I wrote this post last week, but couldn’t post it because my internet was down. Better late than never, I guess. Hope you’re all enjoying 2010. :)

At last the chaos of the festive season is over. The decorations are neatly packed in boxes for another year, the leftover turkey is (finally) finished – though there are still enough mince pies to last another month or two – and you can actually walk through Tesco’s at a reasonable pace. Ahhh. I got some lovely presents this Christmas, including the ‘Never Not Knitting’ page-a-day calendar, the Yarn Harlot’s ‘Free Range Knitter’, and a stitch dictionary (a knitter’s dream, surely). I’ve never had a page-a-day calendar before. There’s something both satisfying and terrifying about ripping away days and throwing them in the recycling bin. I also borrowed ‘Twilight’ from my cousins and spent boxing day reading it when I probably should have been interacting with my extended family. Oops.

I’m very excited because I have about 5 pages of new year’s resolutions (so far).* It’s a list I can turn to if I ever feel like I’m stagnating. All the items are easy and fun to accomplish, and I can take some sort of action towards them immediately, even if it’s just a bit of googling, but each one is part of the “grand plan”. I encourage you to give this a go. Don’t just make resolutions like, “Eat less” or “work less”, make your resolutions compelling and simple so you can’t wait to fulfill them!

Last year I also tried the idea of having a word that I could mull & ponder & use, which was ‘enthusiast’ (not ‘enthusiastic’ or ‘enthusiasm’). I found it very helpful, so I’ve decided to pick one for 2010. My guiding phrase for this year is ‘travelling light’, which I feel is a great metaphor that I can apply to any area I need: travel, photography, eating & drinking, dressing, living, working, etc. It also happens to be the name of one of my favourite JJ Cale songs (’Travelin’ Light’ to be precise).

To top it all off, here’s a PDF I cobbled together for myself. It’s 4 little cards that you can use to write notes in, things you want to think about every day; maybe the values you want to live by, your new year’s resolutions, actions you want to remember to take every day to Raise Your Standards. I’m sorry the picture isn’t terribly suitable. I wanted to represent a “standard-bearer”, but I wasn’t prepared to spend 40 hours trying to draw one. Just imagine yourself lifting your standard high above your head for all to see, as you march forward to conquer. :)

*I posted a few of them on 43Things.

Every morning for the last four five weeks I’ve woken up with the best intentions. I would write a blog post. A blog post of such searing erudition and delight that every knitter who read it would never more see knitting in the same way. A blog post of such hilarity that there would be knitters everywhere giggling at the most inopportune moments of daily work, causing chaos in traffic and disrupting important meetings. Every day I’ve been blindsided by trivialities such as driving lessons, dentist appointments, gardening, a trip to the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth, several inspirational TED Talks, guitar playing, the snooker, bright shiny objects, impromptu cinema visits, too many good books, etc, etc. Which only compounds my belief that it’s the small, insidious, day-to-day things that you need to watch out for, and be on your guard against. And now here I am, writing this rather humble, vaguely uninteresting post… But thank you to all you lovely readers who wrote to inquire after my absence; it was entirely unintentional!

Penelope & the Suitors by John William Waterhouse

When I haven’t been very blatantly procrastinating, I’ve been a bit like Penelope (excepting the suitors, oh and the weaving), knitting by day and undoing it all by night. I’ve been pretty patient about it though, and I presumptuously attribute this to the fact that I am now no longer a “beginner”. Ripping out huge chunks of knitting, or knitting an enormous swatch just because you don’t feel like stopping – these are not actions that non-knitters or “persons who knit”, seem to understand. They stare at me in horror when I tell them it’s all got to go. All that lovely work! So I’ve taken to ripping alone and unseen, because I’m a little bored with explaining… “No really, it’s OK. It’ll save me work in the future. Besides, this is one of the best things about knitting!” I secretly suspect that Penelope loved the process of weaving as much as she loved Odysseus, or why would she hit on such a solution?

As to why my knitting wasn’t working out… It was really amazingly simple, when I stopped trying to do it the wrong way. Fortunately, Rowan Scottish Tweed is a hardy yarn that doesn’t mind a good deal of frogging and re-knitting. It’s also very rustic & well-suited to keeping warm in the country. I’m testing it right now. :)

I took some shots today and the pattern should be up soon. It will be a perfect present for gentlemen (or ladies) for whom you can’t easily find gifts. If you can guess what it is, you can get a free copy! ;)

November is a busy month. There’s National Novel Writing Month, for a start. Writing a 50,000 word novel in a month is a feat I’ve accomplished twice before. It’s utterly mad, and utterly fun; you must join if only to receive the pep talks from Chris Baty & other famous authors. And if you do, don’t forget to add me as your writing buddy! Also in November is the illustrious WoollyWormhead’s Mystery Beret. How exciting! I think these two challenges will complement each other perfectly, and help me forget about the increasing gloom of winter…

shh… I’m working very hard! Really!

Your life has all the makings of an idyll.
Have a wonderful week! :)

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” – Henry Ford

L is for… lenses, licence, L-plates, and… learning. I must admit I’ve never been particularly keen to learn to drive. In fact, I’m not sure there is any mode of transport I enjoy more than my own two protractile propulsion agents. But.. driving is a pretty handy thing to know how to do, and besides, I’ve found I’m addicted to the process of learning. So I had my first driving lesson on Monday. In contrast to my driving habits, I like to learn as quickly and obsessively as possible, so I’m doing an intensive course. Steering down that rather busy, rather narrow road was probably the scariest thing I’ve done since I saved the cottage from burning down. Clearly I need to do more scary things.

It was a relief when I could dismount (if that is what one does?) and have a nice slow, ambling, pedestrian walk by the river Severn.

My L-plates remind me of this sweet illustration in Mary Thomas’s Knitting Book. I think if we had to wear a great big ‘L’ on our back whenever we were new to something, we’d learn pretty quickly. Still, I would have preferred D-plates.* D for Derya! D for daring, dexterous, and delightful. D for dangerous, like knitting (#100)!

Learning is a dangerous business. You face your fear of one of the worst Ls: looking like a Loser. But there’s a very easy solution to that, which also begins with ‘L’: Laughter. Laughing at yourself and the silly circumstances is the best thing to do when you trip up. In fact, it’s the only way forward! If there’s something you’ve always dismissed off-hand as unworthy of learning, whether it’s how to neaten your selvedges, or how to write poetry, make some time to try it. Learning Leads to many happy discoveries. Don’t grow old!

I’m off to have lunch now, and practice steering with my plate. Vroom vroom…

P.S. I wanted to thank the Simply Knitting Blog for featuring Laylock. SK was the first magazine I bought when I was learning, and I still have the first issue. :)

* D-plates are used in Wales instead of L-plates. D stands for ‘dysgwr’, which I cannot pronounce.

A gift is not worth giving unless you’d rather keep it yourself.

I read this long ago in a novel and since then I’m reminded of it every time I’m buying a gift, or trying hard to convince myself not to part with it. For example, I bought a couple skeins of Debbie Bliss SoHo the other day, which I believe is now discontinued. It’s in that ingenius blue/lilac combination and oh, what a cool hat I could make with it. Something floppy for an autumn pallette of browns, blues, and purples. Siigh.

But I restrained myself (really, I did!). They were the last two left in the yarn shop, and they’re now safe in the hands of a very capable knitter, who will doubtless make something fabulous out of them.

You may remember the gift tags (with garment care symbols on the back) from a while back. They were one of my gifts to you. :) Well you loved them so much that I decided to extend them into a whole range of printable knitty goodies for gift-giving. You can download it here. The PDF file is stuffed with everything I could think of that you could possibly need to give, send, present, yield, lend, donate, surrender, devote, label, write, organise, entrust, relinquish, pass down, bequeath or swap:

• Labels
• Gift Tags
• Writing paper
• Notecards
• Envelope
• Stickers
• Bookmarks
• Bookplates
• Wrappers
• Sleeves
• Small sleeves
• Pillowboxes
• Straight sheaths
• DPN sheaths
• Yarn bag
• Tips & tricks for printing, cutting, and construction.

You can view all the photos here on Flickr. I hope you enjoy them. I have at least one more collection planned, with useful things like calendars, index cards, invites, etc. Suggestions are most welcome!

Well may you ask! When I came back to Turkey for a few months, I hadn’t realised that a combination of heat, intermittent internet, and a general lassitude would keep me away from work for so long. Many events have passed unrecorded, including my birthday, and the Skein Queen contest I won, to name one of her gorgeous colourways. The name I entered was ‘Summerhouse Love’, and it’s fairly descriptive of my current state. Ironically, I must await my return to Wales to fondle the Plushness, but the cool colours will be a reminder of my indolent summer days. I had already treated myself to a hank of Skein Queen yarn for my birthday (look at Deb’s gorgeous packaging! I admired it for a long time before I let myself open it), along with a tiny hank of Artist’s Palette ‘Glisten’. Really, the difficulty of the larger questions of life (its meaning, what one should do with it, etc.) pale in comparison with the painful hours of deciding which colourway of handpainted yarn to purchase.

Much of my time has been spent reading, listening to Cole Porter songs, taking photos of congruous colours, and of course, doing a lot of mindless knitting. These socks are now finished, though it’s too hot to wear them.

I mentioned in my entry to the Skein Queen competition, how much I love summerhouse novels. Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Proust’s Swann’s Way (the only one of the series I’ve managed to read so far), and Colette’s Ripening Seed are the chief ones that occur to me. To a lesser extent perhaps von Arnim’s The Enchanted April (which I suppose is not summer), Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Forster’s A Room with a View, and maybe even Bellow’s Herzog, though they’re all very different books. Admittedly A Room with a View doesn’t even involve a house, but it is still one of my favourites.

And if you’re looking for musical accompaniment, here is my Cole Porter mixtape:

1. I Concentrate on You by Frances Wayne
2. I Loved Him but He Didn’t Love Me by Kaye Ballard
3. Get Out of Town by Chris Connor
4. Night and Day by Ella Fitzgerald
5. Just One of Those Things by Diana Krall
6. I’m in Love Again by Bobby Short
7. The Laziest Gal in Town by Marlene Dietrich
8. Where Have You Been? by Judy Holliday

So close to your side I’ll stay,
You can never say,
“Baby, where have you been?”

Here is the latest Laylock design, taking a well-earned rest on the lawn. I wanted to design a versatile everyday shawl with DK-weight yarn, because those are the shawls I use most. Lace shawls are very pretty and enjoyable to knit, but when the chilly breezes blow (as they frequently do in Britain, winter or summer), this is the shawl I’d want around my shoulders. I loved knitting it because the garter stitch is so quick and simple that you can knit while you read and finish it in a weekend! The way the lace edging fits together reminds me of a dovetail joint, and of course I had to knit it in ‘dove grey’. The pattern will be available soon, though if you’re interested in being a test knitter, email me and you could get it sooner. Thanks, test knitters, I’ll be in touch very soon! I think the shawl would also look lovely with a wider border, or with a border of a different colour. Perhaps even striped garter stitch with a plain coloured border. Seeing as the heat wave in the UK is forecast to end tomorrow, I think I’ll be needing my Dovetail Shawl very soon.

I’ve said goodbye to Wales for a few months. On my last day I had the perfect pleasure of the first ripe strawberry of the year, and a glass (or two) of rosé. Mmm…

“Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in her fingers while she talks.”
- T.S. Eliot, ‘Portrait of a Lady’

Few things are as uplifting as a bunch of lilacs in a room. Even when you’re not looking at them, their scent still surprises you. Being able to pick them myself from the garden is a priceless pleasure. And even after the lilac flowers have gone over, I love seeing the name ‘Laylock’, and remembering the inspiration this plant offers. What a delightful business growth model lilacs would make! Graceful, profuse, colourful, robust, and full of heart.

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle……and from this bush in the door-yard,
With delicate-color’d blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
A sprig, with its flower, I break.
- Walt Whitman, ‘When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d’