This will not be remembered as my most successful knitting project. However, it’s finished; it used up one annoying little ball of yarn; it will keep small feet warm, and I am no longer scared of the cable needle.
I’ve embarked on one of last year’s Christmas presents, Everyday Nature by Andy Beer. This has a couple of paragraphs for each day, each examining a different natural phenomenon.
This being the week it’s been, I haven’t been able to act on much of it. New Year’s Day, for example, we were encouraged to go out for a nature walk. Not a hope. Today’s entry is on Venus: it’s cloudy.
But never mind. This morning on the bird feeders I saw: bluetits, a robin, a starling, and something that might have been a dunnock. (I am not very good at telling the difference between sparrows and dunnocks.) There were two grey squirrels chasing each other along the back fence. Yesterday there was a wren on the trellis.
This evening I returned to my goldfinch sock (self-striping yarn from West Yorkshire Spinners). Goldfinches were in the book for 2 January: I didn’t see any on Thursday (maybe I’ll get a nyger seed feeder to encourage them) but I can at least enjoy their sense of style.
When we moved into this house, the front garden was entirely covered in chips of purple slate. Now it is almost entirely covered in green.
I don’t have a proper ‘before’ photo, because the whole thing was so boring that I never bothered (and when I finally came to getting rid of slate and planting plants I had very limited time and other priorities).
Here you see the boringness relieved by a pot of tulips:
You also see the irritating little weeds that grew among the stones. Shallow roots, but a pig to keep on top of and very obvious, at least when I didn’t have a magnificent tub of tulips to lead the eye elsewhere.
Last autumn, my maternity leave project (and I cannot at this distance think why I thought that this was a good idea) was transforming this into an actual garden, with intentional plants growing in the soil.
You might remember me asking on here for ideas of what to do with a small eastward facing plot that probably wasn’t going to get a lot of watering. A friend suggested that Mediterranean was the way to go. I’ve always loved herbs, so it didn’t take much effort to come up with a plan of rosemary against the house, lavender around the edges, and thyme as ground cover, with peonies (because what the hell, why not) to make the middle interesting. One of our bay trees (wedding present, 14 years ago) could go at the front corner, and what about an olive tree? And I was going to grow a passion flower up the railings.
I got Tony to gather up the slate chips (eventually a friend took them away to cover up a much less promising bit of ground). I ordered some plants from Thompson and Morgan, and quite a lot more from Norfolk Herbs. (I highly recommend Norfolk Herbs, by the way: their prices are extremely good and the delivery was swift.) On a whim, I threw some chamomile and bergamot into the order. The Thompson and Morgan stuff came in dribs and drabs; the Norfolk Herbs, all at once.
And every time I had a spare twenty minutes, when the baby had fed and gone to sleep deeply enough to notice that I’d handed her to someone else, I dashed out the front and put in another two or three plants. I’d leave the front window open so I’d hear when she started crying. I chucked a bulb or two in with each plant – tulips, daffodils, crocus, tête-à-tête, iris… Bit by bit, it got done.
We didn’t get all the slate up first go. For a long time afterwards I was picking up a dozen chips and moving them to the edge every time I went out.
Then, of course, everything went dormant over the winter, and I had to wait to see what was going to happen next.
The bulbs came first. A brave blue iris, then the tête-à-tête narcissi.
It was at this point that I started getting really happy with what I’d done. They cheered things up immensely.
On Mothering Sunday, I was presented with a pot of purple primulas. Those went in too.
Then the tulips flowered.
Meanwhile, the herbs were beginning to get going. Come May, there was still quite a bit of earth showing between the plants, but they’d woken up. The bergamot, which I’d thought had maybe died, was very enthusiastic.
We got our olive tree, too.
Over the summer, everything went absolutely bananas. The chamomile flowered and went everywhere. The bergamot came out such a gorgeous, vivid deep pink that I felt my whim was vindicated a hundred times over.
And it all kept going.
It’s less exuberant now, obviously: it’s November again. And I trimmed the chamomile back, and I’m half way round cutting off the dead lavender flowers. Even so, it’s less tidy than the slate was, but it’s much more cheerful and welcoming – not least for the bees. I was rather pleased to read, several months into this process, that:
If you want to help a variety of bees, the best way is to plant flowers that bloom sequentially from early spring to late autumn – even if you only have a window box or pots on a patio.
Which I seem to have achieved almost accidentally. I’m glad the bees are enjoying it. I certainly am.
I still have another page from a dead notebook to share with you, but this isn’t it. This, as you see, is an old envelope with a bit of knitting pattern written on it. Indeed, it fell out of a knitting book earlier today as I was finishing a baby hat – this hat:
Experienced knitters will see that this hat and the pattern on the envelope have nothing to do with each other. Indeed, as with the last post, I can remember exactly what I was trying to do: lengthen a short-sleeved blouse to turn it into a cycling jersey. I didn’t finish that; it’s still sitting at the bottom of my knitting bag.
I’m a bit of an intermittent knitter, you see. At the moment I am possessed with a wild enthusiasm for it, am telling myself that I am going to make all the socks in Cute Knits for Baby Feet, and plenty for myself as well. Since socks are a lot quicker than blouses I may even get a few finished. As you see, I have most definitely finished that hat.
Then I turned the envelope over, and I found something quite different:
Daisy’s friend is called Pippin.
The alien actress is bewildered by people mistaking her stage name for her real name or vice versa
I know exactly what that’s about too. Or, rather, exactly what those are about: these are two separate notes about two separate stories.
The first one is Daisy’s Yarn. (Here, have a PDF.) That got finished, rejected by whatever call for submissions I originally wrote it for, shopped around a bit, and picked up by a podcast that now seems to have vanished off the face of the earth. Fairly standard.
The second one is a Book Bus Story. Or it’s going to be a Book Bus Story. I don’t really have a proper link for that yet, but it’s going to be something like this, except a book. There’s a draft of that story on the page – it’s inspired, by the way, by the way that transport enthusiasts often make a careful note of 3267’s 1970 British registration number and ignore the real story – but I’m not happy with it yet. My hope is to get Book Bus Stories done so that I can sell it at next year’s Ventnor Fringe. Will that happen? Who knows? I have a lot of writing hopes and at the moment most of them just aren’t happening.
That’s not all there was to the envelope.
Invitations to my first and – so far – most glamorous literary prize event. I swanked about that quite enough back in 2017, so I won’t repeat myself now. All the same, it was quite a boost to my self-esteem to remember that I was there and I did that.
I don’t know if I can save the alien actress story. There are more words to it than that line, but there isn’t much more substance, and I have no idea what it needs. I’m almost certainly going to frog that blouse. Tony gave me one of his cycling jerseys and it fits me fine, and anyway, I haven’t been out on my road bike for well over two years.
That’s not really the point, though. The point is this: all the years when I wasn’t doing any knitting aren’t relevant now, when I am, when I’m finishing hats and socks all over the place, and looking forward to trying cables for the first time. I was knitting, and then I wasn’t, and now I am again. So I might as well trust that it’s going to be the same for writing, that I’m going to get back into it, writing notes to myself and turning them into stories within months or weeks.
Maybe there’ll be more glamorous prize nights. Or any sort of prize nights. I don’t mind. At the moment I’d just like to be sure that I’m going to get another book done – and I can’t be sure, because the only way to get a book done is to do it, and at the moment I’m not doing it. But I’m glad this particular fossil came to the surface: it makes me believe that I can.
A family trip around the Isle of Wight on the Waverley. I love to encounter venerable old craft still joyfully doing the job they were built to do, and Waverley is pretty much the epitome of that. It was a gorgeous day, too.
The difficult and perplexing
Several times it seemed that everything was dreadful, and it turned out I needed to have eaten something half an hour ago. You’d think I’d have learned by now, but no.
Also, two rail replacement buses in one journey seems excessive.
What’s working
Staying at whichever Premier Inn is most convenient for the trip. The staff always seem to love babies regardless of how much toast ends up on the floor, and if you tick the box requesting a cot, then lo and behold, a cot appears.
Reading
Consider Phlebas (Iain M. Banks). It is very White Bloke Science Fiction, but I am enjoying it very much. It feels extremely visual; cinematic, you might say. It’s big both in page count and in imagination.
When that all got a bit too exciting for four in the morning I returned to the Chalet School. I have got to The Chalet School Does It Again and slowed right down. Prunella annoys me, and also I find it a little disheartening because we have got to Switzerland, which feels like the beginning of the end, and yet there is still half the series to go. And even though it’s quite a while before the books start getting really bad (or really bonkers) Joey’s already become irritating.
I started The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Deborah Moggach, original title These Foolish Things) on the train south, but haven’t got very far with it. (I haven’t seen the film.)
Making
Finished: one pair of baby socks. Started: one baby hat (for all the good it will do). This will also be on four double-pointed needles, but at the moment I’m knitting earflaps on two.
Watching
I caught up on all of this season of Only Connect and finished Rob and Rylan’s Grand Tour, several months after I began it.
Looking at
Apart from all the edges of the Isle of Wight, an art exhibition examining the Russian propaganda machine in the Crypt at St Pancras new church. ‘Did you like it?’ the attendant asked me on the way out. I said that ‘like’ wasn’t exactly the word, but it was fascinating and thought-provoking.
Also the inhabitants of the extremely luxurious aviary/rabbit hutch in Victoria Park in Portsmouth. I was particularly taken with one very raffish looking bunny with lopsided ears and a furry face. It looked as if it ought to have a smoking cap and a hookah.
Noticing
Lots of wildlife from the train. Heron. Cormorant. Deer. And sunflowers.
In the garden
Trying to keep the wisteria within bounds.
Appreciating
My grandfather and the rest of the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society. All my family, actually.
Acquisitions
Another badge for the camp blanket. I don’t usually collect duplicates, but this is the third from the Waverley. When I’ve sewn it on (ha!) I intend to tell you about all three.
Line of the week
Consider Phlebas is, I think, effective in a cumulative kind of a way rather than in any one particular moment, but here’s a line from one of the most effective bits.
It was like the biggest wave in the universe, rendered in scrap metal, sculpted in grinding junk; and beyond and about it, over and through, cascades of flashing, glittering ice and snow swept down in great slow veils from the cliff of frozen water beyond.
A trip to Sheffield for the annual Ultreya GB. I missed last year’s, though I hadn’t intended to (in retrospect, my ideas of what would be possible with a small baby were somewhat unrealistic), and it was good to be back. It was quite a different experience: I was very tired (see below) and also I don’t usually spend the event climbing up and down all the available steps in the cathedral. But it all came together for me in the last hymn – a very lively Amazing Grace – with the banners lined up and the baby clapping along in delight.
Some delightful fellow passengers and some railway staff who may in fact have been angels.
The difficult and perplexing
A month’s worth of interrupted sleep has trashed my immune system, the nursery germs have pounced, and I was very wobbly earlier in the week. And I’m not a nice person when I’m ill and tired.
Two hours and forty minutes on a train, each way. The way back was more trying than the way out.
What’s working
Sloggi long pants. Do they make me feel about a hundred and two? Yes, particularly the beige ones. Is it worth it to make bare legs bearable in hot weather? Absolutely. (Yes, I am aware of the Snag ‘chub rub’ shorts. Quite apart from the hideousness of the name, I can’t see that synthetic material next the skin would help in any way, however much I like their tights.)
Reading
Quite a bit!Having read She Who Became The Sun earlier in the summer, I picked up He Who Drowned The World (Shelley Parker-Chan) when it was on offer a few weeks ago. Equally fun (in its extremely dark way); the magical realism has more of an active influence on the plot this time round. I wasn’t convinced it stuck the landing, but the overall experience was sufficiently enjoyable to render that largely irrelevant.
Also on offer recently was Sea of Tranquility (Emily St John Mandel). This was a bit of a disappointment. I read Station Elevenearly in 2020 and was very struck by how vivid and alien the post-apocalyptic world was. Sea of Tranquility, by contrast, all seemed extremely twenty-first century in terms of the way that the characters thought and spoke, with the different settings just so much window-dressing. The time travel plot also didn’t work for me; I think the aim was to subvert the usual clichés, but it just felt like a cop-out.
And Kobo also suggested Consider Phlebas (Iain M. Banks) for 99p, so I decided it was probably time I tried the Culture series.
Yesterday I started One Pair of Feet (Monica Dickens) which is very entertaining so far.
Then today I picked up N or M (Agatha Christie) because it was on the floor. I am less fond of Tommy and Tuppence than I am of most of Christie’s other series detectives, so missed this one on last year’s epic re-read. But I breezed through it and then picked up Postern of Fate to remind myself what happened to the family afterwards.
Writing
Nothing to speak of, though I have been doing a little worldbuilding in my head.
Making
One ridiculously huge baby sock, and now most of one more sensible one. I also converted a little binder into an earring holder (I will try to remember to post pictures of this).
Watching
The Paralympics, on and off. I was pleased to catch Sarah Storey’s umpteenth win, as Channel 4 also showed a decent chunk of the race. (I have found both the BBC and Channel 4 very frustrating in their tendency to show fragments of an event that have a Great British Medal Hope and nothing else. But it’s probably just as well this year, because I’ve had very little telly time.)
Looking at
Ely Photographic Club’s exhibition at Babylon Arts. There were a few pieces there that made me smile, and several that were clearly very technically skilled even if not really my thing. Also, Sheffield cathedral.
Cooking
A very hot vegetable curry: the veg box contained a bag of Padrón peppers, every single one of which was the ‘really quite spicy’ variety, so unsuitable for serving as a main/side dish in the usual way. Not one of my most successful dishes, though I’m pleased with it as a creative response to a problem.
Eating
This year’s fancy Magnum flavours, an impulse buy when they were on offer in Co-op. I’m still not entirely convinced that ice cream and popping candy is a happy combination, but it’s different, I’ll give it that.
Moving
We continue our WalkRuns (being runs that are in fact mostly walks).
Noticing
Loads of dragonflies this year. Or possibly damselflies. They don’t stay still long enough for me to be able to tell the difference.
In the garden
Ripe apples. I’ve pruned all the apple trees bar one. The next job is to take out the dead box (or was it privet?) bushes that got eaten by beetles last year.
Appreciating
Cursillo. It’s totally bonkers, but there is space in there for people to be Christians and also themselves, and that is something I was missing for a long time and something for which I continue to be grateful.
And, needless to say, every night when I get to sleep before midnight and get to wake up after six.
Acquisitions
I found a little makers’ cooperative shop in Sheffield and picked up a fabric patch (to join the several I have still to sew on), a sticker, and a pair of teal stud earrings.
Line of the week
Monica Dickens, weighing up her options:
The Land Army? One saw oneself picking apples in a shady hat, or silhouetted against the skyline with a couple of plough horses, but a second look showed one tugging mangel-wurzels out of the frozen ground at five o’clock on a bitter February morning.
This coming week
The emerging routine is slightly disrupted by a committee meeting, and then at the weekend there’s an exciting sea voyage. And that’s the last excursion for a little while, and that’s probably just as well. I might even update this blog more.
This dress was originally meant for a wedding on 6 July. I sat up most of the night on the 4th (election night, you will remember). Eventually, round about the time the Labour majority was official as opposed to just obvious, I conceded defeat myself. The smocking was all finished (I’d made life hard for myself by doing the back as well as the front) but there was no way I was going to get the seams and the hem and the buttons done. I went to bed and was up again a few hours later for the drive to Exeter (not with me behind the wheel, I hasten to add). The wedding was the day after, and was a great success. The baby wore Smocked Dress 1.
As I remarked back when I finished that one, there were several things I did differently. The main one was making the pleats half the size, which instantly made the whole thing look tidier. The other thing about this dress is that it’s shaped entirely by the smocking. If you were to take all the pleats out (please don’t; it takes forever) you’d find that it’s made of three rectangles, one at the front and two at the back. The shape of the armholes is formed by judicious use of more and less elastic embroidery stitches. I smocked the whole thing then turned in the edges at the neck and armholes. In that sense it’s a zero waste pattern. I’m torn between feeling vaguely virtuous about that and a little bit sad there aren’t any scraps to use for patchwork.
I didn’t quite get it done in time for the baby’s birthday. But she wore it to her birthday party, then to mine, then to her great-aunt’s. Smocking is quite stretchy, so if only the weather holds up it might get a few more outings. For the moment, though, I’m attempting to knit a sock.
Artwork by Margaret Talbot at the Bridging the Gap exhibition at Babylon Arts
The good
Summer! It’s sunny, but it’s not too outrageously hot. I opened up the new Ffern perfume at about seven in the morning on the summer solstice. Gorgeous.
The mixed
OK, it’s a bit muggy.
The difficult and perplexing
A gallstone attack when I was out for a walk. Extremely painful and unpleasant. Had to retreat under a shady tree and be sick into a hedge in relative private. I am on the waiting list to have my gall bladder removed. I continue to wait.
What’s working
I’ve been playing around with bullet journalling, in its original iteration as a glorified to-do list, and not bothering trying to make it pretty. It’s actually working pretty well as a way to keep track of the sixteen different mixed metaphorical plates I have spinning.
Reading
I devoured She Who Became The Sun (Shelley Parker-Chan). It’s great. It’s a historical epic with a little magical realism, and is particularly inspiring to me at the moment in that the author simply decided to have fun (I am paraphrasing what she says in her acknowledgements here) and created an excellent book. I should note that it’s fairly bleak and occasionally very gory, and a few months ago I wouldn’t have been able to cope with it at all.
Elsewhere, I got through the long long nights with the whole of the Chalet School series (Elinor M. Brent-Dyer). I have gone back and begun again at the beginning (just finished Exile last night), but I also took a little side-step and tried out the Crater School series (Chaz Brenchley). Also a load of fun: it’s a pitch-perfect homage and is, you know, a boarding school story on Mars.
Then I picked up Cinderella Ate My Daughter (Peggy Orenstein), which takes a look at the consumer culture surrounding children, particularly girls. It was published in 2011, and I couldn’t help wondering how different it would look post-Frozen, and after Britney-gate. There’s also barely any mention of trans identities, which in 2024 seems an obvious angle to explore. I should probably be grateful.
A little smocked dress. I finished the front and then decided that the back also needed to be smocked, so I’m back in the tedious gathering stage.
Watching
The Great British Sewing Bee. I am behind on Doctor Who, but having been spoiled for the last couple of episodes I’m not sure that I’ll make the effort to catch up.
Looking at
Bridging the Gap, an exhibition by women textile artists, all members of EAST (East Anglian Stitch Textiles) at Babylon Arts. I was rather taken by a whimsical map of Bloomsbury embellished with quotations from notable women associated with the area, but my favourite pieces were probably Margaret Talbot‘s gorgeous landscapes.
Cooking
Beef pot roast in the Instant Pot. It’s not exactly the weather for it, but at least the pressure cooker minimises the cooking heat.
Eating
We went out to Wildwood for our anniversary; I had bruschetta, seafood linguine, and tiramisu.
Moving
A very, very gentle run-up (ha) to Couch to 5k, beginning with a lot more walking even than that routine recommends. So far, so good.
Noticing
Goldfinches!
In the garden
Complete chaos, but this evening I have managed to take the compost out, water the passion flower on the front fence, and pull up a few weeds.
Appreciating
Suddenly having a little more time to myself.
Acquisitions
Mostly clothes: four dresses from the Joanie sale, a sports bra, and ankle socks. Yesterday I took three books to the book swap cabinet at the top of the hill – and came home with two. Oh well.
Line of the week
From Cinderella Ate My Daughter:
While Zoe is cute, in a radioactive orange kind of way, her release fell short of expectations, the – ka-ching! – hope of creating a female Elmo. Even slapping a tutu on her did not help.
This coming week
What’s become the regular routine – and will be for a few weeks more – and then a very busy weekend.
That’s it for the moment. I’m hoping to keep this going, but no promises. I hope you’re all keeping well.
This is not the finest garment I’ve ever sewn. It won’t be even when it’s finished. The pleats are too deep, the tension is irregular, the smocking goes closer to the left armhole than to the right, the bias binding is very slightly brighter than the main fabric, and the less said about my feather stitch, the better.
However, this was my first attempt at smocking, and once I got down to the Vandyke stitch and surface honeycomb on the bottom rows I was enjoying myself hugely. It’s also the first garment I’ve made for my daughter, and a trial run for a second little smocked dress. It doesn’t need to be perfect.
Kathleen Jowitt 