The pond* is dead - long live the pond*

I did wonder about trying to sell this as the latest thing in lifestyle. SUV complete with own pond.



But I think I may be too cutting edge, and that this is an idea whose time has not yet come. I am indeed often misunderstood about these things.

Our pond, home to many tadpoles and a fine waterlily, died this week. The water level kept on sinking alarmingly, despite the DSM's valiant work with the hose. Hence the purchase yesterday of one pond liner. Now that the old barrel, which once held whisky, not weed and water, is out of the ground, it is easy to see why.



So, now the DSM is busy excavating a slightly larger hole. And for those of a nervous disposition, he is not in imminent danger of toppling over the edge, there is a further ledge below before the sheer drop from our eccentric garden.



The tadpoles are safe in buckets and hopefully will survive the upheaval. We were asking advice about keeping ponds clean and clear (we do use barley straw to help with algae, but duckweed is a problem) and were advised to get fish. Fish!?! I rather like the idea, but I suspect that the cats would too, not to mention the neighbourhood herons. But we are tempted.....

*The DSM has instructed me to say that any derogatory remarks about buckets from persons residing in California are made at the perpetrator's own risk.

He said that. Not me. Just doing what I am told. Really.

Serendipity

I love that word, one of my all time favourites. Maybe I need to do a whole series of posts based on others.

Anyway - the serendipitousness of this post is this. I was all set to write about my niece and some of her work, two photographs of which I have just shamelessly stolen from a website -and don't you just love that name? This isn't hers - this is. I have posted this link before, but have to give full credits, no? Then Interweave Knits arrives, and opening it up, there is an article about someone knitting a US flag with steel poles held by cherrypickers. Can't give you a link to that specifically, there's nothing about it on their website.

OK - so where am I going with this? I am not particularly a huge fan of much contemporary art. Do not get me started on Britart, Rachel Whiteread, Tracy thing, whoever. I do quite like Antony Gormley, and I am sure there would be more if I were not so ignorant of their existence, which is not exactly my fault because there is rarely much in the press. But I am rambling, just by way of a change.

What I like about the piece in Knits, and what I like about some of Alice's work, especially these two, is an underlying dry humour, and a clever capacity for making you look at things in a very fresh way. For me, art can be about that as well as being something so beautiful, or technically clever, or whatever it is that makes you look at it and go - yessss. And no, you don't have to understand it.



This piece of work was exhibited with the instruction that if the piece should completely deflate during the show then the gallery was to contact the artist, and she would come and change the Lightbulb for them. You have just got to love that.



I must get to see this one in the flesh. Looking at the photograph alone makes me laugh, but I can see such a lot in it. If I want to sound really loopy - it makes me think of the sellotape rolling itself up in to a ball and peering out at us is fear and disbelief. I think it's great. It occurs to me as I am writing that I have always enjoyed the theatre of the Absurd, and that maybe my penchant for works like this is an extension of that, I don't know. I need to give it all more thought, along with that perennial questions that dogs all our heels.

What is Art?

I was just making soup, chopping up butternut squash, onions, red peppers, tomatoes. I liked the way my hands moved and looked as I chopped, and wished I had my camera at hand. The diced veggies looked equally fine heaped up on my chopping board, and again simmering in the pan. I think - I know - that is art and one that I practice more than competently.

Now I am going to spin. At what point does the art of that burst in to life? If I follow my soup theory logically, then it must be as I take the raw fibre/ingredients and start to change them.

Now, there's food for thought......

A complete coincidence

It really is. I was not feeling Maryland Sheep and Wool envy, likely to be far too hot for me.

No, me and my mate from Blackburn had been planning a trip to Clapham. That's Clapham in North Yorkshire, not London. Much nicer - the drive alone was well worth the effort, through the fringes of the Trough of Bowland, into the Dales, nothing but moorland and sheep and curlews to be seen for mile after mile after mile. Bliss.

Anyway, we were going to visit a yarn shop that many. many people had told me about in hushed tones of awe. All I can say is - wow.

Now, I spin my own yarn, love to do so, and am only occasionally seduced by the store boughten stuff. I admit, rather more in the last year or two, as commercial yarn spinning has risen to ever greater heights of ingenuity. But this place, Jenny Scott's (there is a website, but only a very brief one dealing with the embroidery and bear stuff, both of which are cool, but it is the yarn that I'm on about) is super. Colour, colour all around, fabulous textures, all really nice stuff. Colinette, Noro. All the usual suspects, but more of them than one usually sees. Our LYS in town stocks the self-same brands, but kind of one example of each, won't get more in until one batch is sold. Frustrating. This place is like a sweetie shop, with a Juliette Binoche type of owner, gently enabling, seducing you with little offers, oh the utter temptation.

I was tempted and I fell. I was actually pretty restrained, but I can still hear the screaming-in-agony of my credit card.



The Charlotte Schurch sock book looks very good, just the thing for me and my handspun, with the designs built around stitches not yarns. Then, I found a little stash of Brittany sets of five short dpns - almst unheard of around these parts - so I snaffled all the smaller sizes. I keep breaking or losing them, and like to have multiple sets anyway so I can work on both socks at once if so moved.

Yarn. Well, very restrained Noro Silk Garden. The owner is damn good - she picked out colours she thought would work for me, steering me away from the more vibrant shades, and you know, she's right. This one has the lime green I have been beading with of late, plus my favourite shade of blue, back in the wardrobe again this year. Clever, clever. This is aimed at a shawl, examples of which were draped around the shop, so simple it made me weep to think none of us had come up with the design for ourselves, and quite irresistible. The next one will be in handspun and hand-dyed, but it will be interesting to work in this.

Oh, and one little skein of an irridescent Colinette, that looks like ostrich feathers when knitted up. The colours in this range are mouthwatering.

Clapham is a very atractive Dales village, with a beck running through the middle, a pub, a couple of cafes - one was closed so we used the other twice, and apparently both come highly recommended. Great for a day out.

We drove back a different way, and came across a good birdwatching spot at a reservoir in the Gisburn Forest, now earmarked for the DSM and me to revisit for a picnic and a spot of twitching. A good day.

I keep pondering the question of why I feel guilty about buying yarn. Apart from the cost - and that is less of an issue these days - I think it is mostly because I also feel that I have very limited knitting skills, and something about the rate at which I knit. Also, if the thing I make is easy-peasy, but handspun and even better, hand-dyes, then I can be more proud of it. That shouldn't matter one jot. Then, I can somehow allow myself to build up a fibre stash, a handspun stash but not a bought yarn stash. Is that not just plain daft? It has to be that damn puritanical voice of ours and our parents generation echoing in our ears. "You spent how much? And just what are you going to do with that, then? Couldn't you have unravelled an old one?"

I still have a way to travel........

Unashamed cat post - absolutely no fibre content at all

I am suffering. I am deep in love.



There are, as you see, four of them.



My foot is not in for scale. No, my skirt was proving an irresistible playground, and this pair tumbled out from under.

Beating up a sibling is such fun, and allows the photographer to show clearly that some of us are seal, others blue.

They are all very gorgeous, strong, healthy and beautiful.



Snowshoes. Didn't I say?



And this little sweetheart still doesn't have a new home to go to. But I can't, I really can't. We are away so much this summer that even though his breeder says she will look after him for me, I would miss so much of those lovely kitten days. So I shall live through the pain (aren't I nauseating?)

Besides, I really want two...........

Adventures in still photography

That probably doesn't work as well as I though it might, but I can't think of anything better!

Sarah didn't have to nag me about reporting on yarn progress, I was all geared up to do it today anyway.



This has come out as a lovely soft and cushy yarn with a most unusual colourway. I was slightly nervous about the end product as the mix of fibres in the blend were not all of the same staple length, which made drafting a little problematic. But it has washed up beautifully, and is reasonably regular. I have no idea what I am going to do with this - there isn't enough for a shrug, something I am itching to do (there is one on Knitty, called Bobblicious, I think, that I would like to try). I think I may do incredibly posh hat, scarf and mitts - there should be enough for all of those, if not I stop before completing the set.





This next is the singles spun from the multi-layer batt from SOAR 2004. I am somewhat impressed with the overall consistency of this yarn. Apart from one bobbinful, it is all very much the same grist, and not far off in the amount of twist. Considering it has been a year at least in the spinning, that ain't too bad. An interesting thing is that I had skeined off one bobbin some time ago, left four bobbins full of yarn until a few days ago, and skeined off the last bobbin as soon as I spun it. The yarn that had been left on the bobbins had quietened down no end, as one would expect, but the different treatments resulted in six skeins all of a different length. I've washed it today, and it is hanging outside under light tension. I will steam it when it is dry. This will not of course counter the twist energy - that simply is tamed for a while. If I were to rewash the yarn, it would reassert itself, and it would do so anyway in the knitting unless worked with balanced stitches. (I am not particularly good at spinning at a sufficiently low angle of twist to avoid that.) So - a garter stitch shawl, and nothing wrong with that.

And here we have the sample from the dye class all spun up. Not quite such a nice spinning job, but it will do. I don't think that there is going to be enough for any sort of scarf, so - another bag looms on my horizon. Why break the habit of a lifetime.....




So, what does that subject line imply? Well, I though my faithful digital camera was on the blink, which would be annoying enough at the best of times, I use it so much. But tomorrow, I am going to see.....kittens. Super superior posh and beautiful kittens at that. I met their mum when she was nobbut a sprog herself and fell in love, and I could become the proud parent of the last remaining baby, had the DSM not put his size nine down very firmly indeed. There would be one pretty big problem - the two resident moglets are outside cats, despite being siamese. My friend the breeder wouldn't think too much of that, and we couldn't have half and half, so to speak. Plus this is a very superior and therefore stealable little critter. But I want the odd photo, hence the need for the digital, can't wait six months until we use up another regular film. However, fortunately it turned out to be batteries - I kept trying to change dead ones for dead ones, that will teach me to get rid of the old ones straight away......

Small political note. I see that T. Blair has been disturbed enough by the local election results to do something sensible for once and promote Margaret Beckett to Foreign Secretary. He treated her shamefully, of course, when he first took office, by sidelining her after her brilliant job holding everything together after John Smith's death. So in one swell foop we get rid of Jackass Straw, and have someone with at least a hope of being competent (if not too completely cowed by the Party Machine)in the Cabinet. However, I fear too little too late.

Plus the foul BNP didn't do as well as I feared they might. Disgusting little toe rags. Give thanks for small mercies.

Yikes. Back to yarn. It's a glorious afternoon, I'm taking my wheel outside for an airing. Having washed the kitchen floor, I'm entitled.

Paying for the pleasure

If I were one of those clever enough to attach an audio file here - which I am not - you would at this moment be hearing one of those loud, prolonged, gusty exhalations of breath that result from finally finishing a (usually) hated task just short of killing yourself.

Are you ready for this? For the very first time in the history of this blog I have cleaned the cooker. And from there went on to swab down all, and I do mean all, bar the floor (tomorrow!)surfaces in the kitchen. The DSM will arrive home tonight and be knocked down by the chemical smell. The heavy duty chemical smell. No eco alternatives, or plain hot water for superslut.

Let us backtrack. Yesterday, I had no power all day, due to a replacement of poles situation. No, not Eastern European plumbers, although I could do with one of those. A power line carrying pole in our sleepy hollow had been deemed Too Short. So, 8.30 am, arrived the cherry pickers and the lorries bearing poles, and a lot of men in very serious looking harnesses and hard hats, and at 10am off went the juice.

Now, in this modern age, there is not too much in the way of domestic choring that can go on without a huge amount of preplanning sans the electric. I did consider sweeping the kitchen floor and then washing it, but we need electricity to make the gas hot water system work - no immersion - so, that was out. As was vaccing, ironing - ok, so not dusting, but whatever is the point of dusting if you aren't going to spiff up the rest, eh.

No computer, either - now, that is serious.

That gave a girl an entire day with ipod, spinning wheel and knitting needles. Oh dear. Such hardship.

Right, on to evening and meal preparation, involving the bottom oven. Which would not light. So I get to grovelling on my knees up close and personal to find out why (lack of power related, and soon sorted, since you ask). This meant that my nose was pressed close to the interior of the oven. Ew. It may have self-cleaning linings, but the only word for it that is repeatable was - ew. Yes, my dears, even I, superslut herself, Could Not Stand It A Day Longer. Hence this morning's labours. Hence the loudness and gustiness.

(I have a lineful of clean dusters, too.)

And now, I get to do real stuff. Back to the beads today, perhaps.

I deserve it.

Pure pleasure

Up until recently, I hadn't been spinning very much. I've been afflicted by the philosophy of having to know what I am spinning for, and the list of projects stacking up was getting overwhelming. So, that's a fatal flaw, then.

Of a sudden, I realised that this was the case, and that maybe, just maybe, I needed to sit and spin for at least a short while during the day for sanity's sake. So downstairs, I have been working away on the Carolina Homespun special SOAR fibre from last year, and very nicely it has turned out, too. Do I know what I am going to do with it? H'mm. Maybe a shawl/scarf thingy, there is one in "The Knit Stitch" that starts off as a triangular shawl and then you cast on for the length of a scarf. I did one a year or three ago, and rather like it - this might work for that. I would love to do a shrug, but I don't think there will be enough yarn.

Then there was the 50 grammes of Falkland top that I dyed as a demo on Friday. I liked the end result so much that I may well be moved to do some more, and thought it was a good idea to actually spin up the sample to see what that looked like. So far so good - I have just finished it, and even on a dark grey day like today, I think it more than passes muster. I am considering some sort of skinny little scarf worn purely for decoration, and with some kind of fancy yet by-me-doable stitch pattern - hunting one such down should be....challenging.

These were both done on the Timbertops, and that was the really full-on pure pleasure. I needed to be reminded of what a lovely wheel it is. So very quiet, just the merest whisper of sound to accompany meandering thoughts. Smooth, effortless treadling, nice and slow and relaxed. Nearly as good for the state of well-being as stroking a cat and hearing it purr. (And of course, I do that, too, but not usually at the same time as spinning. Doesn't mix too well....)

Upstairs, I got the Schacht out yesterday, and very much enjoyed being reunited with it. She is an elderly lady now, and has done a fair bit of production spinning to boot, so she is not as silent as maybe once upon a time, and creaks a little, but is still a very nice wheel to use. I don't mind the chatter, it reminds me of the pleasant hours we have spent in one another's company. I should get this spinning finished today, and can then plan another upstairs project, no pressure, just some quality time, and hopefully quality spinning.

But, but, but. Oh, the greatest pleasure - the greatest joy. (Now you really get to hear some of the sad stuff about me.)

Comedy Connections, which has been a nice prog on tv from time to time - last night did (drumroll) "That Was The Week That Was". We actually sat up late (for us) and watched it, couldn't bear to wait.

TW3 arrived on our screens just as I was starting to grow up (it has been an extremely extended process). It blew my mind on a regular basis, as I suspect it did for a lot of my generation, but more importantly, apart from being extremely entertaining - I was laughing aloud at the clips last night - it made me see a lot of things in an entirely different way, and changed the direction in which I was going. Now, maybe this would have happened by some other wise anyway, who knows. But I can identify TW3 as the kicking off point for a lot in me that I value - although many others do not, ha. I loved it then, and loved it all over again seeing some of the few remaining bits that the dear old Beeb didn't wipe (they were such vandals, loads of iconic programmes have been destroyed over the years.)

Huge gusty sighs of nostalgia all round.

I'll try to have pics of yarn up soon.