This rather amusing link came in the mail (email of course) last week. Do you want to create more private space? Then have a look at this link. I got a bit of a chuckle and now I have found on Jean Miles’ blog, one of the blogs I read regularly. You Knit What Two has surfaced. Read more if you want to explore what not to knit or what to do with knitting that didn’t turn out to be quite what you intended.
What to do when the stash is used up April 27, 2008
There seems to be some concern as to what I am going to do when I have used up all my knitting stash. Like the last person to leave, do I just turn out the lights? Well, first of all, I don’t think I will actually manage to use up all my stash – I’m pretty certain I will acquire more yarn when the stash gets too low. It’s sort of similar to my book buying – I always have a lot of unread books on my shelves and I slowly work through them, but long before I have read them all, I have acquired more. Reminds me of the old Walt Disney film Fantasia.
The sock knitting continues, as shown below. And the squares knitting for hodge podge 6 is the other part of the ongoing assault on the stash of knitting yarn.
Another project lurking in the wings is a cardigan in natural colours. I find that yarn a bit difficult to knit and I am not totally convinced I want to do that project – hence it has been moved to the back of the queue.
Bealtaine Festival April 26, 2008
The Bealtaine Festival 2008 is nearly upon us. Bealtaine – celebrating creativity in older age. A lot of emphasis is appearing in the newspaper now about how older people are being creative in many different areas. For the past 3 years I have been playing clarinet with an adult beginner band. Most of the members of the band have some sort of musical background and they have played an instrument when they were younger or they have decided to try playing a particular instrument for the first time. The Rathfarnham Adult Band is what we call ouselves and we come under the umbrella of the Rathfarnham Concert Band Society.
For several years we have been talking about giving a concert – 5 years ago in its very early stages the band held a concert but I understand this was quite rudimentary. This year we became more serious about it and a date was set and a hall was booked – we were committeed and it was going to happen. That focussed our minds and attendance at our weekly rehearsals improved dramatically. Excitement and trepidation went hand in hand. The word went out to family and friends and last Friday night, the Concert actually took place. The hall was full to overflowing. 
Spring is in the Air was the title of our concert and
here is the programme showing the pieces we played. 
It was a wonderful evening and we felt absolutely euphoric over how well it went. We did not play on our own however. To boost our confidence – and needless to say to make for a much better sound – we had a number of “guest players” from the Rathfarnham Concert Band Society. What a boost that was. A very skilled clarinet player played with us in the clarinet section and she was so helpful in keeping us on the beat and at the right place in the music. The same was happening in other sections of the band.
I felt that this event was very definitely in the spirit of Bealtaine.
Old photographs April 23, 2008
Over the weekend we had a computer glitch and we finally had to call in a computer doctor to solve the problem. Honestly, the way we were pacing around, it was like waiting for the diagnosis about a sick child. Joy and jubilation when the patient was pronounced to be well on the road to recovery and internet access was restored. Why were we so upset? As one friend suggested, it was upsetting all our routines. Well, one routine I deviated from this past weekend was my usual Saturday morning at our local country co-operative market at Kilternan. Instead, this Saturday morning was my only chance to go to the Trinity Book Sale. This was the final day of the Book Sale and I hardly expected to find anything of interest. I arrived shortly after it opened at 10 o’clock and was very surprised to find it so crowded. I rummaged through the books on the various tables and no, I didn’t find any great treasures – a few small items but nothing much. Still I got pleasure out of the searching.
Third and final day of the Trinity Book Sale April 2008
Following my big expenditure of euro 2.60 at the sale, I decided to visit the shop at the National Gallery. This visit also looked as if it was not going to bear fruit until…….I was leaving the shop and spotted a book of interest in the window display. Back I went and ended up purchasing Framing the West, Images of Rural Ireland 1891-1920 What attracted me to the book were the old photographs, particularly those relating to spinning. To quote from one particular link “This collection put together by Breathnach (U. of Limerick, Ireland) aims to demonstrate the value of photographic images as historical evidence for scholars of Ireland. Drawing largely on the works of commercial photographer Robert J. Welch (1859-1936), 14 contributions discuss the history of photography in Ireland and explore what photography tells us about the social and economic history of the West of Ireland between 1890 and 1920. Topics addressed include the use of photography in Irish tourist literature, images of poverty, the cultural relationship between Welch and his subjects, the gender division of labor in commercial fisheries, and agricultural transformation of the Irish landscape.”
Quite a number of the old photographs also appear to have been postcards. I must be on the lookout for those at future antique postcard hunting opportunities.
Recent socks April 22, 2008
During the past few weeks I have returned to sock knitting. A very satisfying pastime. After the toe surgery now almost 6 weeks ago, the only sock I could wear was a loose handknit one. On my visit to the surgeon after week 4, the surgeon went so far as to admire my handknit socks. He went up 10 points in my estimation!! A skillful surgeon who also appreciated handknit socks!
That spurred me on to knit more socks. 
These are the socks for my husband who so kindly ferried me around to my various classes and activities before I was able to drive again.
My other recent knitting has been the continuation of my stash reduction drive – knitting squares to be made up into blankets.
Here is the start of Hodge Podge 6.
And here is the current state of the knitting stash – considerably smaller than one month ago – progress has been made.
Kerry Woollen Mills April 17, 2008
On Nationwide last night one of the clips was about the Kerry Woollen Mills in Beaufort, County Kerry, Ireland. We lament the disappearance of many mills in the British Isles but Kerry Woollen Mills appears to be thriving. The business is over 100 years old. It was established 104 years ago by a Scotsman named Eadie.
To quote from the Kerry Woollen Mills website:
“Kerry Woollen Mills is one of the last surviving traditional woollen mills still manufacturing in the beautiful Kerry countryside. Established over 300 years ago to alleviate local poverty the mill drew on the adjacent River Gweestin for the power to drive its machinery and the water to wash and dye its wool. The mill was bought over by the Eadie family in 1904 who had previously been in the woollen manufacturing business for many years in Fermangh and Scotland and continues under the fourth generation of family ownership to this day.
The mill is set in a rural location with many of the three hundred year old buildings still standing and functional! The machinery has of course changed many times over the years!”
I think it is the great grandson, Andrew Eadie, who is the current owner/manager. True to his Scottish heritage, Andrew attended the Scottish College of Textiles when it came time for him for enter the business as an adult. Of course he had grown up surrounded by the whirr of the machines and all the processes involved. Two points struck me especially about the programme – the use of imported wool and the dependence on the American tourist. Most of the wool they use is imported from Australia. They process the fine Australian merino wool and then make it up into lap rugs, shawls, blankets, garments, etc. They have a shop at the mill site and they are heavily dependent on American tourists coming to visit and purchase from the shop. Andrew said that Americans were the life blood of their business.
I have commented before about the difficulties In shopping for knitting wool in Dublin and the closing down of a number of wool shops. Well, even in years past I have not been that aware of knitting yarn from Kerry Woollen Mills. It has only been when I have gone to the West of Ireland to Connemara or County Mayo that I have found hanks of bainin (white yarn) from Kerry Woollen Mills. I see from their website that they do have knitting yarn and I’m sure that if I went to their mill shop I would find it there. Otherwise, I suppose failing a trip to the West, I could order it from the website.
On another note, here’s the message I was given today in Irish class. Éist le fuaim na habhann agus gheobhaidh tú breac. Which in translation means “Listen to the sound of the river and you will get a trout.” Guess where this came from – a sugar packet from a local Chinese restaurant.
And finally, if you read my earlier blog about the Leargas programme featuring Tomás MacNiocláis – yes it was my Irish teacher filmed as part of the Irish Book Group. I found out today that they meet once a month and that there are about 12 of them in the group. She said that RTE spent at least an hour filming them and in the programme they were shown for about half a minute. Just shows you how much editing goes on.
Old postcards revisited April 17, 2008
This postcard is a replica of an old photograph. Copyright National Museum of Ireland. What bothers me about it is the caption – Spinning and carding wool. The spinning part is all right but the carding term is incorrect, isn’t it? The woman in the foreground is beating flax, isn’t she? And isn’t there a special term other than beating for this stage of the process?
Little did I know……. April 15, 2008
What a pleasant surprise last night to find that the Leargas programme on RTE 1 was about Tomás MacNiocláis. (Leargas is a weekly current affairs programme and the content is mostly in Irish, with English sub-titles.) Last night when the programme started, I remarked that the man looked like the Tomás I know from the Dublin City Book Fairs. Sure enough, it was one and the same. I knew that Tomás had passed his 90th birthday but I didn’t know by how much – it turns out his birth year was 1913, the same as my Aunt Alice, still living in Florida. It was a half hour programme showing snippets from Tomás’ life interwoven with archive film of significant events in Ireland from 1913 on. It was just so interesting. I love living history type programmes and this was extra special since I know the person featured in the film. When I say I knew the person featured in the programme – I really only know him to smile and say hello and ask do you have any interesting books for sale this month. At his table at the Book Fairs, Tomás features books in Irish – I knew that was his interest and he usually talked with his many customers in Irish. From my limited knowledge of Irish I could kind of eavesdrop but not really understand what they were talking about. Little did I know about Tomás’ very interesting life byond the Book Fairs.
In the course of his long life, his work was mainly in the field of education. But in his younger days he played Gaelic football for County Mayo and was part of a winning team in an all Ireland final against Kerry at Croke Park.
Tomás lives locally so there were a lot of familiar scenes – Castle Street in Dalkey, the sweeping view of the two Sugarloaf mountains and Killiney Bay, Vico Terrace, etc. Tomás is a member of a Book Group – an Irish language book group – they meet and discuss books in Irish – and there sitting around the table I’m quite certain I spotted my Irish teacher.
Tomás is a scholar with a deep love of literature and the Irish language. The programme closed with Tomás reading a poem by William Wordsworth. I was surprised that the final reading wasn’t in Irish but there you are – maybe they just wanted to show his broader interests beyond the Irish language.
Knitting Al Fresco April 14, 2008
With great difficulty I have tried to upload this photo. This was a brief moment caught yesterday when I was all set up to start knitting in our still to be completed glass house. Moments after the photo was taken, the rain came again. I guess we really need the windows and the roof!
The Big Red Album April 10, 2008
I’ve been writing a lot about old postcards and trying to find cards related to the fibre arts. Collecting stamps is a related activity to collecting postcards. In my childhood, collecting stamps was one of my hobbies – a hobby that in time went on the back burner. In due course I went away to college, entered the working world, went back to college etc. As the years passed I scarcely thought about my former passion for stamp collecting. When the family home was sold I was far away and unable to attend the final clearance of the memorabilia stored away there. However, there were 2 items of memorabilia that I decided I really cared about – a scrapbook – mainly of newspaper clippings, and my big red stamp album. I was assured that one of my sisters had rescued these items and that they were stored in her barn. The years went by. Each time I visited in New Hampshire, I searched the barn looking for those 2 items. The search for the scrapbook proved fruitless or maybe I did find it and decided I didn’t care about those newspaper clippings anymore. But I did eventually find the red stamp album. This album dates from the 1940’s and I remembered it as being chock-a-block full of stamps. Memory is a funny thing. It was hardly full, by any means. But I found it and I am very happy to have it.
In her blog Chronic Knitting Syndrome, Helen writes of listening to music that she enjoyed 20-30 years ago. Listening to it again, she can recall events in her life when those tunes were first popular. Now 20-30 years on, she is listening to the same music but listening in a different way and paying less attention to the words but being reminding of events in her life when the tunes were first popular.
In a round-about way I am trying to say something similar about my stamp album. I suppose I initially collected stamps because the countries depicted by the stamps were far away and exotic. Now I find myself living in one of those far away exotic countries. In fact, I have lived here for almost 40 years – and in many other far away exotic places. The Irish stamps in my stamp album are filed under the Irish Free State, as Eire was known at the time the album was printed. Little did I know what the future held – I was only 10 years old and pasting Irish Free State stamps into a big red album.
Now I am 60 decades further on and looking at my stamp album again. The Album does not have near as many stamps as it held in my memory – memory plays tricks. But the Album is precious nonetheless. And I have a big bumper box of stamps tucked away in one of our cupboards – I’m sure I can find some more stamps to paste into this neglected, long-lost, refound, and treasured album. And hopefully one or more of my grandchildren will be attracted to this hobby – when stamped letters arrive in the post, I tear out the corner and put the stamp aside in hope. Who knows how those grandchildren will feel in 50 years time when they find the stamps that their grandmother saved for them.
Meanwhile, knitting continues. One pair of socks almost completed (only the ends to sew in). A 2nd pair started. I have been wearing a pair of my handknit socks to protect my sore toes – joy of joy, today the toe doctor admired my socks!!! Just the thing for anyone having toe or bunion surgery!
