Firstly: QueenoftheFroggers finished her Swallowtail Shawl in Oxford Kitchen Yarns sock yarn. It’s superb. Go look! :)

Secondly: I owe a stack of emails to people. hopefully i’ll get my arse in gear tomorrow, and get them sorted out. Sorry.

Thirdly:

I have the lurgy. (Thank you man who coughed on me on the bus.) It’s not a serious lurgy, but I’d rather head it off at the pass if I can right now, which meant getting the jobs that really needed doing done, and then curling up in bed with plenty of drink and my knitting.

I’m sure you’ll be shocked to hear how much knitting for bump has been going on recently. But little projects are perfect for the summer, especially along side the bigger projects I want to get done. This is a bit of both. It’s a baby version of the Elizabeth Zimmermann Garter Stitch blanket (here is Brooklyntweed’s recently completed version.)

I’m knitting it in Oxford Kitchen Yarn Aran, with the center panels in undyed and the outer sections in a colour that has yet to be decided upon. (It’s a good way of working out how much yarn i’m going to need, since one center panel is an eighth of the whole thing.)

Also on the needles is a Shetland Shorty in 21st Century Yarns Silk.

I’ve had this yarn for a few years now. I bought it orginally to make some sort of wrap to wear at our wedding. To be honest the scarf/wrap i made didn’t get much wear, though it worked with the outfit. But I had alot of the silk left, and i’ve always wanted to make something from it, even if it meant ripping back the original scarf. (Which it probably will, and i’m fine with that.)

I’m hoping the Shetland Shorty will work well. (Though it’s slightly on hold till i get a pointer needle since the k2togs in silk are driving me a bit batty.)

As for recent FOs…

Everyone Needs A Blue Rabbit

Ravelry post or Lion Brand Link to Pattern.

This was knit with Debbie Bliss Wool/Cotton (and luckily I have enough left over for another couple if it proves popular.)

It was a very quick, very cute knit. A good alternative to baby socks or booties if you need a last minute gift.

Blue Sky Country Kiddie

Ravelry post or Link to pattern.

Oh Blue Sky Alpaca Silk how i love you! (And I still have 1 1/3 skeins left to make something else - maybe some fingerless mitts for me - I’m thinking of getting a skein of the red, and striping them. :)

I really love this pattern. In fact I’m planning to knit another one, though sleeveless as per the original pattern, from the left over ball of cash cotton left over from my tunic top. :)

I added the lace - it was crying out for something to be added to it, given i was using an even coloured yarn.

Drops Autumn Leaf Scarf

Ravelry post or Link to pattern.

This was made using the 22g i had left over after making my sideways garter stitch scarf (which I love!)

It proved to be a totally down to the wire project, but i had *just* enough yarn thank goodness.

(This is another pattern that knits up in no time at all. And it looks like it’ll stay on really well. At least while they are small. :)

Mossy Jacket

Ravelry post or Link to pattern.

This was my first time knitting with Noro. Again, it was another knitting down to the wire project. In fact I ended up knitting the sleeves from two ends of what was left of the second ball, so that i could keep them even. I think I ended up with about 6m of yarn left to spare.

The moss edging is Kilcarra aran.

And finally…

Our tv room. Finally decorated the weekend before last. \o/

W and I have slept in almost all of the rooms you could use as bedrooms since he bought this house, back in 2002. For the first two years we were only here on weekends, and our room was the tiny boxroom I now use as a workroom/office. Then when we moved here full-time, we had the bedroom downstairs, which we painted a soft turquoise.

Eventually - not long before we got married, in 2005, (when all the other housemates moved out) we FINALLY moved into the master bedroom, and there we have stayed.

I’m pretty sure that the day we moved in, I announced that we needed to decorate. And - TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATER - we have!

It’s not that i didn’t like the colour. Oh wait… no it IS that i didn’t like the particular colour. I like green. I like green alot (which is hilarious when you know that one of my best friends HATES green with a passion). I just didn’t like that green. It was too dark, too opressive.

Housemate!J had already put her stamp on the room by painting two of the walls cream, but all the paintwork was a dirty apple-white colour, and overall the room just didn’t work.

So we made it not work even more, by mis-picking colours, and daubing them on the walls. THAT has been the view from my pillow for two years.

Now my view looks like this:

The tester squares are gone, and the dark green is now ‘antique’ cream. Much airer!

This is the opposite wall, (as it was).

And this is the other side of the same chimney pillar. Urgh.

And this is what it looks like now: yes, basically I used a softer green (though the camera phone, and then time of day, makes it look darker than it is), and switched the colours of all (but one) wall. So everything that was green is now cream. (THREE coats, of breathable crown paint).

And all that was cream is now green. (Apart from that one wall by the wardrobe - because that would look weird.) The woodwork is all white silk emulsion. (Though I think W is right - It will need a proper gloss, but that’s not going to happen for the next year or so.) And the inside of the wardrobe is a soft velvety purple.

(But I can’t get a good shot of that, and anyways, you’ll see it when we paint the tv room, since we decided it would work well in there too. :)

Much softer, and calmer, and more relaxing. So much so, that i’m working from in here today, (given that the office is still full of stuff that is not going back into the bedroom, and needs new homes.)

And with that, I’m back! :)

More very soon.

I bumped into Practical Polly on my way back from the Bluestockings meeting on Wednesday, and she pointed me towards an interview that Yarnstorm has done with Woman’s Hour, about her new book, and the Return of Domesticity. She said there was the start of some drama about it on the Ravelry boards.

Having read the piece in the Telegraph that had sparked a number of interesting conversations between my crafty friends, I thought I would check it out. Plus, I’m generally a radio 4 kind of person.

So i went back and listened to it today and to be honest i’m pissed off. I’m definately annoyed at the interviewer - it seems like they got stuck down the cul de sac of an idea that being a woman - specifically a woman who makes things - means either a life of drudgery, frippery over and above one’s responsibilities, or trying to force everyone else back to the kitchen sink.

Like baking a cake, or making flap jack - when there is ‘perfectly good flapjack in sainsburys!’ *- is betraying feminism.

There was a classic quote about “if I were a working man who came back from work, to my wife showed me the embroidery she’d been doing, I’d think ‘get a job!’,” as if creative women sit around all day long, rather than out making money.

Kaffe Fassett makes quilts, and blankets and clothing, that are time hungry and incredibly intricate, publishes his patterns in magazines and gorgeous books, is considered an artist, and is loved by the V&A!

Nigel Slater enthuses about baking, and food bought locally and made from scratch and is a national treasure. Jamie Oliver is the same, and is considered a culinary crusader.

When men do these things, they are applauded. When women do them, they are betraying the sisterhood, and forcing other women to follow suit, whether they choose to or not.

Yes, Yarnstorm called her book ‘The Gentle art of Domesticity’. Yes, Nigella is the ‘Domestic Goddess.’

Did they ask for a beating by daring to use the dreaded D word?

Given that unless you are ‘homeless’ you live some sort of place (a house, a flat, a room) that could be called ‘home’, shouldn’t the home be part of everyone’s lives? shouldn’t it be part of who we are if we want it to be, and not just somewhere we collapse to at the end of another long day at work? That we might choose for it to reflect the things that we like, or are interested in. That it might contain thing that we want to enjoy, or own, or look at or use? That we might choose, as individuals to fill where we live with made things, with bought things, with things we have found, with things that might work only for us?

And also when exactly did the bench mark by which all our worth is measured get based on (British) business’ idea of how many hours a man should (over)work?

The interview seemed to suggest that women who create things are fools, who hark back to a time when a woman’s whole life was in the home. That owning a darning mushroom is to wish to live in a time when women made all their family’s clothes, and weren’t allowed to vote.

*I* own a darning mushroom. I use it to darn the cashmere socks I knitted eighteen months ago. The cashmere socks that cost me the equivelent of two tickets to the cinema. Cashmere that was hand dyed by a self employed woman, who runs her own business. Was I abandoning feminism, as woman who knits, to have chosen to pay my money to her, rather than spend it watching a film made by a major Hollywood Studio, who maybe has decided not to make films with female leads anymore?**

Knitting (and sewing) as hobbies, are as expensive, or as thrifty as you need them to be. They take up as much, or as little time as you want them too. I have knitted for two hours a day for months on end, turning a boring commute to a job I hated, into socks, scarves, hats, presents for others, and beautiful things just for me. I have celebrated other people’s creativity by using and adapting their patterns, and revelled in my own abilities and knowledge by making things from my own ideas in my own head. I have concentrated on the stitches that flow though my fingers, rather than on the traffic which I could do nothing to control.

I chooses to make things. I find kinship with some of those who choose to make things too.

I respect people who choose not to. (I find kinship with many of them aswell.)

I am a woman. A daughter. A sister. A partner. A feminist.

What I choose to do is betraying no-one. I’m just made to feel that it is.

Notes:

* I bet if I looked at flapjack in my local sainsburys I would find ingredients in it that I couldn’t pronounce, and that weren’t particularly good for me. That’s why people are being encouraged to improve their diets by cooking food from scratch.

**A whole other kettle of crap.

The sofa finally arrived, and our lounge looks SO much better for it!

We had to pull it up over the balcony, as expected, but it was tightly wrapped in plastic so it was fine (which had been my major worry - what if, after all that, we managed to knacker it before we got it in the house? *panic*)

Now we just have to:
- wait for the prints to come back from being framed
- decided which ones are going in the lounge and where
- pick colours for the walls
- paint walls
- sort out shelving for books
- sort out storage for the stereo
- maybe a rug?

…and we’re done! \o/