This was thought up by the Spinner Central Group on Ravelry, and it seemed like such a good idea, CM jumped right in there with the others.

Thought I'd get a bit ahead of myself, and try out that new Corriedale over Christmas. It would make a beautifully cosy sweater.

The Kromski Mazurka is working beautifully. Angeluna, you would love one of these. Its old-world elegance would complement your home, and you would find it a joy to work with. It didn't complain even when spinning continued for hours and hours. Two huge bobbinsful were created, and then plyed before being wound into a nice big skein and soaked to set the twist. Drying was watched impatiently, but at last it could be wound up into a big ball -

Well -

- a rather small ball actually. Can you read that label? 'Almost 60m', it says hopefully. 60 metres. Less than the usual ball I'd buy.

HOW MANY OF THOSE IS IT GOING TO TAKE TO MAKE A SWEATER FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE?

No, no, don't all shout your estimates. I know, I know! It was a rhetorical question, OK? I've been making sweaters long enough. I don't need to have the sums done for me. It is sufficient to realise that despite this first skein taking as long as the Forsyte Saga to make, there are a great many more necessary before I can even think of casting on.

Oh woe! Oh despair! Oh almost giving up!

Mind you, the good advice given by Boogie, moderator of the SpinAlong for a Sweater group, does offer some hope. She suggests using the first hard-won ball to knit up a swatch. Not only will this give an idea (however unwelcome) of the amount of yarn needed for the final product, it will also provide (it is suggested) a surge of delight at seeing how beautiful the finished sweater will be. Going to try that this very evening, once I've finished posting.

In the meantime, starting two new projects really should mean finishing those in progress. Or at least the currently visible ones. A scarf, a pair of socks, and a washcloth were all done for Christmas; now the Noro jacket is being attacked.

Back and fronts done, both sleeves being worked at the same time. This is fairly mindless knitting (which reminds me, Blogless Dicksie (renowned on Ravelry, though) considers Eriskay a mindless knit. What, one wonders in terror, does she consider a challenging one?) and can be progressed a bit at a time, while waiting for the kettle to boil, watching TV, even waiting for something to upload on the computer on a slow evening.

Christmas was grey and dark and damp, but yesterday was one of those brilliantly clear days you rarely get here. A wind that would take the horns off a goat, and a chill that came from Eastern Europe, but still it was sunny, and we headed down to the coast, with a flask of hot coffee, turkey sandwiches, and Sophy Wackles.

The aim was to explore some of the tiny winding boreens that undulate in and out, up and down, along the coastline, sometimes stopping dead without any warning, sometimes turning themselves inside out and arriving back very near to where you left the main road, but sometimes leading you to totally unexpected corners or coves or viewpoints. You simply never know what you're going to find around the next corner.

Like a skewbald pony tethered to the roof of an old cottage, with a friendly collie coming to greet you, slightly embarrassed by a very Christmassy ribbon tied to his collar.

Sophy (who also had a bright red bow on her harness in honour of the festive season) was not at all sure about the pony. Narsty and dangerous was her opinion, and she declined absolutely to make friends.

Then you come round another bend and are rewarded with a totally new view of the coastline with Jeremy Irons' restored castle standing proudly on its headland beyond -

- or drive down a really narrow muddy lane and discover an entirely new castle that you never dreamed existed. This one is White Castle, which is interesting because we already knew Black Castle, further down along the coast, but hadn't realised that its counterpart was here all the time, far from the madding crowd.

These new views and hidden secrets of West Cork are something we are particularly hunting out at the moment because (to let you into a secret) DH and I have been commissioned to produce a new book about West Cork in words and pictures, during 2009. It's something we've long wanted to do and we are determined to produce something that will be as beautiful, as fascinating, and as much a long-term love-affair as the place itself. Of course there have been plenty of books about the region before now, and that's why ours will have to be different - more off the beaten track, with lots of little nuggets of information and history and stories and legends, as well as DH's breathtaking pictures. The kind of book you'd keep by your bedside and dip into time and again.

That's going to be the third challenge for 2009. And I suspect it's going to take centre stage before long, causing Celtic Memory's usual calm, methodical approach to come to the fore (that's hysteria, followed by insane laughter, followed by total panic, followed by despair... you know, the usual. Think Sock Madness and then some.)

I don't suppose we'll be including this image in the book though.

Can you read that? It says Independent Waste Removal. But I think somebody lives there. I just love that. It was in a lane miles from anywhere.

There were so many adorable little ruined cottages, you would have been hard pressed to make up your mind which one you wanted to rescue and adopt.

How about this one, high up on the side of a mountain, in a little copse of trees? I dreamed about this little ruin last night, of cleaning it out, and putting in a window at the back, and making a wooden door for the front, and looking after it...

Or this one, dozing in the sunlight near White Castle? It's clearly been deserted for years, maybe even a century or more, but it would respond so much to love and care. I want to look after them all! (But given the number of ruined cottages in Ireland, that would really be impractical. Maybe we could start a group?)

And of course we found standing stones.

This fine gallaun was right down by the seashore, minding its own business and enjoying the salty air.

And these two sturdy sentinels on the slopes of Mount Gabriel are all that remain of what was once in all probability a long stone row leading to a circle or other important site.

As the sun was setting, we decided to make the demanding ascent up the hill to Dunbeacon stone circle, to pay our respects at the ending of the old year, and get something for you to share too.

And finally we braved the icy winds on top of the hill to look out over the bay.

May the old year end peacefully and happily for you and yours, and may 2009 bring us all the things for which we wish most. (Hint though: don't wait for them to come to you - go out and hunt for them!)

Spinning And The Solstice

2008-12-21T18:24:00.017Z

It's the Solstice, the shortest day of the year. From now on, the days start to draw out (ever so slowly at first and then quicker and quicker until before you know it, it's Midsummer!).

This is a very special time, marked the world over by different peoples in different ways, but all celebrating the same thing: moving away from the dark to the light, from silence to sound, from slumber to new growth, from death to rebirth. It's a good time to be creative, to spin a continuous thread, to turn fibre into yarn.

Which is what Celtic Memory has been doing. Not very well actually, since she is still far too impatient to take the time necessary, and expects to get everything perfect first time.

A wonderful coil of roving arrived from magic Margie at Moondance Wools.

It's a particularly lovely pale oatmeal Corriedale and as beautiful to the touch as it is to the eye. I was so thrilled with its arrival in time for the solstice that I slid it on to the distaff of the Kromski, just as it was, wrapped it with a few ribbons to make it feel welcome, and took it out to the grove to be photographed.

Yes, Celtic Memory does realise that you don't usually mount a big roll of fibre on a delicate little handturned distaff, but it seemed a good way to photograph them both at the same time. The grove is a special little corner of the garden where four trees (laburnum, rowan, birch and beech) form a circle, one at each compass point. It's a place to go to think about things or watch the moon rise or do some drop spindling or whatever.

Since then I've been hungering for a moment to try out the new roving and finally got a chance late this afternoon. And of course it wasn't as wonderful as I hoped it would be. Oh the fibre was beautiful, but my hands just won't create what my mind's eye sees. This roving can be made into nothing other than a lofty, light-as-air, bulky yarn but what I am making is dull, pedestrian, lumpy and heavy. Did I hear someone say that you can unspin and try again? Don't want to waste a single wisp of this one. Hovercrafteel, any hints?

As Christmas approaches, DH always gets certain press photography jobs and they are ones on which Celtic Memory always likes to tag along if she can. The December 25 swim from a chilly West Cork beach will be a definite of course, as will babies born either on Christmas or New Year's Day - but yesterday was the airport marking, an annual favourite, since it's to record all those happy exiles coming home for the festive season.

You can't help but feel your own heart warming and indeed a lump in the throat as you see excited kids launching themselves at a much-loved granny, or homecoming girls bursting into tears as they see their mother waiting at the barrier. It's a lovely happy time to be at the airport.

Thank you Deborah, Spinning Fishwife, Dez, and Paivikki, for all the helpful hints on how to work with that Estonian unspun yarn. I've already tried a little sample on big needles with a view to felting - if I can manage to complete anything without breaking the yarn, that is!

Julia, darling Julia (can't link to you because your profile isn't available for some reason), I'm so sorry I didn't get you that orange felted hat! I would have, honest, if I'd known you wanted it! But you'd have gone mad altogether if you'd seen the shapes and colours on sale in the Christmas Market in Tallinn. All kinds of felted hats for all ages, some with horns, some with spikes, some with long long tails, and the colours - all the rainbow and then some. I would have bought one for myself, but at the time something seriously thick, cuddly and warm was needed so DH thoughtfully got me a double-knit ribbed pull-on hat, which kept the Celtic Memory ears nice and snug.

The other evening, realised that one could not really consider oneself a seasoned knitter, let along a real Raveler, unless one had made at least a single Ribwarmer, a la Elizabeth Zimmermann. To find some yarn, and cast on was the work of a moment. Twenty minutes later, to pull the stitches off the needle, frog, rewind, and go in search of another more suitable yarn, was the work of half an hour (frogging: 1 min; searching for just the right replacement, 29 mins). Started again, enthusiasm only very very slightly frayed at the edges.

This is the first front, with the first lot of highly entertaining short row turns complete. Only...

It just doesn't work for me. Now I love EZ, wish fervently that I'd known her, enjoy her writing enormously. But the Ribwarmer Vest isn't my thing after all.

Can I progress to the next stage even if I haven't made the RW?

Come to that, will I be singled out at some point in the future because I haven't made the Monkey Socks either? No, not even once!

Had better luck with a swirly ruffle scarf for my friend Eileen, who takes care of the dogs when we're off travelling. Grabbed a thick crochet hook and two strands of that nice merino mousse yarn in a pleasant cafe au lait shade and got going.

Looks a bit dark here, even though I switched on the daylight lamp overhead to make things more visible. The shade of merino mousse is really more like coffee with a lot of cream in, rather than espresso. But this scarf, currently blocking, took only a couple of hours to make, and it twists most delightfully when thrown around the neck in careless fashion. Must make a few more.

But today is, as I remarked before, the Solstice. And on the Solstice you have to go and walk in the woods. A forest would be better, but a wood will do.

On our way to the woods, Sophy and I diverged from the road and went up an old green track to visit a rather special stone circle we know.

But - the gate was shut and padlocked. New barbed wire fences prevented climbing over the old hedge banks. A curt notice informed all and sundry that this was private property.

We walked a little further on, to where I could see through the hedge the great grey outlying stones, the ones I always think of as the guardians of the stone circle, across a field, and through another hedge.

Was getting a bit cross at this point, so went a little way further on, found a place where we could get through the mass of brambles and thorn bushes and briar roses that create effective barriers in most Irish hedgerows, and crossed the open field to the next hedge. Climbing to the top of that (it was the solid kind, the sort that you learn to tackle with your heart in your mouth and your fists balled in your pony's mane when you're out hunting in childhood days) we found the way barred at the other side by an electric fence.

Now we could have slid under that fairly easily, but looking towards where we wanted to be, we could see by now that we very definitely weren't wanted.

You can see the two great grey outliers on the left, and to their right, the circle of trees that holds Lissyvigeen Stone Circle. All surrounded by a tight and competent-looking electric fence. Another one. Just in case we hadn't got the message at the first one, or indeed at the padlocked gate and new barbed wire fence.

When DH and I first came to Lissyvigeen, many years back, these wonderful guardian stones emerged waist-high from a mass of bracken and golden gorse bushes. To come upon them suddenly was a wonderful shock. And then, to go respectfully between them and follow a tiny worn track through the high bracken until we came finally to the enclosing sheltering trees and the stone circle within, was a privilege.

Of course I knew the inheritors of this land (someone had died, someone else had taken over, it's often the way) had every right to clear the field and use it for crops - or something. They even had the right, I suppose, to trim the trees which shelter the ancient stone circle, although they did do that fairly brutally. At least they didn't try to pull up the stones - although surely no-one would be as unwise, as foolhardy as to do that. But an electric fence, drawn tightly around the whole site, almost choking it? It was a very sad thing to see. And so we didn't go down, slide under the first fence, cross to the Guardians, slide under that fence too, and go inside. The sense of unwelcome, of downright unfriendliness, was too strong.

Not from the stones of course. They are never unfriendly. I stood there, sent my respects for the Solstice, indicated that I was sorry at the way things were right now. But the stones weren't worried. They seemed to say that they had survived many previous manifestations of aggressive fear and would survive many more. These people would pass on, but they, the stones, would remain.

I can't show you Lissyvigeen today, at the winter solstice, but I can show you a picture from some years back, taken at Midsummer, which I put on my weblog before - one which shows how it was, and how it will be again.

Thaet ofereodes, thisses swa maeg, as the Anglo Saxons might say. 'That passed, so may this.'

We were a bit sobered as we went on down to Pike Wood for our solstice walk, Sophy and I, but soon recovered our spirits. After all, the stones are far stronger than petty malice, and there is something about walking through a mossy woodland that makes you feel better just for being there.

The little river was chuckling along over the stones, and the mosses and ivies were looking their best for Midwinter. Gathered some really thick emerald moss to take home - I tuck this around little votive lights in oval dishes to make solstice decorations.

The day was getting darker, but just before sunset a gap in the clouds allowed a shaft of light to penetrate right down and light up this tree, giving us a perfect solstice moment.

On the way home, the clouds were thickening ever more as we drove up towards the pass between Kerry and Cork,

and by the time we were over the mountains, it had settled into a heavy dark grey mizzle. It wasn't gloomy, though - in fact it felt rather reassuring and cosy, as if the Old Ones were snuggling us in their winter blanket and celebrating with us the changing of the year.

Tonight DH and I will celebrate the turning of the year with a feast by the fireside, and I'll raise a glass to every one of you (no, no, not a separate glass for each one, be serious!) And there will be knitting, and maybe some more spinning, if I can work out what I'm doing wrong (maybe it would help if I had a clear idea of what exactly it was I wanted to achieve?)

Joys of Midwinter to you all!

Stopping By Snowy Woods To Knit

2008-12-14T16:59:00.028Z

Guess where I've been!

Yes, it was cold. Extremely cold. And I couldn't make head or tail of the language, despite months of keeping a list of useful phrases posted on a cupboard door. Not good enough, Celtic Memory.

Ma ei raeaegite ehsti kehlt, I'm afraid.

Yes, Estonia. And it was wonderful. Fell in love with that delightful little country on arrival, and didn't want to leave at all, three days later. Estonia has all the nice things of Austria without any of the over-development and crowds. Cafes. Cakes. Amazing medieval architecture. Plus lovely friendly people, wonderful restaurants and - and -

I'm sure there was something else...

Oh of course. Yarn! Estonian yarn. Yearned for ever since that trip to Norway in June when Marianne introduced me to this genuine folk product.

Wasn't that easy to find though. Oh no, there were wanderings and searchings and panics and shrieks aloud to the grey snowy skies and the uncaring streets. But all was well in the end.

If you've been to Tallinn, you'll know already how spectacular it is. If you haven't, then get there before it becomes too Westernised.

It sitll has its city walls, for heaven's sake. Tough medieval stuff, built to keep out invaders, and a nice big door to clang shut and bolt at night. 13th century gated community you might say.

The view over those steeples and spires and towers at sunset is heartstopping. Across the water there to the north is the coast of Finland. Very strategically located is Estonia, an unfortunate fact which has made its history more than somewhat exhausting, not to say tragic. When you're ideally set between East and West, suddenly lots of big people are demanding a forced marriage. Plus ca change...

Fortunately, most of its original walled town has survived down the centuries to be enjoyed by today's visitors.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, for example.

And beautiful towers everywhere, guarding the city walls. The sunset is imparting a rosy glow to these old stones which could tell a few tales, one imagines.

Of course they're geared up somewhat for tourists in the old town now. Why wouldn't they be - it's a chance to get ahead a bit, catch up on the rest of Europe. And I have to say they do it exceptionally well. Nothing plasticky, nothing tacky, nothing mass-produced or bulk-imported. Just lots of hand-made local knitwear, clothing, shoes, carvings, pottery, glassware - it was a delight to wander around the cobbled lanes and peer into brightly-lit windows.

Just look at this medieval shop, housed in an original medieval house! The staff are all dressed absolutely correctly in the garments of the period, even to their head-dresses, and they aren't just playing the part of 13th century men and women, they are 13th century men and women. Celtic Memory once spent several years hidden in the depths of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, studying the minutiae of medieval life, and believe me, these good folk of Tallinn have it right, down to the last laced bodice. I wanted to take the whole shop home with me.

And this amazing restaurant where the staff again were clad in medieval garments and served rough pottery jugs of beer with herbs or honey (very strong both of them, don't say I didn't warn you). That map painted on the wall behind is a 13th century rendering of this part of Europe, complete with sea serpents and mermaids.

The Christmas Market was in full swing in Tallinn Old Town, with little wooden booths set up in the market place, a huge fir tree in the centre, and lots of glogg on sale (grog, gluhwein, spiced wine, different names but the same lovely warming drink on an icy evening).

Doesn't she look great? You know, swashbuckling warriors heading for the Crusades must have stopped to buy a warming drink from just such a one as this stallholder.

The range of knitwear was staggering. Local people must knit nonstop all year round to produce these wonderful socks and scarves and caps and jackets. There were really sensible baby outfits too, thick wool from head to toe, little tights and long jackets and mittens and ear-flapped hats. I looked for those Estonian lace shawls, and saw one or two at the back of stalls, but the stallholders were disinclined to hold them up for photographs. They were a little protective, perhaps.

Did I mention cakes? As something of an expert in this field, Celtic Memory can report that Estonia certainly has the right idea when it comes to patisserie. Delectable, every one of them. And the cafes are wonderful too. Found a couple of really old-world ones, like Demel's in Vienna used to be before it turned into an automatic bus-tour stop. Here you still find elegant old ladies gossiping over glasses of tea or gentlemen reaching for the racks of newspapers displayed on reading batons.

I rather liked the glimpse I got of this lady's wool jacket and got DH to take a discreet shot of it across the room. Nice blend of cables and lace.

By heaven, it was cold when we were there! Fortunately I'd managed to finish the latest pair of warm socks on the plane, and they were put into use immediately we got to the hotel.

These were worked in the Oblique Openwork rib from Sensational Knitted Socks, using Fleece Artist's Somoko. Extremely cosy.

We really felt the cold when we took a tram out into the countryside to visit Tallinn Zoo. The wind was whistling down from the north, you had to keep your face shrouded for fear of frostbite (well, this tender Irish skin did anyway) and when you saw gentle spirals of blue smoke rising from a bonfire in the woods nearby, you went looking for it pretty darn quickly.

This was one of those wonderful happy moments that you are fortunate to get now and again in life. The warmth of a bonfire of brushwood, the scent of woodsmoke, the closeness of an old forest all around - it seemed the right place to knit on a warm shawl. Could have stayed there for hours, but there weren't in fact many hours of daylight left, and DH had spotted some wild boar he wanted to photograph...

All very well, I hear you cry, but less of this woodsmoke and wild boar. What about the yarn?

Celtic Memory had done her research before the trip. The Travelling Knitters group on Ravelry, and also the Estonian Knitters had been checked out. A list of the most likely places had been compiled. Karnaluks, everybody seemed agreed, was the best shop of all. So after the woodland idyll, we caught the tram back to town and started looking for Karnaluks.

We walked miles (well, probably a kilometre). We got into the rather greyer suburbs, well beyond the old town walls. We found the right street. But no yarn store beckoning with its bright window.

It's got to be somewhere here!

Dusk was falling rapidly. Blood pressure was rising, also rapidly. Asked passers-by. Showed knitting in pocket. Mystified shakings of heads. Very willing to help they were, but yarn? Vill? No, they regretted it exceedingly, but they could not recall ever having seen such a shop.

Now Estonian knitters are doubtless laughing their heads off at this point, knowing what I didn't know, and what they don't tell you on the helpful threads about best yarn shops.

This unpromising entrance leads to a Fitness & Beauty Centre. It has a notice on the door saying so. You have to believe. You have to push open those doors, walk right through the entrance to the Beauty Centre. Then (and only then) you find a stairway leading upwards. You ascend one flight. You ascend a second. (You may possibly ascend a third, but being considerably stressed at this point, Celtic Memory doesn't actually remember.) You find a blank double door. You push it open.

Ah.

Of course it is on the top floor of a grey building in a grey street, with no visible advertisement anywhere on the outside or, for that matter, on the way up. Doesn't everybody know that?

Listen, Estonian knitters, have pity on those of us who come from clearly idiot-helpful countries that need signs and posters and window displays. Just give us the occasional clue, will you? We're not all as experienced as you are at finding sought-after items in unpromising surroundings.

So how did I know to go in that door and up those stairs, even while expecting at every moment to be challenged by a terrifying lady in charge of Beauty or indeed Fitness? I used the oldest instinct in the book. I wet my finger and held it up, and then followed the vibes. (Used to use this for finding pubs in older, more wild days, but now it works pretty well for yarn and fibre, I've found).

They have an amazing range of yarns here. And fibre too, although that was only in small nests, for felting, rather than great big bags for would-be sweater spinners. Yarns from virtually every country in the world.

Except - Estonia.

Having hunted high and low, having discovered some very interesting facts (like where some major household names in yarn actually source their products, you'd be surprised, I'd known about Turkey but not that Romania contributed so much, must go there again soon), I challenged a delightful young assistant who was wearing big soft felted slippers.

Alas, no Estonian yarn.

But why not for heaven's sake?

'I know, I have said it to them, and visitors always ask, but no, we do not. Perhaps the Christmas Market...?'

Bought just four balls of Austermann Inverno in a nice blend of blues and greys, to make a vest, but no more yarn than that. Had a lot of fun looking around though - it's not just yarn, they have an incredible range of findings and bits and needles and zips and trimmings and fabrics too.

If you think you can detect a smile on Celtic Memory's face here, you're right. This was the moment I discovered that they stocked my absolute favourite circulars of all time, no contest, no question - Colonial Rosewood. The few pairs I possess of these came from America, whither they were imported from India, and I paid a small king's ransom for each pair.

They were a lot less here. A lot less. And being wood, I could get them home in my rucksack (can't do that with steel Addi Turbos, alas). The reason Colonial Rosewoods are favoured chez CM so much is not only because of their gorgeous wood and silky polish, but because just before the join 'twixt cable and needle, there is a little bump, which slides the stitch up and over and completely does away with that irritating drag you get with lesser circulars. Colonial are the only ones who provide this little extra and it makes all the difference.

So no Estonian yarn. But remembering what the girl had said, I searched the Christmas Market more carefully that evening. And alleluia, at last, in a dim corner of one candle-lit stall, I saw a little basket of skeins.

Genuine Estonian yarn! And exactly the two colours I needed for those lovely Snowy Woods socks referred to in my last posting.

The luck continued. Wandering back towards a restaurant we'd spotted earlier in a sidestreet, my eye was caught by the window of a shop on the corner.

It's that right-hand window, just next to where I'm standing, staring. Oh you can't possibly see it from where you're sitting, hang on a minute and I'll try to blow up that segment of the picture. It'll probably be a bit blurred, but you won't mind.

Can you make them out? There under that orange felted hat? Several skeins of yarn!

Rushed in of course, and threw myself on the floor in front of a whole display unit of yarn, uttering cries of delight. DH reassured the shop lady with gestures and smiles (he may have tapped his head to indicate my state of mind, but I can't be sure, I was busy at the time).

Oh what a wonderful display. Spent ages sorting and cooing and making little heaps and then changing my mind and occasionally getting panicky and hauling out great armfuls of skeins in case they all disappeared.

Mary Lee, you're the one who told me there was a yarn shop on the corner of the town square. And so there was. It's just there were a lot of corners to this square - dozens of tiny alleys and streets leading off every which way. So I was very very glad to have found the right one at the eleventh hour.

Last minute checking of blogs and emails on the baby notepad at Tallinn Airport. I like this one because the book I was reading on the trip was Medieval Travellers. Nice blend of the old and new.

So what loot came back to West Cork in the end?

How all this got stuffed into one small rucksack I do not know (don't even think of checked baggage on low-fare European airlines, believe me). DH may have helped - lenses and electronics, although appallingly heavy, aren't all that bulky - as did capacious pockets in vests and warm jackets.

I love this almost-unspun soft yarn although I have no idea what one makes with it. The lady in the shop said helpfully, 'Knit very big then much hot water' which sounds sensible.

And when we finally got home, exhausted, there was a package on the doorstep.

The rovings from lovely Warren at Craftspun Yarns had arrived! At the back, two natural shades of BFL, at the front, Wensleydale, and on top, a little sample nest of space-dyed roving. 500g of each, and beautiful all of them. We are lucky to have Craftspun Yarns here in Ireland. Why don't you order something from them? They're nice people.

That's it. Celtic Memory is now definitely going to swing the town gate shut, shoot the bolts, lower the portcullis, and devote herself to preparing for the festive season. Knitting, spinning, felting, dyeing. No more travels.

Until the next time.

Christmas Yarns, A Thumping Wheel, And Sunshine in Schull

2008-12-05T19:30:00.015Z

I meant to post last night, keep up the good work, but eBay took so goldarned long over processing my listings of yarns that it was midnight before I gave up and went to bed. I had realised that Christmas was (once again) approaching surprisingly fast and if I didn't get the last batch of yarns up, it would be too late to post them to anybody in time. Hence the long session with eBay.

They're not even all up yet. Managed to get the hand-dyed alpaca/silk skeins on. These are good for the current rage, neckwarmers, with matching wristwarmers if you choose a pattern that doesn't use up too much yarn (alpaca being heavier, doesn't give you as much yardage to 100g as, for example, bamboo/merino sock yarn, WHICH isn't listed on eBay YET - got to do that next. And get dinner. And look nervously once more at the ironing.)

Here are some of them, in case I forget.

Getting the newly-dyed skeins dry was difficult enough, but when it came to photographing them... Ireland, and particularly West Cork, has been languishing in a fit of the sulks lately, with heavy cloud, rain, icy winds, and a general gloom. Yesterday looked as though there just might be the occasional break in the clouds, so I positioned cameras and baskets of yarn in the hall (safely above Muffy the Yarnslayer's snatching level) and went about other jobs, keeping a sharp eye out the window every few minutes.

Hey! SUNSHINE!

We both bolted for the garden, snatching cameras, lenses, baskets, along the way. Grass was far too wet, so the containers were positioned on the garden chairs. Of course the second we got out there, the sun went and hid behind a grey blanket again; but we waited, and got another few seconds of brightness. 'Twas enough.

I promise I'll list the new sock yarns as soon as I've finished this posting.

I mentioned Muffy the Yarnslayer. I'd been polishing the new baby Kromski spinning wheel the other day, and incautiously left a lambswool polishing pad on the ground next to it. It had of course disappeared when I came back a few minutes later, but I tracked its progress to my study, where the course of events was clear enough.

I don't think Nicholas Bear was very impressed. That reminds me, I must look out his Santa Claus outfit. He usually gets garbed up for the festivities about mid-December

And still on the dog theme, I think it was Charlotte who asked how Sophy Wackles got her name. She is called after a minor but delightful character in Charles Dicken's novel, The Old Curiosity Shop. Sophy Wackles was the beloved of Dick Swiveller, but eventually transferred her affections elsewhere - to a market gardener called Cheggs in fact, causing Dick to lament broken-heartedly for all of one or two days. She was a naughty little flirtatious minx, which was appropriate for my own Sophy, but most of all I thought the name reflected my girl's banshee shrieks, Wack, wack, wack, wack, wackles.... whenever she sees strangers approaching.

So many projects have been listed, discussed, started, over the past few weeks, that it seemed entirely reasonable to start a completely new and unexpected one.

This one slipped under the radar quickly and easily. It's the Ellen Neckwarmer from clever Heather. I love its cable and lace pattern, and found just the right tiny shiny shell buttons at The Button Factory in Cork (more on that wonderful place another time). You might not be able to see, but I got these buttons in two different hues, one more deep blue, the other paler.

I chose Ellen because it didn't use up so much yarn, and I had just one skein of gorgeous, costly Fleece Artist Silk Cashmere. So economical was the pattern, despite my working it flat rather than in the round (if it goes over my head it won't stay up on my neck, and vice versa), that there is enough over for wristwarmers too. Which are currently being worked. Along with the socks in Fleece Artist Somoko. And Jeanie's Cathedral Socks. And the Noro jacket. And I have just put out an invitation to all and sundry on Ravelry to join me in an Alice Starmore Eriskay KAL. Do I need a brain scan? Or what?

There is something odd about the new baby Kromski. I hadn't noticed this before, but now that the spinning is going ahead more rapidly, there is a regular thumping, banging sound as I treadle. It appears that the wheel is bumping back and forth between its uprights, which doesn't seem right. Will have to check with the Kromski experts on Ravelry.

But oh, having a new wheel does bring all kinds of dangerous side effects. The instant desperate need for lots and lots of new fibre, for one thing. One might have thought that a full pound weight of Gotland might be enough to be going on with, but I got this little temptation from Craftspun Yarns up the road in Kildare yesterday.

That's Wensleydale in the middle, and two natural shades of BFL flanking it, a light and a darker grey/brown. How could I resist? And when I rang Warren at Craftspun to tell him so, instead of just taking my order like a responsible supplier, he deliberately offered to tuck in some samples of space-dyed roving as well! What kind of man is that, who calculatedly sets out to trail seductive temptation in front of a fragile mind already hard pressed by the thought of bathing in, rolling in, sleeping in great heaps of silky rovings. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know, obviously. Move over Lord Byron, Warren is right up there with you in the temptation stakes.

I suppose I could have said no, refused the offer haughtily, avoided temptation in advance. But heck, Celtic Memory doesn't shirk danger. She adopts the attitude of that sea captain in Conrad's Typhoon who says something like, 'Steer nine points out of my path for a typhoon that just might be there? Not likely.' Probably not Conrad's exact words, but the sentiment certainly.

Don't let that stop you ordering luscious Irish rovers (sorry, rovings) from him yourself, though. I am sure your characters are far stronger than mine, and none of you would ever buy yarn or fibre you didn't strictly need. You're good, you are.

Had fully intended to go into Cork city this morning with DH, to get some jobs done. But at 7 am a phone call sent him racing down to the coast on a job instead. And of course I went too.

It's very restful down around Schull and Ballydehob. People stop for a chat in the middle of the road and nobody bothers about it.

When DH had finished the job in hand, we went into Jagoe's in Schull for a second breakfast, and I discovered the inadvisability of hurling two different WIPs into the same project bag. On the left, a wristwarmer to match the Ellen neckwarmer. On the right, a Somoko sock.

The cafe soon filled up. The lady in black standing at the counter had walked in a good four miles from her home along the coast. She was telling them of another lady who had castigated her son for going out with an untidy mop of hair.

She said, 'You didn't go down through Schull with a head like that on you?'

He replied, 'No Mam, of course not. I took it off and tucked it in my pocket, didn't I?'

I wonder if you noticed that jacket at the right hand end of the counter? Thought you did, so asked DH to take a discreet closeup.

The main part of the jacket was pale shades of grey and blue, but then you had these vivid bands of bright stripes in primary colours. Did I see something similar on an ad in one of the knitting magazines, for Jamieson's of Shetland? Think I did, although that showed a spectacular white sweater with the blazing colours concentrated in just one band on the chest. Very effective. Must try it sometime (time, time...)

When you're in Schull, you can't on any account miss Gwendall Lasserre's chocolate shop.

His pralines would tempt an anchorite.

As indeed would Gwendall himself. No, no, you can't all have him. I can't mail him all over the globe! You'll just have to come down to West Cork and buy a quarter pound of him - sorry, his chocolates - in person.

I think we need to calm down a little here.

And what better way than with a view like this, of Schull Bay and its tiny offshore islands? There might be an icy wind blowing, the temperature might be down to 5 degrees, but it's still beautiful. Nowhere like it. No, I don't know if that little house is for sale. I'll go ask for you.

The Dreadful Inevitability Of An Eriskay Epic

2008-11-30T18:11:00.012Z

Look, I'm not keeping this up, OK? I am NOT. There is no way Celtic Memory is going to continue at this rate, posting practically every day. It just so happens that it was a leisurely long weekend following on some exhausting workloads, and it also so happened that there were several things upon which I required your advice, but it won't go on like this. Soon we'll be back to the happy days of the West Cork Irregulars.

But in the meantime, I'm very worried. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. In fact, if this were not a family blog with toddlers lisping the unfamiliar phrases as they hit the keyboard and look at the pretty pictures before falling asleep in their cots, stronger words would be used.

It's because of Eriskay (cue sheet lightning from the general direction of the Outer Hebrides). It's my albatross, my Nemesis. It always has been. Oh I run, I hide, I set sail for the other side of the world, but it's no good. Eriskay (oh stop that d*n*d thunder, will you, Starmore?) finds me, wherever I go, and whatever distracting WIP I may have on the needles.

Lilly, seconded enthusiastically by CindyL, tried to help by suggesting a beautiful lace stole in that poppy-red Shetland. Thanks girls, it's a nice idea, and I totally agree that Birgit's designs are glorious. But you see it's no good. This is more than whim, there is little of choice in it. Eriskay (shut UP, will you AS?) is my Fate, my weird, my Philippi.

I wouldn't mind, but I know that every single attempt is doomed to failure, as all the previous ones have been. Was it Tantalus who was condemned to push a huge boulder uphill forever, only to have it roll back down again every time? Shouldn't be at all surprised. Or one of those luckless souls anyway.

What has brought this on, I hear the cry. What ails poor Celtic Memory that she looks so haggard and worn?

I fear thee, Celtic Memory,
I fear thy glittering eye!
Why look'st thou so forlorn and wan,
Beneath the winter sky?

Alas, she's cursed to face this task,
Until the Judgement Day!
Doomed to attempt again, again,
The dreadful Eriskay...

Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if some of you did shrink away. You wouldn't want this particular albatross around your neck.

But the reason? Well, last night, feeling in a slightly more cheerful frame of mind after posting and talking about this and that, and having tucked the baby Kromski up for the night (she's wonderful, sleeps right through, no waking up for a drink of oil or a polish or anything, mind you the presence of the two fairy godmothers might have something to do with that, Queen of Orkney is the frightening old black-habited aunt who inculcates good habits and is very strict on table manners, while Countess Angelique is more inclined to slip baby Kromski peppermints and tell her scurrilous tales of 18th century Paris), where was I?

Oh yes, I was feeling a bit more positive, so after dinner I found the micro-gauge needles and cast on for an Eriskay swatch (muttering as I did so, 'I can't believe I'm even contemplating this).

It's not exactly an Eriskay swatch of course, it's the Eriskay swatch. When Starmore tells you to work a swatch you jump to it. Cast on 31 sts. Not 30 you notice, not 32, but 31. For heaven's sake. Then work 44 rows. 44? Not 40? Not 20? No, you are requested - who am I kidding, you're commanded - to work the swatch exactly as dictated. Or she will know. She always knows.

Which I did. The correct swatching count, I mean. This in itself was a first for Celtic Memory. OK, yes, I do swatch. I've claimed to do so before, so I probably do. But my swatches tend to be worked in a happy-go-lucky, oh-that's-near-enough sort of way. The Irish approach, if you like. (The most popular phrase in this country, and the one which was the despair of the nice kind English who tried for so long to civilise us into their ways, is 'Ah 'twill do.') I dutifully cast on the requisite 31. I worked under the daylight lamp to keep an eye on the tiny stitches. All right, I didn't go the full 44. After 22 I reasoned I'd done quite enough. I cast off (bound off for Statesiders). I washed the tiny little red scrap. I draped it to dry alongside half a dozen skeins of organic Irish fingering weight destined for shawl kits. This morning I brought it up into the warm sunlight of the solar (really the upstairs sitting room which faces south and gets any sunshine that's going, oh and somebody asked what a solar was: it was an upstairs room in a Tudor or Elizabethan manor house which had big windows so the ladies could have both warmth from the sun and good light to do their needlework) and laid it out neatly to take its measurements. No, I didn't block it, there are limits even to my good humour (who laughed? OUT of here, you!)

Oh dear.

Oh deary deary deary dear. Oh 'eck.

Whimper.

I'd made gauge. In fact the eagle-eyed among you may suggest that I was slightly under gauge, but that could be due to my omission of the blocking procedure. Whatever.

It's the first time in my life I have ever made Starmore gauge.

And you know what that means, don't you?

Now I have to try the confounded (can I say 'confounded' on Ravelry? Are the kids in bed?) thing yet again, with this new yarn which I now realise came into my hands by no accident.

No escape.

As I suggested in the title of this posting, there is a dreadful inevitability about this project.

More on the Eriskay Epic as it unfolds. It will distress, it will frighten, it will hold children from their play and old men from the chimney corner. But it must be told.

You think if I went up to the Isle of Lewis with a big box of Irish chocolates....?

Now, we were talking about Birgit's lovely designs earlier on. When I looked at her site (thanks Lilly) I noticed some beautiful neckwarmers there. Now until recently I hadn't really noticed neckwarmers, or maybe they hadn't been quite as much in evidence, it being the wrong season and all. But now it's the right season and I think these are a great idea. They can look elegant and add a touch of bright colour while at the same time keeping neck and chest extra snug. So Celtic Memory has decided she can't live without one. Or two or three.

In fact I have downloaded several from Ravelry over the past week, and then saw Knitspot's utterly covetable Spiraluscious and fell in love instantly.

This is Anne's picture, not mine, but I'm sure she won't mind my showing it to you, do you Anne? I mean, dozens more people are going to want to rush out and buy it this instant, so that can't be bad, can it?

Thing is, Celtic Memory is planning a quick short trip to Estonia in December, and suspects that neckwarmers will be rather useful there at this time of year. Not to mention thick double-knit woolly hats, kneesocks over the silk thermals, and ski pants. (Anybody got a good pattern for a quick-knit double-thick hat?) And so both this neckwarmer and the Elsebeth Lavold Mathilde are going to be worked on without delay.

Reading Lene's blog the other day reminded me that I hadn't checked out Twist Collective in ages, so went over and had a look. And fell like a ton of bricks for this -

Yes, that small image was all it took. You can see the full picture on the Twist Collective site. It's called Stormsvale, and I have just the right yarn for it.

In fact two. These skeins are both from rescue cones, both pure Shetland-spun fingering weight. The one on the left is called, I think, Maelstrom, and the one on the right, Pinewood. My photograph does not do justice to the subtle shadings in both yarns. The cones were, as usual, dusty and a bit oily, but oh the way the yarns bloomed when given a gentle wash would do your heart good. It did.

Not that mad about colourwork (did it when younger of course, but went off it in recent years); however, if anything were to bring me back into the colourwork fold, it would be Stormsvale. Doesn't look like a quick weekend knit exactly though, does it?

The next image has nothing whatsoever to do with knitting. I just thought you'd like to see it.

And yet, maybe it's not completely unrelated. The mug mat on the right with its endearing off-centre heart, is a souvenir of the little town of Cheticamp in Nova Scotia, home of the hooked rug, while the pincushion on the left cost me just €2.99 in a local Christmas shop the other day. Backed with velvet, the top is fine suede, two layers of it, the pale biscuit delicately cut to reveal the moss green underneath. Even the little hanging loop is made of suede. I couldn't think why I should buy it, and turned away several times, but came back because of the delicacy of its work. It was only when I brought it home and put it down accidentally on this wooden stool that I realised why I'd bought it. Don't they belong together? And how the heck can something so beautiful cost so little at the end of what must have been a fairly long journey - from the furthest reaches of Asia, I suspect?

Did get round to trying that merino/bamboo/nylon blend on the Kromski this morning.

Quite pleased with it so far. Oddly enough, although too much twist was always the problem on the Orkney, with the Kromski I don't seem to be giving it quite enough twist. I suspect both have to do with tension - will have to go experimenting and twiddling to see if each can adjust a little. Always nerve-racking adjusting tension. Advice and guidance, as always, welcomed. And while I'm at it, what on earth is Scotch tension? I have the wherewithal for it (apparently) on the Kromski, but no idea on earth how to operate it.

Lovely sunny if chilly and frosty day again today.

Muffy the Yarnslayer helped with the leaf pile

while Sophy Wackles thought long long thoughts on the driveway.

And lastly, a special treat for all of you, my good friends, tonight, courtesy of DH, still the most brilliant and instinctive photographer I know. I'd been expecting this to turn up in tomorrow night's skies, but when I went up to draw the curtains in the sitting room, I saw it and shrieked for him to come with his camera. I ran for my own Nikon, but he said, hurrying past, 'Don't even think about it, you'd need a tripod and slow exposure and...' Gosh, I panic when he talks techie!

The new crescent moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter. Isn't that beyond words?