More Books to Read In Between Your Knitting

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Why is it when I buy books as presents for other people it takes me ages before I read it myself? I bought this for my Sister-in-Law ages ago and she raved about it.

If you think this might be a political story about events in the Middle East you feel tired of reading about in the news, you would be wrong. It is a very personal and moving story of two close friends who are separated by political events, but also by one of their actions and their ethnic origins. The narrator of the story, one of these boys is no hero. Haunted by his past, he has to go back to Afghanistan in his 30's and find redemption for his previous actions.

What a story though! Several times I was moved to watery eyes. I thoroughly recommend this as compulsive reading for any 21st century book lover. I am going to read Hosseini's 2nd novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns which is also receiving awards and accolades.

Regeneration by Pat Barker

This is a novel about healing of those who have suffered great trauma of the mind in the First World War. It is accurately based on case studies and experiences of officers being treated in a psychiatric unit for a variety of war neuroses brought on by shell shock. The descriptions of the soldier's experiences are shocking as expected. What I found very interesting about this, was the disparity of two attitudes when approaching how to treat these patients. The officers are encouraged to talk about their experiences; in fact this is probably the birth of psychotherapy as we know it today. The idea is that bad memories that are repressed, that a soldier is not allowed to feel will resurface as a neurotic physical complaint. In contrast, some non commissioned officers are based in a hospital in which the treatment is to shock them back into health. There is a terrifying but real account of a soldier who cannot speak, but is forced to speak by being given a series of punishing electrical shocks and is told they will continue until he does speak and he is not to leave the room until he has 'performed' satisfactorily.

The novel also includes a fictional account of a real event; the meeting of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen the well known World War I poets. Sassoon is having treatment after having lodged a soldier's appeal to Parliament as an objection to the continuance of a stale mate War.

The impressions this novel left with me, was that this war brought together classes in close proximity in a way that had not happened before. Young officers from the gentry, had a real love and responsibility for their men, thrown together with them in much the same conditions in the trenches. Obviously, we know that the well seasoned officers stayed well back from the front line, and so class distinctions there divided men into those who survived, and those who did not and could not.

I found the style of the writing quite masculine in a way, and very much of that period. I did not feel as if a modern novelist, a female had tried to write a contemporary account of this time. I very much felt that being an academic historian, her research was thorough and confident and was not at all ostentatious so despite the stodgy subject matter, this novel for me flowed. You can read more about her by clicking on this link for Pat Barker

Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann

What an awful title! But the novel is more promising. This novel is split between two parts. There is the contemporary part and a young person's struggle to com to terms with their grief and a father's attempts to connect and give that person a sense of their own place and history which had been denied to them. Then there is the period part, set in the early stages of World War II i.e. The Great War. Imprisoned in Siberia, the character narrating this part of the story escapes and starts a long journey home to his sweetheart Lotte. The descriptions of battle are as gory and typical of a Sebastian Faulks or Pat Barker novel, so no surprises there. I loved this part of the story and wanted to return to it impatiently when I read the contemporary part, although I found it slightly disappointing that the journey was so full of detail and adventure and made on foot up to a point, and then towards the end he suddenly gets on a train and is transported very quickly for the last part of the journey.

A friend recently commented that novelists, who write great stories, can struggle when it comes to the ending and that she often does not enjoy a book with clumsy endings. Ever since she said that, I have been super critical of the 'great' books I have been reading and ever conscious of the fact that a meaty detailed story does not end satisfactorily.

Engleby by Sebastian Faulks

I sat down and read this novel in a couple of days, I couldn’t put it down.

The story narrated by the main character Engleby contains so much coldness, loneliness and bitter wit I couldn't help but sympathise. Actually, not only did I sympathise but I agreed with some of his observations. This became very alarming towards the end, when it is revealed that his thought processes could be analysed professionally as psychotic!

I respected the nostalgic but caustic look at the decades of the 70's and 80's in which I grew up and recognised some to the work ethics and attitudes he so intelligently describes. This is not a colourful, warm, flared trousers with hippy music and psychedelic drugs type of period novel. It contains all the coldness and austerity of the strikes in Britain, Thatcher's era and the struggle of the working classes who try to better themselves.

I can only say that despite the intensity of the writing and the page turning quality of this novel, it left me feeling a bit depressed and I had to question my reasons for reading it. When I was younger I would have put enjoyment further down the list below education and enlightenment when it came to my reading. However, I don't get an opportunity to share discuss or use that education now, so I prefer novels that transport me away from myself and my own experiences. This novel reminded me of everything that had happened in my own insignificant little existence growing up in Britain, going to boarding school and finally further education.

However, simmering below the detail and observation there is a thrilling mystery story, although I can say I knew what had happened a long time before the shocking revelation.

Read this when you are in a good mood, and not when you could easily be influenced into an episode of depression!

Innovative Knitting

There has been some interesting discussions with regard to innovation within knitting technique on one of the publishing forums and I thought I would document some of my thoughts here. Dotted around, are some photos of the more bizarre side of the craft just to break up the text.

I am self taught, and have some odd little practices and techniques that have arisen out of wanting a particular shape or stitch pattern.. When I want to create things, especially 3D type of stuff in crochet, I will look at my sketch, or a real life object and I will somehow do what is necessary to create the thing I want and it might not be a conventional way of doing it or something that has been done before.

However, a lot of these things have not had a public airing. When they have, either a publication has edited my technique to enter a standard and well know way of getting something similar or it has been published, but I have had plenty of queries asking for more explanation of how to do that e.g. doing Intarsia in the round, which is not technically possible but I have achieved some in a most peculiar way!

I am not saying so much I am totally original and innovative in the way a finished piece looks, but my ways and means of getting there may have been invented for me to achieve it. I am still in the process of experimenting to try and come up with stitches and lace patterns no-one else has ever done, but in the main even if I invent these things for myself, I will find some old article of ancient stitch libraries and found someone had perhaps come up with the same stitch a couple of hundred years ago, so I have only re-invented it.



Someone somewhere, without being taught had to have invented knitting in the first place! Then historically other techniques, would have got buried, and through the process of human beings having the same approaches, would have re-invented this but in exactly the same method. I wonder what would happen if there was an apocalypse ony a few of us survived,collectively as a race we know how to purify water, make our own clothes, buildour own houses and make electricity but individually we don't, but we would reinvent these things in time. So I feel the same for people knitting in a vacuum before the internet, we invented stuff for ourselves that perhaps other people were doing simultaneously. A good example of this, is the magic loop method of knitting on a circular, or the 2 circular method. I worked this out on my own with no instruction not even knowing such a method existed before the internet was available and I owned only 2 knitting pamphlets that were my grannies and post war and basic.


Necessity is the mother of invention. I thought I was a clever cloggs for a while, then discovered other people had been doing exactly the same simultaneously without any connection between us. When I discovered these ways of knitting in the round elsewhere, there were modifications that made it a bit easier than my own method, so sharing it had improved it as far as those inventors were concerned.

I did a similar things with knitting some socks, not having done any before as a teenager, I just sort of invented my own shaping and knitted them on 2 needles, and they worked and had no sewing necessary. But, now I can find those similar methods anywhere and it is not original.

When I learned in theory, about doing short rows with wraps it was just words in my ears and quite stupidly I sat down and knitted my first pair of socks with short row heels, without reading any instructions. Then, when I published a sock pattern, I had to make sure that what I did was standard so tried out other people's methods, and I didn't have as much success as with my own, but as I didn't write it down, lost the knack of what I did before I allowed other methods to muddy my waters!




Picture Sources
1. and 4. Body Technology Interfaces Knitting
2. Freddie Robins
3. Early Egyptian Knitted Sock
4. Chicken Viking Hat

MagKnits has gone!

If you were looking for Erssie Major's free patterns from Magknits, you can still get a free download. Email erssiemajor@yahoo.co.uk as these patterns will be available from the end of April 2008 onwards. I am having these patterns republished on a different site, but definitely free to knitters. Apologies for leading you here, the archives of MagKnits are not available to the designers yet and we didn't know this was going to happen.

Vintage Magknits! Bee Hat and Booties by Erssie Major

Free updated version of Pattern coming soon

Email: erssiemajor@yahoo.co.uk

This was a bit of a shock to me. I usually check Magknits round about the 1st of the month, rarely in the middle. A reader hoping to get hold of one of my MagKnits patterns, told me it no longer existed.

It seems a shame that it has closed so suddenly, without access to archives or some sort of memoriam at least for the readers who enjoyed it. For designers too, especially for me, this has happened at a bad time without warning. It does mean that my Ravelry records need updating, and that I don't have links to free patterns for knitters for those designs and I apologise for that. It means I have to check biographies that went out to anyone where my work is under submission, as it won't look good when links to previous work will come up as NOT FOUND!

There are more than likely designers out there, who still don't know that their published work is no longer public. I noticed the holding page mentioned that designers were advised for March and April, and at first glance it reads that we were contacted in those months, but no, only those designers who had current designs in the recent issue were told, not previous designers.

Cinderella & Skywatcher Baby Socks

Magknits pattern available free
if you email me

There will be archived patterns on the Yarn Forward site and I am considering whether to have them hosted there, or elsewhere depending on how long it takes as I want them to be up again by 1st of May. Yarn Forward have contacted me since this post to let me know that is what they intend to do.

Anyway, firstly I am tidying up all links so that readers don't get annoyed at reaching dead ends. bear with me.

G8 Mother and Daughter Hats
MagKnits pattern is still free if you email me
I am thinking of doing some variations on this, with African patterns

I will supply these patterns free to anyone who emails me and if they are hosted by someone else in the future, they will still be free to the knitters. I just need a few days from now though to tidy things up.

Still can't get over the sudden removal of MagKnits, I always imagined that archives would remain as a static element and would have thought that links to archives could be a good way to bring those Magknits readers people to the Yarn Forward magazine.

There are always changes in the backgrounds of businesses. They may have branches of it closing, new staff, a takeover etc but I think the trick is to have a smooth transition from one to the other, without customers even noticing the joins. If YF can get free patterns up in their archives, that could only be a good thing. MagKnits could become 'vintage'!

Knitting and Hounds

I have just finished reading my own yarn reviews below, and nearly fell asleep! I must have been in a really serious state of mind on the day I wrote those (note to self: I must condense my yarny opinions into one or two sentences).

I thought as an antidote, I could put up some of the photos that have come through for my new gallery on Flickr;Gorgeous Greyhounds that are of interest to crafters too. As well as normal doggie shots, there are pics of greyhounds and knitting and crochet. These are just a few of the pics people have taken of their Italian Greyhounds wearing a scaled down version of the Dizzy Lily Snood. Look at cute little Froggy in the green one!

Here are some lifesize crochet hounds that I would definitely be making if I had more time.

Here is a rather stylish Crochet aran sweater for a greyhound



Lastly, this is a hilarious little misty valentine's pic by Greyhound Crafts of their crochet hounds, but they look exactly like Dizzy and Lily!
I have mentioned elsewhere so forgive the cross post, that Dizzy's littermates are now coming up for adoption as they are at that age to retire from racing. Dizzy's brother Osmosis Joe and his sister, both chocolate (dark) brindles are now in Essex Greyhound Rescue's kennels and are looking for a home together. They are 4yrs old, I will post more details after I have met them and photographed them and the other hounds available for adoption.

If you know anyone or hear of anyone who is thinking of adopting a dog,tell them a greyhound makes a lovely pet. They are so cuddly and willing to please. I think Dizzy's litter will go quickly, because of their good looks and unusual marking as well as their bouncy happy temperaments. Not all dogs are so lucky, especially the black ones which are much harder to rehome.

Some Yarn Reviews

I have tried a variety of commercial yarns recently and was lucky enough to get some yarns donated so was not totally guided by budget. Rather than put up reviews of yarns, and moan about their negative qualities, I am going to list some of my favourite factory yarns and why I like to work with them.

I think in the world of blogging factory yarns get a raw deal and people prefer to go on about the unique qualities of hand spun. However, as a designer, quite often yarns have to be available Worldwide, they have to be machine washable with a guarantee of no dye run and you need to know you can rely on them to deliver. Making things for a publisher with a short deadline is not a time to be experimenting, although that can be done in my free time.

The qualities of factory yarns are consistent and I have had few problems of shrinkage, dye run have found that suppliers generally don't let me down. Also, although I would love to promote British Wool producers and spinners, many of them are not open to donation for publishing jobs and these days publishers will not write a budget in for yarns.

Debbie Bliss Rialto Aran
100% Extra Fine Merino Wool 87 ½ yds (80m)/ 1 ¾ oz (50g)
18sts/24 rows to 10cm on 5mm needles
This is a superfine Superwash merino. I can’t tell you the technical term for the way it is spun, but I can say that it looks like it is made up of spirals around a central strand and seems to have air in the middle of the strand. There are quite a few yarns out there at the moment that seem to have been spun in this way and it makes it light and spongy and you can get some beautiful stitch definition. There is a sheen to the knitted fabric and it looks clean and non fuzzy. Beware though, as this really would show up any uneven stitches. However, the spongy texture of the yarn allows for a stitch to expand and fill the space so stitches look neat and tight at any gauge, whether knitted on 4.5 mm (US7) or 5 mm (US8). The colour range started out being a little on the strong or bright side so ideal for kids. However it has expanded and now has more subtle and dark shades, although when I checked recently I was struck by the fact there was no grey. They yarn is also available as Debbie Bliss Rialto DK and has fewer shades in this gauge of yarn

Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk Aran

75% Extra Fine Merino Wool, 20% silk, 5% cashmere 86m / 50g ball
18sts/24 rows to 10cm on 5mm needles
This yarn is a good substitute for Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. It has fewer shades and no brights as such although it has a strong red. Because this yarn contains silk, it can look a little crumpled whilst working with it compared with a pure merino, and looks a little worrying, but when it has been laundered or very lightly pressed the stitches do even out. I am told it is a joy to wear, and it does not seem to cause any irritation in my niece and nephew who suffer from eczema. This is also available in DK with more shades, and Baby DK which is a mainly pastels range with 3 different shades of pink and 2 shades of off white. My main drawback with this yarn, is that it creases easily as I said before but it also tangles easily, however well the ball is wound it seems to collapse! A tip from Amy Singer though, is to not wind balls that are very silky into centre pull balls as the middles empty and cause the outside to collapse. I am going to knit my niece a ballet wrap top from the DK version of this. There is also a Sublime Extra Fine Merino Wool DK. As someone who writes patterns, I do find their names unmemorable and difficult to get in the right order!

Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran

55% Merino Wool, 33% Microfibre, 12% Cashmere 90m/50g
I fell in love with this as a basic hat yarn, and loved the shades available. Then I knitted some gloves in Super Chunky Cashmerino, and it pilled so badly I thought that any version of this yarn was going to do the same. Since then, the Super Chunky version has been discontinued but there is a Chunky in its place, and to be fair, I never got any pilling problems with the Aran version.

I knitted this hat with the Cashmerino Aran and am working on some secret projects using the same. It is cuddly and soft but also very hardwearing. You don’t get a huge amount of stitch definition compared with a pure merino, but you do get softness to make up for that. It can be a bit floppy, so not suitable for really sculptural stuff but it does drape beautifully. I have found though, that when I knit with this it makes my stitches much smaller than with other Aran yarns. That is not something I normally experience as my gauge is normally completely rigid unless I change needle size (albeit slightly looser than other knitters, but is the same as Woolly Wormhead's!)

Coldharbour Mills
100% Pure new British Wool 188yd/172m per 3.5oz/100g hank
The Mill produces knitting yarn in a variety of shades in Aran/Worsted, DK and 4Ply.
It is a blend of 100% pure new British Wool. They blend several colours together to get the heathered shades. I love the worsted yarn they have as a good hardwearing everyday yarn although I found it a bit scratchy for garments. I think the softness of this yarn depends very much on the dyeing process so some shades are softer to the touch than others. I used to make my Silvanus bag and the yarn fulls beautifully, but also a few hats for Alice who is 4. Alice tells me the hat is a little bit hot and scratchy. At £4.25 per 100g it is a bargain. I have a couple of hanks in Honey, which is a mid yellow, and just cannot think what to do with it, any ideas would be most welcome....Can you think of what to do with a colour like Yellow?

Sirdar Click (chunky)
30% Wool, 70% Microfibre 75m per 50g
I used to use a lot of Sirdar yarns mainly for knitting for kids. I just could not bear to spend a lot of money on natural fibres for certain Mums who had not a clue about the value and thought it was worth sticking in the washing machine anyway! Also, I didn't think my knitting was good enough or the designs finished enough to knit in a more luxurious yarn but this has been a false economy as a lot o those designs are now on a list to be reknitted in natural yarns.
The yarns that Sirdar made for kids was mostly 100% synthetic but also machine washable. However, they have brought out several new ranges over the past year that use a higher percentage of natural materials. I should imagine knitters have put the pressure on.

I recently was given some of the above to make a pet blanket which is not going ahead now. However, given a choice of either Cashmerino Chunky or this yarn knitters preferred to have this yarn for a dog blanket so I have come up with a brand new design to make some squares with doggie motifs. A little wool makes it warm, the Microfibre makes it much more hardwearing and if people donate their doggie knits to charities it will be perfect. On 6.5mm (US10) needles it knits quickly, however, I felt I had regressed many years as I recognised the slight squeak of working with an acrylic yarn like this and the mess you can make trying to do Intarsia or Fair Isle. Ahhhhh I want 50% wool at least, or if not that silk or cotton. However, must persist to get a machine washable design

However, Sirdar have now brought out some new natural yarns Luxury Soft Cotton DK and Luxury Soft Cotton 4 ply as well as Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo with wool and Peru Naturals wool with alpaca and acrylic. I have samples of these, but have yet to knit up into garments so will let you know when I've tried them.

The Book Thief

I bought this book in a rush. I often do that, try to do a very fast assessment of books that are going at a 3 for 2 offer, and then decide whether or not to buy on impulse. This means I often find little gems of creation that perhaps I would never have chosen had I heard the hype or studied the back and read reviews.


The reason I would not normally have bought this book is that it is set in Nazi Germany, and I would perhaps have thought "worthy subject, but I have read and read around that theme, and am not in the mood for it, and where is the joy?" See below the last time I read an in depth account of concentration camps in Nazi Germany.

How wrong could I be, of course wherever there is human life there is the scope of great cruelty and tragedy and beautiful joyful kindness side by side. Mark Zusak knew this, and his story carries us on a journey about individuals and their personal struggles and it is not essentially about a nation and its wartime politics of the day. However, it is about the small things that make a difference. The small things that have great significance in the storytelling tradition, especially when it is an oral history told by someone who experienced it (like the stories Zusack heard when he was growing up)

I loved this book. It was a surprisingly easy read for a subject of such depth, it flowed through me and it had many moments that made me laugh. It also made me sob in places, not from sadness but from its little spurs of emotion and the characters' touching gestures of kindness. It is also a book about words, their meaning and if any books inspires you to want to write, this one will. It confirms that we all have stories to tell. none of us has a lack of subject matter, all we need is the audience.

And one of the best aspects of all is that this book is narrated by Death. There are a couple of reasons why choosing Death to narrate can be very effective. Read the book and find out why!

My next book.....

I will be reading this book next. Strangely, you could also call the Book Thief Random Acts of Heroic Love, so perhaps I will find the same themes.

However, finding co-incindental themes in a selection of books is not unheard of when you read the consecutively. A good book will have the reader thinking about its themes subjectively and because how those themes is intepreted is up to the reader, you are bound to think of the same things and applying them to many books.

Man's Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl

Existential Philosophy as Pain Management?

When I was struggling to come to terms with the severe pain that I suffer from, I found it enormously difficult to accept the pain and wanted to fight it off, but this actually made me more aware of it and I felt worse. Feelings I went through were panic, anger, bitterness a sense of injustice and a sense of hopelessness.

My gastroenterologist, who was also a psychiatrist and part of a pain management theraphy recommended a book to me Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl who is an Auschwitz (and many other death camps survivor). As well as a memoir of Aushwitz it is also the message that despite a person's circumstances, and those can be out of your control (i.e. my illness) a human being has one essential freedom that cannot be touched, and that is the freedom to choose how they react, cope and survive a situation. This is a fairly existential type of philosophy, in that we are totally alone in this universe and as such the author of our own lives and in total control of how we deal with anything that is thrown at us.

"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how" Nietzche

At the moment I started reading this book, I was in the process of moving over to the acceptance of my pain, reject the attitude of fighting it and getting rid of it. That just did not work.

It just so happens, I had been given some psychology articles and pain management by my pain doctor which supported this view as well. In the article, it had said that those who expect to feel some pain, but will make an effort to treat as much of the pain as possible seemed to experience more tolerable levels of pain than those who try to deny its existence. Up until recently, unable to treat all forms of pain, those working in anaesthesia that held old fashioned beliefs would often put pressure on patients like me as their attitude would be that I was somehow weak in not 'putting up' with the pain that I could do nothing about. I can remember a time, when it felt like doctors were saying "Well done!" and pinning a medal on you if you went to them and said that stoically you were cutting back on your pain meds and fighting the illness like a soldier. There was an element of them feeling defensive and irritated if you complained of pain continuing, as this made them feel like a failure. However, modern pain doctors will not saw "How is the pain, what sort of level is it at" they are more likely to say "How are you coping with the pain, do you find your level of management and choice is adequate?"

This is the modern attitude to coping with pain, rather than stoically putting up and trying to deny it, you embrace it accept it and try as best you can with your drugs to treat it, but you don't panic or feel like a failure when it is really bad and breaks through. You can tell yourself "Oh well, so be it..." and make yourself as comfortable as possible and lie low, or like me lie in bed reading, and wait for those bad phases to pass. That is my choice and my own control over an uncontrollable medical condition.

Eerily, the acceptance of your own pain can be as much of an analgesic as any drug. I stopped struggling with it, stopped futile attitudes based on "It's not fair!..." type of thinking. I acknowledged, that other people made my pain worse because they so much wanted me to be well that when I was with them, I would try to deny that I was in pain, use mind over matter to try and please them and it DID NOT WORK!

When people care about you and want you to be well, or even if they don't care but feel irritation at you being ill, they put pressure on you to behave as if you are well to relieve their own symptoms of your pain, not yours. Of course I am never going to sit down and chant "I love my illness, I embrace my pain!" but I am going to think "Oh well, it is that time again, my body is going through one of those phases, I had better re-adjust my life and wait til it has passed". I do take every pain relieving method in the way of drugs I can, and I no longer feel guilty or see it as some sort of weakness in not coping with the pain, I see it as totally sensible, pragmatic and when the phase has passed, I can reduce the medication without any worries about not getting it back again the next time I am in a bad phase.

My life is probably really restricted compared with yours. I am often housebound, I rarely go shopping as I cannot carry anything I have bought and I spend a lot of time completely on my own with few friends that I actually socialise with. I don't go to gigs, clubs or pubs and I rarely go to the cinema. I can't really use public transport and can't go out with my dogs walking every day. However, my inner life is rich, I have freedom to choose what to do with my time and a freedom over the attitude I have towards my restrictions and this does not deserve sympathy but perhaps envy. So many people are stuck in jobs they hate, are not free to be creative and have personal ties that anchor them down. I don't have any of those, you could say I was lucky.

Actually, the way I view myself and my situation varies greatly from day to day, and I choose that view mostly, and so often do not communicate how I feel to other people for fear of a transient attitude defining me and anchoring me down.

Oops, this is a blog about knitting...........................Sorry!

And on a lighter note.....................

On TV, was the dramatisation of a novel called He Kills Coppers. I haven't yet seen this, but I enjoyed the previous dramatisation of this author's work The Long Firm.

I knew Jake Arnott who wrote this, well enough to have some 'romantic' involvement with him for a very short space of time in the 1980's. I had no idea then, what a talented writer he would be and I thought he would be better known for his acting which he was working at. I do remember that he had a fantastic way of describing his dreams, so good in fact that I thought he was making them up at the time or had read them somewhere.

There are things I read in his personal biography, that don't tie up with the Jake I knew. There was something about him that frightened me, or something he provoked within myself that made me scared of myself. I think he reminded me too much of someone who had hurt me before, so our little fling fizzled out.

And now, it is strange after all these years to have walked into a book shop and seen his name on the cover of a book I was going to buy anyway before I knew it was him! I have never read the book, perhaps worried about hearing his voice in my head when I read it and perhaps the fear of not being able to make the story my own entertainment in an objective way. He still owns it, and until I can distance myself a little, I feel like I don't want to read it.

I certainly would feel a little strange meeting him now. Apart from the fact I have changed so drastically physically, I can hear the conversation now

"Hey....Jake, urm so you're an author now.....a really good one.....well done" (sniggers and gabbles nervously)"

"Yeah, I ur decided not to continue with the urm acting. And you? You've changed! What are you doing then"

"Oh nothing really......erm......I'm writing too actually....and I am a published author"

"Wow, is that right? So where could I find one of your books"

"In the mumble mmmmmmmm"

"Sorry, what? In the where?"

"Um in the knitting section!"

"Oh, I see...." shuffles nervously "Well you must excuse me, got all these other books to sign, there's quite a queue behind you now!"

"Well, goodbye, good luck, I see that you're Gay now!" Inwardly kicking self, God why did I have to mention that!

Greyt Sweaters

These are some of the wonderful designs of sweaters made for both greyhounds and whippets by Laney who donates some of the proceeds to rescue organisations.

I have been far too busy, and slow of course, to get around to designing a hand knit for my own two, and I think that Lily would look good in this blue design. Or perhaps as she is our little spoiled princess, she should have something more pink and girlie like the jzzy little number below.

I know I really shouldn't be promoting someone else's knitwear design, but these are honestly the best fitting and most stylish knitted sweaters I have seen and a reasonable price too, go to their website to find out about ordering and measuring your hound.



Dizzy Rascal would look good in urban black as that would suit his name and his nature. It is our dream that our big blue brindle boy will be able to run around on the beach (off the lead) like this brindle dog one day.

Poor Dizzy Rascal, he still runs in a straight line to the entrance of an enclosure and his eyes are on the horizon. We would lose him if we let him off in an open space, and being a lover of people, he would just run to the nearest group of people or the nearest house and say "Hello hello I'm Dizzy, you love me, yes you do, everybody loves me!" etc, and he might flatten a few people with his sincere doggie love. Not a good idea, but one day........................



You can read more about Greyt sweaters, Laney and the Beastly Beasts greyhounds who she knits for on my greyhound blog.

Here are a couple of pics to add to some of the above that are not on that blog, just to avoid me cross posting identical information!

I am knitting...loads actually, but once again it is for a publisher. So totally confidential! In the meantime let me entertain you with another book review...

I have just finished a book called The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. It is a Gothic thriller in the style of a Bronte novel, or the Turn of The Screw. Secrets of birth, hidden characters within a decaying building and a narrator with a secret of her own. I couldn't put this book down, and although at first I was worried that the author would be deliberately creating a modern novel that is a rip off of a Bronte, I have to say she did it very well with no excuses and there were many little pointers within this novel to all her influences. This book being of the 21st Century, was witty and cynical in a way you would not expect in a Ninteenth Century novel, and not all sub-plots have happy endings. My only criticism, is that there were one or two characters that to me felt empty, and also, I could not get a sense of the narrator. She too seemed to be empty, ageless and unemotional despite succumbing to an illness at some point that my other half likes to call "Non specific Victorian fever' which in a Nineteenth century is nearly always semi fatal but not quite so dramatic here. The narrator of this story is no Jane Eyre, she does not seem to be sentimental or romantic despite carrying her secret.

Do read this though, I loved the writing, here is a little snippet that drew me in just as I was about to put the book down to go to sleep at 1am, it kept me up until gone 3 am:

"Come Back!" she cried
"I am going to tell you a story - a marvellous story!"
I did not stop
"Once upon a time there was a haunted house...."
I reached the door. My fingers closed on the handle.
"Once upon a time there was a library...."
I opened the door and was about to step into its emptiness when in a voice hoarse with something like fear, she stopped me in my tracks.
"Once upon a time there were twins -"
I waited until the words stopped ringing in the air and then despite myself, I looked back

The style in which the inner narrator tells a story to our narrator is very potent, it has all the brooding darkness of a Grimm's fairytale, it makes your skin prickle with its foreboding, and I can't explain why the fear of something being revealed is so much worse than the actual events.

This also reminded me of how much I was influenced by Jane Eyre as a child. I saw the film with Elizabeth Taylor as Jane a long time before I read the book, and was totally haunted myself with the mad woman hidden within the house. In fact, at the age of 6, I put on my mother's wig, my mother's dressing gown and came down the stairs and acted as a different but disturbed person to my poor little brother only aged about 3 or 4 at the time. He honestly believed that we had a secret mad sister living upstairs in our home in Cyprus! Years later, my mother shocked me by saying that she had given birth to a daughter before me, and that meant I had a secret older sister. She never told my brother. She died. I told my brother a couple of years ago, and had so little reaction from it, I am convinced that he thought I was inventing it again just as I did when we were children! I don't normally talk of personal stuff on the blog, but that was so relevant to the book I could not help myself. We all have secrets, every one of us an our stories in the right hands could be penned as a Gothic horror!

And Skeinspotted!

We knitters always like a good spotting of a bit of knitting, whether it is worn knitwear or actual knitting activity within a film or a book. Often it annoys us, because it will be the quintessential old granny clicking her needles, or someone really nerdy and the knitting adds to their lack of appeal. We tut, we sigh, they just don't understand and have not caught up we think. Anyway, The Thirteenth Tale has a very good bit of knitting. One of the characters, who is a fairytale like grandmother or kindly with baking and knitting, finds her knitting takes on more significance than she would care to see:

"So it bothered me, that night of the pitch black sky, to find that I had [accidentally] knitted a second heel. Once I'd done it and lost my young man. Twice and I'd lost my sister. Now a third time. I had no-one left to lose. There was only me now. I looked at the sock. Grey wool. A plain thing. It was meant for me................................I set to unravelling the extra heel. What was the point of that you might wonder. Well I didn't want to be found with it....I imagined them saying 'They found her with her knitting in her lap and guess what? She'd turned the heel twice!' I didn't want them saying that and so undid it"

Thought that might amuse those of you who are book lovers and knitters!

The New needles...What are my impressions now I've used them?

I have just bought a set of Knitpicks Harmony Options interchangeable needles with beautifully dyed and laminated wood that is lacquered for smoothness, and precision joins that are tightened with a little key. The cables are soft and flexible and it all fits into a little bag, which I also put some Harmony matching sock needles (6 in each set, so you could lose 2 and still knit a sock!). There are some screw on stoppers/ends so that you can remove needle tips and leave project on the cables safely.

I noticed ever such slight snagging, on the gap in the join the first time I used them, but then discovered it was my fault as I had been so hasty I had not tightened the join using the key as instructed.

The tips are very pointed instead of blunt and round, and this aids the stitches to slip over the needles with ease. The sharpness, means they will be ideal for lace knitting.

The case is small and portable and has room for the extra over sized needle points that I bought as well as the sock needles and it means when I go away, as long as I pack the right yarns, I will always have the right equipment.

There is only one tiny tiny drawback, and that is if you use a very dark or variegated yarn close to the colour of the laminated wood, it might be difficult to see stitches for beginners. However, most people get used to knitting ‘by touch’ and can watch TV at the same time as knitting so that would not be a problem.

The only other problem is, they are such a beautiful thing to see, I just want to sit and look at them instead of using them. Especially the sock needles, as I can be quite violent with those and I am scared of breaking these beauties. Oh well, just like my clothes, I suppose I might save them for best or holidays!

Short Row Experiments

These are experiments I carried out using 5mm needles and some white yarn so I could examine each effect really carefully.

Over the past few weeks I had used a number of methods, all slightly different, and became very confused about which ones worked without leaving holes, which ones actually matched on both sides of the sock.

I realised that not only could you hide a wrap, but you could leave the wraps on the right side if you wanted, as a feature. Did you ever look at a photo of someone else’s short row heel and wonder why they got those neat little lines when all you got were holes or a criss-crossing of yarns?

Anyway, these are the ways in which I have picked up wraps and knitted them on the short row heel samples. Why am I interested in so many different ways of doing the same thing? I feel that as a designer and someone who writes patterns for publications, I should be able to use any method as a design choice, or as a tutorial within a pattern. You can try one or two of these and then when you are happy just stick to what works. Hopefully, my experiments will throw up slight variations that can make all the difference to your happiness with short rows. Without any method at all, a knitter will have to knit a reverse heel flap, and different way of making a toe.

I have not varied the method of wrapping and turning which is this:

Knit to just before stitch you wish to wrap
Bring Yarn fwd between needles
Slip stitch to be wrapped p-wise from L needle to R needle
Take yarn back between needles
Slip stitch to be wrapped p-wise back onto L needle
Turn

P back to the next stitch on the other side you wish to wrap
Take yarn back between needles
Slip stitch to be wrapped p-wise from L needle to R needle
Bring yarn fwd between needles
Slip stitch to be wrapped p-wise back onto L needle
Turn

I will take photos soon, but for the moment this is the description of the methods and the results.

A note on picking up wraps. In the following few methods, I have favoured slipping the wrap stitch and picking up wraps with the left needle and then slipping the wrapped stitch back. This can help those people who become confused by directions of putting the right needle through the wrap then through the stitch at the same time.

Remember, there is not really a right way of doing this, just different methods and as I am trying them all, I am explaining the differences between them and the results so you can make a choice.

Double wrap and Knit through the back loops

This is my favourite method, but it does leave those little dashes of horizontal bars along the diagonal where the wrap shows

Wrap and turn as normal. Then when all necessary stitches are wrapped:

1. On RS knit to first wrapped stitch

2. Slip stitch p-wise to R needle to hold out of the way

3. Put tip of L needle under wrap and pick up

4. Slip wrapped stitch back to L needle again

5. Knit wrap and slipped stitch together through the back of loops

6. Wrap next stitch (so now is wrapped twice) and turn

7. Now on WS P to first wrapped stitch

8. Slip stitch p-wise to R needle to hold out of the way

9. Put tip of L needle under wrap and pick up

10. Slip wrapped stitch back to L needle again

11. Purl wrap & slipped stitch together, as normal i.e WS of work

12. Wrap next stitch (so now is wrapped twice) and turn

Now repeat from 1, to pick up the next wrapped stitch, but remember this stitch is wrapped twice so pick up both wraps and knit together with the stitch. Same goes for picking up the next wrapped stitch on the other side, on the WS repeat from 7 but pick up 2 wraps and P tog with stitch.

This means that you have been securely knitting your wraps and stitches together, you won’t have visible holes not even decorative ones, but along the diagonal line you will have one dash/horizontal line at beg of toe, and then double dashes/horizontal lines along the whole diagonal of the toe. I like this, it is neat and decorative and works well with variegated yarns where hiding a wrap does not work because it might show through the gaps of a lighter yarn on top.

Single wrap and Knit through the back loops

If you repeated the above steps, but omitted to wrap stitches at all from the picking up stage, i.e. only wrap once, you will get some small single dashes but quite lacy holes where stitches are not held together. If you like the idea of having a slightly lacy effect, then what I did which looked quite nice, was to slip the first stitch of every row after turning when picking up at steps 1 and 7.

Double wrap and Knit through front loops

It is possible to go through all steps, but at step 5 you would knit through the front of the loops, and at step 11 you would need to Purl through back of loop, i.e you would be placing the tip of your R needle under the wraps and stitch at front of work and purling together instead of purling as normal. This did hide wraps, but there was a certain amount of criss-crossing of stitches that would look fine in a small gauge on a solid coloured yarn, but would not look quite so good on a variegated yarn.

There are more experiments to come; methods of picking up the wrap can vary from above as well as methods of knitting together. There is also the possibility of not wrapping at all, which means picking up stitches between the needles, or in some methods making a YO, then knitting those YO’s together. I will try these and list them here.

Watch this space.............................................

My New Pressie

I felt like spoiling myself, especially as I have been knitting the same toe of a toe up sock forever and still can't get it exactly the way I want it! Anyway, I was attracted to the Knitpicks Options needles and dpns, which I purchased together.
I know I am not the first person to have brought these to the community's attention, many other knitters having spoiled themselves this way recently.

My first impression was ooooh the lovely feel of the slippery lacquered wood, and the prettiness of the laminates as the colours layers show like a grain in the wood. Also, I was pleasantly surprised that even with my hands I can handle screwing the needles points on and off. I purchased this with a set of dpns I am very pleased with the dpns which are a set of sock needles, but a little disappointed they only go up to size 3.25mm. I think perhaps they assume any higher than that is not a 'sock' needle and that means I will need to knit my hats either on the magic loop system, one long circular which I have not done before, or I will need to purchase extra needle tips.

Also, the needle tips only go up to 8mm, so I have purchased an extra 9mm, 10mm and 12mm. Overall, it was quite expensive, but looks less like a clinical piece of medical equipment than some of the other sets out there.
The biggest advantage of owning a set like this of course, is that I won't have to sit down and think really hard about which needles to take on holidays, nor will I have to worry about buying a yarn whilst away and having to wait til I come home to try it out.

In addition to that, the extra cables and 'stoppers' to put on the ends of them means that I will be able to swap needles, or swipe them for another project and keep the current project safely on needles that won't have suicidal stitches jumping off the ends. Actually, I am ashamed to admit that my stash is so large I need an inventory to refer to now, and I have so many projects in bags, I just know I have needles hiding away in the cupboards. Hopefully this new set will make me much more organised.

I will write up a little review of my first attempt at the 'magic loop' as I usually use 2 circulars, but can't be quite so indulgent at this price!

I have used the dpns and circulars for a little test run, and I can confirm that the lacquer on the wood makes them as smooth and slippery as aluminium ones, with just a very slight hitch on the join when pulling stitches round, but that was because I had not tightened the join with the little key given for that purpose.

I know I have got a lack of knitting on this blog, that doesn't mean I am not doing any, it just means that what I am doing is confidential. I have a pattern coming up in The Inside Loop next issue (Spring/Summer), a couple of patterns in The AntiCraft but not until Samhain (October) and I am knitting some foot garments for a yarn company, and also have more accessories to do in the form of 4 projects for a book.

Next time I do a pattern where I have to provide the photography, I am going to be using the models who have contacted me and possibly some make up artists and the best freelance volunteer photographer I can find. I always panic about the pics, and don;t panic at all about knitting the garments or the patterns. Even if I have designed something on paper and don't yet know how the actual knit will turn out, I know that with good time management, I will come up with something that is better than I expected. However, although I know how I want photos to look, I am not exactly a good model and so have relied on friends in the past which is a bit hit and miss with availability.

A Book that is not a Historical Novel....or is it?

The Russian Concubine
by Kate Furnivall was partly a Christmas holiday read, then went on the back burner after my Christmas present reading.

This is a story of a daughter of Russians who escapes with her mother during the Bolshevik Revolution and flees to China.

It is set in the late 20s and the main character Lydia has to become very streetwise to survive. As a result, she becomes involved with a Chinese communist and Chinese gangs. It reads as quite an exciting thriller, as well as a love story and dare I say it? It is historical and educational as well. It reminds me of when I went through my Chinese novel phase and this period of history has been very well described in Wild Swans by Jung Chang, but this personal story of two young people from different cultures and the influence of International Communities on Chinese politics is quite fresh to me.

I would recommend this as a fast pace read, but personally I was a little disappointed in the way it ended. I like to be shocked, or surprised, and have an ending I would not have thought of myself but this was just a little too rushed and disjointed. I suppose it is realistic, but somehow everything was a little too convenient. I can imagine this making an exciting film, and I could imagine someone like Ang Lee doing a pretty good job of portraying both Chinese and International cultures.

Another Book

I read Suzannah Dunn's The Sixth Wife last summer and enjoyed the narrative style, and the internal dialogue of the characters. I am now reading The Queen of Subtleties, which I assumed referred to Ann Boleyn (who was far from subtle) but I was partly wrong. Subtleties was the term given to confectionery painstakingly carved into something that resembles objects that have subtle meaning to the King. King Henry VIII was keen on having a confectioner make carved sugar roses and other marchepane delights to give to his lovers, and in this period it was Anne Boleyn. However,the title could also be referred to Anne Boleyn, who is the lover but not mistress of Henry, and is Queen in all but name, wearing the garb of a Queen but still in the shadow of Queen Catherine who has not yet been put aside.

The narrators of this story are Anne Boleyn herself and the King's Head of the Confectionery kitchen Lucy Cornwallis who also has interesting conversations with the lute player and musician Mark Smeaton, who allegedly had an affair with Anne Boleyn and was suspected of having fathered Elizabeth I.

Forget your history books, or the dry and dusty language of the costume drama because this book sounds so fresh it is a living breathing entity. The language is modern, and the descriptions vivid. Anne bubbles over with vindictiveness when in her frustration she starts bitching and refers to Queen Catherine as Fat Cath.

What was running through the minds of common subjects with regard to the political upheaval of this time is very well represented here. The sheer volume of staff needed to give Henry VIII a comfortable life, wherever he was, is felt as you read through this account but each festivity and recreation of the King is darkly lined up with tragic events happening outside the court's circle: for example the imprisonment of Cardinal Wolsey and the beheading of the Chancellor Sir Thomas More.

I am enjoying this, I don't care how the story ends, we all know what happens, I am just going with the flow of the thoughts of two vastly contrasting women and reading this, I can almost feel like I am standing on some warm polished oak floorboards, with a smell of candy floss up my nose watching the action, eavesdropping on the characters thoughts.

Thanks to SpinGirl for coming across this: a knitted video!

I have created a chart and easy to follow instructions for the Pirate Gal Hat.
If you are happy with knit charts rather than instructions, you can email me for a free copy. I tried to add this download to Ravelry, but the link keeps expiring so until I have sorted out that or loaded up one on Erssie Knits, just mail erssiemajor@yahoo.co.uk and ask for a copy. You must tell me which pattern you are asking for though, as I have more than one knitting pattern available.