Award for Downloading Knitting Patterns September 30, 2009

  95 year old winner of the Silver Surfer IT award, photo from the front page of the Irish Times, Sept. 29, 2009

And a very deserving winner indeed.  According to the Irish Times she has mastered a computer which she received from her family last Christmas.  She uses the computer to surf the internet, send e-mails, talk to her 7 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren via Skype.  She taught herself how to use the computer, she said, through her own “sense of discovery” and also took a class. 

The Minister for Older People presented several other awards.  One was to a 75 year old woman for being such a dedicated IT learner.  She is a volunteer in a local school, teaching the children to knit and sew, and she downloads patterns from the internet and prints them off for her weekly classes.  This is fine to present this woman with an award but really I find the wording rather patronising.   I feel a bit incensed about this, being slightly over 70 myself.   I don’t like being considered an older person for one thing – although I guess I am.  And the implication that older people are doing something wonderful if they learn to use a computer. ( Older people are not stupid!)  And thirdly, the linking of older people and knitting.  It’s true that most older women did knit at some point in their lives and probably no longer do this craft that they were once so good at.  I think it’s more for lack of motivation rather than for lack of skill.  In earlier years, most women knit for their families.  Now there is not that motive of economic necessity.  The current trend is for people of all ages, but mainly younger people, to knit with trendy yarns and to knit fashion items as opposed to strictly utilitarian garments

Everyone Was Knitting September 28, 2009

When I went to the Sunday Market in the People’s Park in Dun Laoghaire, it seemed as if everyone was knitting.  As I walked along the seafront to get to the Park what should I see but a girl sitting on a bench and knitting intently.  Looked like she was using thick yarn.

  Knitting while enjoying the view across Dublin Bay to Howth

 

I continued on my way to the Market

 

   Approach to the Sunday Market in the People’s Park

The first stand I found was my favourite Amani Crafts Ltd with Lucy Ndungu Lane from Kenya selling the Kazuri Beads.  Much to my surprise Lucy was knitting – I thought she had told me she didn’t know how.  Beyond her I could see several people sitting on the grass and concentrating on their knitting.   And another person standing and knitting while chatting with a friend orcustomer.

  Having a chat while working away at her knitting

 

I proceeded  next door to The Yarn Room to see Stephanie and Maria.  Not surprising that they were knitting.  But here the reason for all the knitting became clear – Stephanie and Maria had organized their friends in the Market to knit squares for a comfort blanket.  The blanket is to be assembled by Stephanie and given to another Market friend who is ill.  I thought this was a great idea and I volunteered to knit a square as well.  So I was given a pair of size 10 needles and some uninteresting gray and white yarn, which I managed to exchange with Lucy – her green yarn was much more my colour to knit.

 

 

 

 

   Here’s my effort so far – cast on 20 stitches and knit a square

After Stephanie stitches each person’s squares together to make up the blanket, I’ll try to get a picture to post.  Keep watching.

More hats – One for Everyone in the Audience September 24, 2009

I’m still knitting hats.  Am now up to hat number 20 or thereabouts.  My sales have a way to go to catch up with my productivity.  This hat was knit with a strand of Lodband (an Icelandic lace weight I think) and a strand of Noro on a size 3 circular Addi Turbo needle.  The knitting is quite tight and consequently I think the hat would only fit a child’s head.  I suspect I should have used a larger needle.

I like the Icelandic Lodband yarn so I am now knitting a short sleeve sweater with 2 strands of brown Lodband.         My progress so far – about 8″ 

 

 

          Icelandic Lodband, 50 g, ca. 225 m

 

The sweater being knit on a size 3.25 circular needle.  I cast on 192 stitches.  Progress is slow but the yarn is nice to knit with.  The knitting is quite tight.

  Pattern for the brown short sleeve sweater.  The red is very attractive but try to picture it in brown.

          

    

The map shows the scene of our travels over the past couple of days.  As the passenger, I could knit while enjoying the lovely scenery.  More of that in another post.

Attention Librarians and Booksellers September 21, 2009

I subscribe to A Word a Day, a free service which sends me an interesting word each day.  Today’s word is comstockery - a word I had never heard of.  Anu Garg is the Wordsmith and he introduces his word for today by writing that librarians and booksellers are two of his favourite people.  (Well since I am both of those I think I would like to meet the man.)  He goes on to write that he feels it unfortunate that some people feel threatened by certain books and call for them to be banned or destroyed.  He feels that people have a right to be offended by any book, but in that case all they have to do is not buy or borrow it. The problem begins when they try to impose their views on others by trying to ban it.

As an antidote to banning, the last week of September is observed in the US as Banned Books Week.  So this week Anu Garg is going to feature five words relating to censorship and mutilation of books.

Even though people after whom some of these words are coined have long gone, censorship is still alive. But there’s hope. Anu leaves his readers with this thoughtful letter from a librarian to a patron.

From the Wordsmith:

“comstockery

 

MEANING:

noun: Overzealous censorship of material considered obscene.

ETYMOLOGY:

After Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. He crusaded against anything he considered immoral. Nothing escaped his wrath — even anatomy textbooks for medical students and the draping of mannequins in public view in shop windows were obscene to him. He lobbied for laws against mailing any material that could be perceived as promoting immorality.
He was appointed postal inspector and he seized books, postcards, and other materials by the boatload. He boasted that he had arrested more than 3,000 people and driven more than 15 to suicide. George Bernard Shaw coined the word comstockery after him when he attacked the American production of Shaw’s play “Mrs. Warren’s Profession”.”

 

My encounter with censorship – I worked in the library of the American International School in Bangladesh for close to 5 years and eventually reached the position of  head librarian.  One day, a mother of a child in the lower grades, came in to browse and select some books for herself. (We had a rather large adult section to serve the needs of parents and friends, books in English being rather scarce in Bangladesh at that time.)   I knew this parent socially and thought her reasonable enough.  However, she came into the library and upraided me in no uncertain fashion for having a book by Raoul Dahl on our shelves.  I cannot remember which book it was – this was about 25 years ago.  I was puzzled by her outrage but did not feel articulate enough to counter her.  And I decided it was no big deal to just quietly withdraw the book and say no more.  Then I put it back on the shelves when this particular parent had moved on.  It wasn’t as if the book was in great demand anyhow – it probably hadn’t been taken out in years.

September Equinox September 21, 2009

Here we are, September 21st, and my calendar tells me it’s the autumnal equinox.  The nights are drawing in and the days are getting shorter.  We’re at the halfway point between the longest day in June and the shortest day in December.  According to the Irish Times weather report, the sun rose today at 7:09 a.m. Irish Summer Time and is due to set at 7:26 p.m. IST.  That makes slightly over 12 hours of daylight.  If I check out my weather pixie (click on the widget in the sidebar) I can see that in Seattle the sun is due to rise at 6:53 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time and set at 19:11 PDT.

The flowers in the garden are wilting.  The hydrangea blooms are turning a deeper red.  The cosmos, on the other hand, are flourishing, as are the pansies.   And the nasturtiums in the front of the house are still spreading and lo0king colourful.  Last night I planted wallflowers to show some greenery and to have colour in the Spring.  Thinking ahead.

Knitting and Poetry – Seamus Heaney September 20, 2009

After a comment by Yarnerinas on one of my previous blogs, I have been searching and searching for a particular poem by Seamus Heaney.  

        Seamus Heaney reads (Image from Edinburgh Book Festival 2009)

 The title I had to go by was A Hank of Wool.  Despite looking through various anthologies and individual volumes of his poetry, the best I ccould come up with is just an extract from a Seamus Heaney website    as follows:

…….. in an uncollected poem, “A Hank of Wool: i.m. Elizabeth Bishop,” an allusion signals the shift from the literal to the figurative level. The poet first recalls a conversation with Bishop concerning knitting and then invites her to “come back in a cardigan”

so that we can imagine

the click and flash of needles,

see them like fireflies

in our tranquil recollection

of those supple mysteries,

knit one, drop one, slip one [...] (261)

Celebrating WWSIP at Airfield Farm September 20, 2009

 WWWSIP=World Wide Spinning in Public

 

  Spinning at Airfield

WWSIP=World Wide Spinning in Public – and that’s what we did at Airfield Farm in Dundrum, Dublin, Ireland.  We could think of other spinners at their wheels all over the world.  I thought of how New Year’s Eve is celebrated with it starting on the other side of the world and gradually moving around until it completes  its 24 hour cycle somewhere west of Hawaii.    When we started our spinning, spinners in Australia had probably finished and spinners in Seattle had yet to start.

We had an excellent setting being sheltered under a big awning and in full view of passersby coming to explore the farm or go to the restaurant.  And we had a good time chatting and spinning and explaining our craft to young and old.

 Fleece washed and carded, ready to be spun

 

  this boy was particularly interested in the Louet wheel

 

  Airfield ponies – viewed from our spinning area

Longevity September 16, 2009

As the years go by and we are all getting older, I am especially conscious of people who are still very active and creative in their senior years.  How fortunate they are to have good health to be able to continue pursuing their dreams.  

A few days ago I heard a clip on the radio about Dame Vera Lynn, the Forces sweetheart of World War II.  What a lovely voice and still going strong at age 92.

  Dame Vera Lynn, age 92    born 1917   

 photo from wikipedia

 

 

 

 

In the art world, another icon for me is Louise Bourgeois, a world famous sculptress and textile worker.  She was born on Christmas Day in 1911

 

  Louise Bourgeois   photo credit San Francisco Chronicle

 

A couple of weeks ago a group of lawn bowlers from the Pentine Bowling Club in south Wales came over to Dublin for a week of bowling.  They played at a different club each day.  On one of the days they played at Kenilworth, the bowling club I belong to, and we had a very enjoyable afternoon together.  It is really fun to play a group visiting from another part of the British Isles – the Welsh are quite distinctive, shouting phrases I have never heard anywhere else.  I played skip for my team and my opposite number who played skip for Pentine was 94 years old.  I had a hard time believing it.  She did not look or act a day over 80.  She was wonderful and she certainly out bowled me.  I hope I am still bowling when I hit the 80’s decade, never mind the 90’s.

WWSIP Day September 15, 2009

 

WWSIP – World Wide Spin in Public Day is happening on this coming Saturday,  September 19.  Events are being organised all over the world to celebrate the craft of spinning.  I am in the midst of organising a spinning “party” here in Dublin at Airfield Farm.  A number of members and friends of the Irish Guild of Weavers Spinners & Dyers will be spinning out of doors (weather permitting) or inside a big tent put up for the purpose.  Here are a few pictures from previous events. 

  Spinning at Airfield

 

  Sheep shearing at Airfield

 

  Spinning demonstration

 

  Lambs at Airfield

Collecting Postcards September 13, 2009

Deltiology again – I haven’t blogged about my postcard collection for a long time.  Well, today was Book Fair Day and not only did I buy and sell books (more buying than selling in good book dealer tradition) but I also bought some postcards.  My postcard collection is a bit eclectic to say the least.  I like postcards for the artwork.  I like postcards that remind me of the time when tinted postcards were popular.  I like postcards that remind me of places I have been.  I like postcards that have interesting stamps.  I like postcards that are old.  I like postcards that tell something about social history.  Etc. etc.

 

Today I bought 3 postcards.

  Girl milking a goat in Norway.  Date 1905 approx.  I like postcards of animals – and this one make me think of a blog I read about raising goats in Devon.  I like old postcards.  As a rule, I like all things Scandinavian. 

 

  Hardanger, Norway  Postmark Bergen 1905.  A lovely stamp on this card written July 12th.  It is a tinted card.  The Hardanger Fjord was where I cycled, hiked, and stayed at the Youth Hostel in 1959.  I am reminded that it seemed to me that we had the same buffet meal 3 times a day. 

  The Bell Bowling Green, Tewsbury.  Old postcards of bowling greens are rare – this is my first one.  Readers of this blog will know why I bought this postcard.