Fabric obsession

Back in September I started a patchwork and quilting class at nearby Cardonald College. I have done a huge amount of baby knitting this year; at one point six friends were pregnant and at any one time this year at least three have been. I felt like I was on a baby-knitting production line (and this is why I haven't knitted very much for anyone else or indeed myself this year) and I fancied making something else instead. I've long admired Flossie's baby quilts so thought I would give something similar a go.

At last year's Ally Pally I saw some gorgeous jelly rolls of recycled vintage fabric from this place so I decided to buy a roll to experiment with.

I had to leave my sewing machine behind in Spain so I've been piecing together the top patchwork by hand and about halfway through the course I felt disheartened. Accuracy in measuring and cutting has never been one of my strengths and it is vital for good quilting. It seemed like it was taking forever and I'd never finish it. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I started using the machines at college to put the border onto the top piece. I could have used the machines from the start but I actually enjoy the hand-sewing part, what I don't like is the measuring and cutting. If someone else (or indeed a machine) did all the measuring and cutting and all I had to do was sew I would be very happy with my new craft.

Last week though I made my quilt 'sandwich' and the thing is really starting to come together and I love it (there will be no pics of the finished article until it has reached it's recipient though).

The only problem is I just can't stop obsessing over Japanese fabrics on the internet. They are just SO gorgeous and quirky. The designs are like nothing else I've ever seen. Just look at these!

Small Animals

Echino Brown Birds

Retro Cars

I have remained strong and not bought any yet but it feels like only a matter of time before I crack.....

Foodie time in Glasgow and Paisley

Been very focused on finding good food since we moved up here. Contrary to most people's expectations you can eat very well in Scotland, it is home to some of the best British fresh produce, but you won't find much of that in the supermarkets which are full of the same overpriced uniform shite as everywhere else in Britain.

We've been getting a great veggie box delivery from Stair Organic Growers in the neighbouring county of Ayr.

They make a real effort to vary the produce each week and having worked for an organic veg box company in the past I know how difficult this is to do. Furthermore everything is super fresh and nothing has gone off before I could use it. The 'cook with what you've got' style of cookery which having a veg box demands doesn't suit everyone but I find it stimulates me to be creative in the kitchen whereas a trip to the supermarket veg aisle usually results in me buying the same things week after week regardless of season, price or quality.

Been buying South-east Asian food in bulk from See Woo (geddit?). It's the largest Chinese supermarket in the UK that I've ever been in. And I've been in a lot. They have a live fish and shellfish counter which is creepy but impressive:



Italian food is being bought at Bella Fresca, a lovely deli plus cafe on the Paisley Road halfway between Paisley and Glasgow. It's impossible to go in there without stopping between pasta purchases for coffee and cake:

The cake is loads better and loads cheaper than any else I've had here so far and the coffee ain't bad either.

I've found a few Asian supermarkets, nothing I'm afraid to rival the one we lived nearby in Newcastle, but still pretty good. The best one is KCK in Woodlands Road, (which is not the one pictured below).


Finally, we've had fantastic meat from Afton Glen's stall on Paisley Farmer's Market. Not the biggest or most impressive FM you'll ever go to but considering Paisley's socio-economic make-up I'm pleased that they have anything like this at all and I think it's important to support it. I wouldn't buy the stuff if it wasn't any good though, the venison and water-buffalo have been particularly tasty.


And here's an example of what you can do with a pile of pots and some mince: shepherd's pie. Yum.

Knitted Lives

Just heard about the Knitted Lives project exhibiting at Alnwick on Women's Hour.

I love the voice of the first lady featured in this clip from Look North (K and I were discussing Look North this week and we realised that it was the only local news programme we've ever bothered to regularly tune into - though I suspect for Kenny this was connected with the HUGE amount of time devoted to football and his mild crush on the lovely Carol).

Zoe's slipper socks

Zomo commissioned me to make her some cosy slipper socks for the winter and I finished them last month:

I started out with the intention of using this very nice pattern from Patons but it turned out that the charcoal grey yarn really didn't show up the cables very well and there's no point in cabling if no one sees it (hm, sounds like a the beginning of a philosophical aphorism 'if a cable is made but no one can see it....') I digress.

So I went for a plain rib instead with a wee trim of hand-dyed pure wool on the cast-on edge:

They don't look great on my feet, this is not because Zoe is a mutant but rather that I have much smaller feet than her.

I have to admit that knitting has taken a bit of a backseat in the past month or so. I still do a bit of knitting most days but have lots of other things to do so I've been doing a lot less of it even though I'm still loving it when I do get round to doing it.

Full project details on Ravelry.

Silly Auntie Helen

Last weekend we had a visit from Brian and William and had some Halloween fun. Silly Uncle Kenny* did a great job of pumpkin carving considering that the pumpkin (bought just a couple of days before) was already starting to rot. Yuk.

William and I made spooky fairy cakes, did lots of drawing, read stories and took a trip to our nearby lovely park.


It's tremendous fun being an auntie, I always knew I would enjoy being one but as ever I am full of awe for parents. How they manage to do ANYTHING while having children - even going to the loo becomes tricky let alone manage a house or have a job - is a complete mystery to me. By the time William left I was absolutely shattered; happy to have had such fun together but shattered!



*as William has perceptively taken to calling him.

knitted poem complete!

The Knitted Poem was unveiled yesterday as part of the Poetry Society's National Poetry Day celebrations. I'm really pleased I took part in this project as the finished article looks amazing. There are some great pictures on the Poetry Society's site and also the Facebook page for the project. The poem turned out to be Dylan Thomas' 'In my craft or sullen art' which you can read in full here.

In recent weeks I have been busy living life rather than blogging about it. I stated a Spanish course last week and have also been doing a patchwork class (although as I suspected patchwork demands a level of accuracy that doesn't come easily to me so I doubt it will become my number one craft).

I've also been going to a book group and choir and CAMRA meetings (got my knitting out for the first time on Monday night, didn't go down too badly). Aside from being enjoyable in themselves, these activities are a way of testing out my stamina and energy in a non-threatening way and hopefully a precursor to returning to some kind of paid work in the future. All this, together with the limitations of using a dongle for internet access means I haven't been inclined to blog much and although I don't intend on giving up blogging completely, the entries are going to be more infrequent than they used to be from now on.

Knitting Mandy

Jim and Kenny are glued to the conference coverage as usual. I dip in and out but happened to catch Mandelson's speech this afternoon and the camera panned round to the audience and found one of them knitting. A radio DJ has just described this as a 'gift' to TV news editors; presumably on the grounds that it will demonstrate a bored or inattentive audience.

Purlpower believes that this represents a common misconception among non-knitters - that if we are knitting we are not paying attention to what else is going on. This is not the case (although I probably wouldn't recommend knitting while driving). If you have spoken to me on the telephone at any time over the past six years there's a good chance that I was knitting at time. Doesn't mean I wasn't listening intently to what you were saying. Knitting helps me concentrate and I don't think I'm alone in this, in fact several studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of knitting (and c******) upon memory and other brain functions.

"some knitting, yesterday"

I've knitted at lectures, meetings and gigs. Admittedly one Maori-metal band were so disturbed by this that they stopped playing halfway through a song and asked me what I was making (a baby blanket as it goes). And I haven't knitted through a CAMRA meeting yet but my friends, it is only a matter of time. So take heart Mandy, just because we're knitting doesn't mean we're not listening.

Staying on a broadly political theme see how this writer wishes politics could be more knitterly, like Ravelry, here.