Forgetful

A couple of weeks ago, perhaps triggered by the new Conan movie publicity, I remembered having read a really good short story, not a classic, but something from the early pulp era that was just good entertainment. I wanted to re-read it, but I had no idea of the title, author or even the name of the characters, just that the setting had something to do with Atlantis and the main character's wife was from somewhere else, like maybe Mu or Lemuria. Anyway, I read a lot of interesting Wikipedia pages about fantasy authors, but nothing that led to this particular story. So I gave up, having no further clues to investigate.

Then the other day, I was looking over P's Michael Moorcock collection for the one with the pearl and the girl in the tent (that would be enough to figure out which book I'm looking for if Mr Moorcock hadn't written a bazillion books) when I noticed the words "Edited by Lin Carter" on Flashing Swords! 2 (exclamation point in the title, I wasn't that excited at the time). That's one of the interesting early fantasy authors I had read about in my short story search. Curious, I opened the book, and the first story was the one I had remembered so vaguely: L Sprage de Camp's The Rug and The Bull. I read it on the bus yesterday and it is as good as I remembered.

Perhaps it's my age, but I do find it marvellous how much information is available on the internet, and I'm also amazed at how challenging it is to find the exact information I'm after. Though I should add that I've not been at my sharpest for a while. I'm not sure if that's due to work related stress, the weather, too much/little tea, or what; but as I'm not at my sharpest, it's probably not the best time to try to figure it out. However, after the triumph of finding the story, I'm hoping things will perk up again, and maybe I'll feel up to finishing that embroidery I put down almost two months ago.

Indigo-slow

I feel I'm in a bit of a rut blog-wise, always starting with a picture then a bit of text, but I also don't have any better layout ideas at the moment, so here's the picture:

That's the ingredients for my current project. A few years ago, the Manchester branch of the Embroiderers Guild made yellow squares as part of a rainbow squares project for a regional meeting. Now we've decided to do the rest of the rainbow. I signed up to make an indigo square. My basic idea is to couch swirls of threads taken from some old denim. In my imagination it looks a bit like Van Gogh's Starry Night. I suspect that the reality will be a bit less impressive, but I'm curious to see what it ends up like. Not so curious that I'm working really hard at it, though. I pulled the ingredients together on Sunday night, but it was only today that the stitching got started.

Finished project: knitted rug

I’ll do this project review in reverse order, because the ugly bit is the most interesting. The above image is the finished knitted rag rug I’ve been working on for ages. When I put it down on the floor, I thought “Nice. Especially like the red stripes.” When my P saw it, he said “It’s hideous.” (Our relationship is obviously built on honesty.) Though I like the colours, I can see how they wouldn’t appeal to everyone, and I already knew the person I share my life with does have different colour preferences. Usually we can find something we are both happy with. But what to do in this case? I don’t want to throw it out, but I also don’t want to force something hideous on my loved one. So, this project has in the end turned into a prototype. We’ll see how it works for a while (Does it slip too much? Does it wash well? Does it hold together? Does P get used to it after all?), then if we think we do want a knitted rag rug, I’ll let P choose which fabrics for me to use.

Now for the good: The knitted rug feels great. Even P said it feels good underfoot. It also uses up a lot of fabric. I think it took 2 yards plus an old shirt. I put this into the ‘good’ category because I really do have too much fabric at the moment.

The bad: It’s still a bit small as a rug. At 40 stitches, it barely fit on the needles I was using. Cloth doesn’t scrunch up as well as yarn, and some stitches popped off the needles (though I think I caught them all). When getting off the bus, I would have to stop towards the middle of a row to make sure the loops would all stay on the needles. Because I mixed three fabrics fairly randomly, I just knitted until it was all used up and I don't think it would work to add another section in totally different fabric to make the rug longer.

It's not given me a feeling of satisfaction to have it finished, but I think I'm just a bit tired of knitting. I’m having a day off tomorrow, but plan to start and exciting new embroidery project on Monday!

Bit too small

I've not been working hard on the knitting, but it seemed to be going along alright. The patterns and colours are blending nicely, and the texture of the knit feels great. Then I took a look at where I'm planning to put the rug, and it's just a bit too small. Those are my P's boots in the picture, to give a sense of scale. After a bit of thinking, I've decided to unravel it and start again, but cast on 1.5 to 2 times as many stitches to start with, something closer to 50 stitches than 25. I'm not in a rush.

I've also been slowed down in the knitting by reading "After Dark" by Haruki Murakami. I just picked it up at the library because I liked the cover, but it's a great read. I was a bit, I think the term is nonplussed, though that is exaggerating, to discover Mr Murakami is such a popular and influential author, as I honestly hadn't a clue about his work. I liked the book so much that I rationed it, forcing myself to only read it for a little while at a time, to make it last longer.

Leave it to the professionals

Self sufficiency is over rated. Though I instinctively admire the rugged frontiersmen and make do and menders, it isn’t just that it is difficult to be self sufficient, it’s also not that good. Interconnectedness is where it’s at.

Here’s my little-bit-of-life to illustrate the point. My P had a pair of trousers that he liked, but the zipper was broken. Somehow a few teeth were missing, so it was either throw out an otherwise perfectly good item of clothing, or find a way to replace the zip. Now, I can sew, but zippers intimidate me, and replacing zippers on trousers is just way to hard, but buttons, snaps or Velcro just won’t do. So the trousers languished, neatly folded, for around a year or two. I considered looking on the internet for tutorials on zippers, but I just knew it would be too hard. I’ll admit it here now: Not only can I not replace a zip, I will never be able to, not in my entire life. And that’s o.k.

But having an un-wearable pair of trousers just hanging around isn’t o.k. So, what to do? Pay someone else to mend them! I’d passed the sign for Suzanne’s Stitch and Sew in Stockport several times on lunch break shopping expeditions, so I knew the service was available, but somehow paying to have clothes mended felt odd, like my grandmother would be spinning in her grave. When I finally psyched myself up and took the trousers in, I was really happy with the price, the service and the end result. So, with a bit of not-doing-it-yourself, I have what I think of as a successful mending project. It’s off my to-do list and back in P’s closet; what more could I want?

Finished project: Make Do and Mend bag

Looking back, I started working on patching my Make do and Mend bag almost exactly one year ago. It feels longer, possilby because it was written on every to-do list for a year. Yesterday, I finally finished stitching the new lining in. This morning, I used it around the shops and going to the People's History Museum, and it held up just fine.

Those aren't the bag handles sticking up- there's a brown bag with my current knitting project inside the Make do and Mend bag; the edge is just visible on the needles. The knitting hasn't been done on the bus, but I have been putting together the strips of fabric and winding it into a ball of "yarn" while commuting, and on the train after visiting a friend in Disley. It isn't easy to knit with fabric yarn, but it does feel nice.

The other side of the bag has some green and pink embroidery in a blackwork pattern.

Overall, I'm happy with the project and I think I'll enjoy using the bag again. It did drag on. When I started, I didn't realize I would need to line the bag. The lining was hard to figure out, and I'm sure there's better ways of doing it, but at least it is done. I have a new favourite phrase (from English as she is spoke), "A bad arrangement is better than a process." It describes my crafting a bit too well.

finished string of threads

It's been a while, but finally some progress to report. When I finally got around to cutting the toggles, I really enjoyed the whole making process, but the best bit is just having the thing done:

Originally, I was thinking of this as a garland or banner, much fancier than the finished object which I am now referring to as a string of threads. I didn't trust myself to choose a good fabric for a banner, but simplifying it to just a white crochet chain made it feel do-able again. It does look cheerful, but the test will be if it encourages me to embroider more.

I've not been very crafty lately, on or off the bus. Some of that is just indecision. I have a real problem with using stuff up. For example, I have an idea to make a rug by knitting up some fabric strips. The internet has some fancy patterns, but I just want a simple project, preferable one without counting. So, just a simple knit, using up some of my stashed fabric (especially a particularly, um, difficult purple print), and getting a honestly useful small rug for the hall. Last weekend, I even did a little test piece, to check how knitting with fabric works (yes, it is harder than yarn, but not too difficult). I like how the knitted texture makes the fabric a much gentler colour. But rather than starting in on cutting the fabric, I started worrying that if I used it all on a knitted rug, I wouldn't be able to use it on any other potential project I may want to make in the future. Not on anything I'm already planning, but on some ambiguous possibility. This is not a helpful way of thinking. So after a week of really pointless delay, I'm going to force myself to just get on with the project. Here's a look at what I'll be working with: