Author: thornmaiden

Time to increase the medication, methinks…

I have been in a stew of rage recently.

It started with the business of my trip to Belfast, and the chewing out I got for (supposedly) not telling anyone that I was going. Really – Imabee 46 next week, people. Been dressing myself and tying my own shoe laces for damn close to half a century! I’m really tired of having to squeeze my news into 10 words or less before I get interrupted, talked over, etc. Believe it or not, dear family, there are people  who shut up when I walk into a room and take notes when I speak, and who would never dream of monologuing on Great Sandwiches I Have Known over my learned and witty discourse(s). No sir!

But the fury is leaking out everywhere. I have insulted entire continents online, and yesterday I very nearly rammed a car IRL. Well, what the feck were they doing parking across the petrol station slip road?!?! Two of us trying to leave, one trying to enter, and another already in but unable to park because YOU, you dribbling moron, decide to GET IN THE BLOODY WAY.

Currently what is wearing my molars is test knitting. A few months ago, I decided to have a practice run at having a design test-knit using a pattern I’d already published. It’s a pretty popular free pattern, lots of downloads, in a lot of queues, but no one’s got round to making it yet.  I thought it would be a good learning process to ease me in. No biggie, right? Well, it’s been a fecking nightmare. First I had to fill in a form that made my PhD look like a toddler’s wall scribblings. I, the trained researcher, nearly lost the will to live doing the research for this form, trawling through the archives of helpful notes and guidance. Not that I’d mind if I’d got my testers, but only one person responded. Then I started getting messages about the progress of the test. They were standard-letter style messages, but felt rather brusque, nitpicky, officious and unhelpful.

I tried getting testers in a less stressful environment. But all I got was a rather unhelpful reply saying my pattern wasn’t what I said it was… I don’t think I’ve ever felt such bile towards someone I don’t even know. Seriously, if I could have reached down the internet and broken every one of his/her fingers, I would have. I’m still livid.

———–

And I had to walk away from the computer just there, as I was in danger of Hulking out and this is my last pair of clean trousers. So I went and deep-cleaned the dishwasher, on the same principle that my dear old silver-haired granny told me to eat a teaspoonful of dogshit each morning*. And isn’t it good that I did**? because I know exactly h to handle it now***. Lady-like, self-aggrandising, with big words.

I am also feeling rather better about the seething ire. Because it does bother me – I think of myself as pretty chilled. I gots a rep to maintain, yo. It’s good because I’ve been feeling like crap for so long that getting mad was too much effort. It was easier just to get more miserable and defeated. Now, knocking heads together sounds like a fun plan, and plans are always better than vegging.

ION, I have begun taking the dog up the forest in the mornings, after dropping the Mighty Offspring to the bus. The exercise half kills me – I’m still stiff from this morning – but I shall continue undaunted, although the foraging is rubbish this year. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, my arse – not one of the brambles will be ready before the frost hits, the wild strawbs never got round to fruiting, and there’s no sign of the mushrooms that were carpeting the place this time last year. The currants got blown off the stems back in July, and even the sloes aren’t putting in an appearance. My cherry crabapple has ONE apple on it, and the plums, cherry and pear didn’t even bloom. I have a few tiny, miserable apples and maybe a handful of raspberries to show for the season, and my heritage potatoes still aren’t ready – and they were first earlies!

TTFN!

* – i.e., that nothing worse could happen to you that day.

** – walk away. Not eat the dogshit.

*** – again, not the dogshit. The unhelpful replier.

Well.

Now I’ve calmed down a bit – 

I’ve just spent a lovely long weekend in Belfast. The Mighty Offspring saw the dinosaur exhibition at the Ulster Museum and the movie ‘Brave’ and was generally spoilt rotten. Due to his habit of “remembering” (i.e., making up) what suits him, I missed the exhibition, got hilariously lost, and was barely able to move by the time I found my way back to Ma-in-Law’s, having walked about 8 miles. Strangely, it seems to have helped. Okay, I stiffen up if I stop moving for more than 5 mins, there are twinges and owies and an alarming crunching noise from my right ankle, but I am standing straighter and taller than for a long time. 

On Saturday morning, I went to St George’s Market in search of Lighthouse Yarns, and was disappointed. No sign of them. Of course, they may only be there Sundays, though I thought – oh well. I got a book on vintage knits and a gorgeous hand-tooled leather notebook, which I’ll be using for designs. There were a few yarn stalls, but nothing spectacular. Some interesting clothes stalls, too, vintage, handmade, etc. Sunday I sidetracked from a school shopping trip to Primark to check out The Wicker Man. They have a small but worthy range of Cushendale Woollen Mills and Donegal Yarns wool, and seem to stock Knit Picks/KnitPro needles, and will be running knitting classes from September. They also have some Aran knits, sporting a tag about how Willie John “Paddy” MacBallix was the first man in Ballyarsebackwards to wear an Aran jumper, to the official reception held by Finn MacCool (sic) to welcome St Patrick to the oul sod, blah, blah, blah. 

Back home to some not-fun stuff occasioned by the fact that my family doesn’t listen to me and was unaware that we’d gone to Belfast, despite my several attempts to tell them. At least, I’m pretty sure that telling them that the Mighty Offspring was going to see the dinosaur exhibition and I’d be doing a bit of shopping (and that I’d have to fill the car with petrol before I left) is enough of a hint that those activities might be done together and/or in proximity to each other. Sheesh.

But! The big fun news! I got free yarn! Donegal Yarns Aran Tweed, #4803. It is better than I hoped. A deep, peaty, almost purply brown, with orange nepps. Loads of other nepps, but it’s the orange that stands out. I swatched up a bit overnight, and even with less than ideal blocking at Ma-in-Law’s, it is all froofy and soft. Delivered to the end of the road by the boss, how is that for service? Didn’t even have to blag my way to an invitation to the mill, it was offered up front. Possibilities of collaboration, etc., etc.

I’m not too sure how much more to say about this. I don’t want to be giving away trade secrets. It’s kind of like blogging, now that I’m mainly doing designing rather than knitting or adapting patterns by other people. In my older, funnier blog, I could document the trials and tribulations of the Serious Knitter. The uncooperative yarn. The bewildering instructions. The ill-advised modifications, the attendant injuries, the misread deadlines, the ungrateful recipients, and the photo-shoot foul-ups. I could hold forth on the insanity of the pattern designer, the process, and the finishing. Now, I have to stay quiet, especially about anything that is being published elsewhere. Which is most of them at the moment! How can I be funny with no material?!?!?!

I had a Chicken Tarka Masala once. It’s like a Chicken Tikka Masala but just a little ‘otter…

Yikes!

Now I know what people mean when they say they’re sick with excitement!

So many things happening. The Mystery Project kickstarter is being edited. I’m getting free yarn. I’m trying to put a portfolio together, and learn Arts-speak. Also, off to Belfast !! St George’s Market Lighthouse Yarns stall, here I come!

And just for a gas, willya listen to Michael D makin’ poundies of the Yanks. That man can chunder better than me Ma! Truly worthy of  this appropriate little knit…

Some Cheese With That Whine…

Today I got out of bed all by myself and did a reasonable day’s housework. Go me! 

This is after nearly two weeks of paralysing pain. I have been bothering my doctor for months about the constant pains and aches I suffer, especially in my hands and arms. Some of it I could ascribe to getting older and being fat and unfit, but I felt there was no way I should feel as if I’ve overdone things badly at the gym following a day’s potting about the house. I’ve been tested for everything, all negative.  

Finally got an appointment with a rheumatologist, who has diagnosed fibromyalgia. However, the day of the appointment, I woke up with a frozen shoulder (bursitis). I haven’t been able to drive since. I’ve had to get the Mighty Offspring to help me out of bed more than once. Topped it off by nearly collapsing in a supermarket carpark while waiting for a lift. I feel like I’ve been beaten up – on a good day. 

It has left me worrying how I’m going to hold down a job if I go through periods like this. How do I get to work if I can’t drive? How do I do my job if I’m in so much pain that I can’t move, or can’t lift my arm up to write on a whiteboard? How do I do my marking and planning if I’m so exhausted I fall asleep as soon as I sit down? It’s been suggested i apply for Disabled Living Allowance, which would help with the cost of taxis, for example, but what about the rest? I could do supply, working only when I’m able, but I won’t get much repeat custom if I can’t work when I’m asked. Tutoring on the same basis is a possibility. I could do more serious design work too, set up a proper sole tradership. 

And figure out what drugs are going to sort me out, if any. 

Wah wah wah…

 

Flat

A few designs ago, I needed a stitch pattern that doesn’t curl. Those would be garter stitch, moss stitch, and ribbing. Unfortunately, none of these was going to cut the mustard for this particular pattern: it had to be something relatively smooth, non-curly, and firm.

I went on a bit of a quest and finally came across linen stitch, which worked beautifully for the purpose. In another design, I found that a cabled cast-on does a decent job of stopping a stocking-stitch hem curling, as long as the cast-on is a reasonably close fit. 

This has made me wonder what other patterns might lie flat. There must be more – it’s just balancing the knits and purls. Garter, moss and rib have their place, but they also interrupt the flow of a garment. Rib pinches in the drape, moss looks like mini pompoms, and garter’s just nasty – chops off the vertical line, introduces a horizontal accordion banding. 

So I’ve been looking through some stitch dictionaries. There’s some possibilities, so I think I’ll just try knocking out some swatches. 

Watch this space!

 

 

Another one away…

On to the next!

What am I doing on here?

I’m supposed to be putting designs together!

So. Thorn Maiden. What’s that about then?

Many years ago, I watch a series of Irish language programmes on the BBC. The fact that most were filmed around Donegal was a big draw – it was fun to spot the different areas.

One episode stuck in my mind – The Thorn Tree*. It wasn’t the setting, but the story. I was aware that hawthorn trees had a special status in Ireland: an old superstition that they should never be cut down. Sometimes, they were called ‘fairy trees’. Supposedly, they were inhabited or protected by Irish fairies – the fay, sidhe, little folk, Tuatha De Danaan, lords and ladies, etc. and so forth. Irish fairies are not the twinkly, fluttering, bluebell-dwelling,  granters of wishes of Victorian England. They’re a troublesome bunch of savages, to be avoided or placated. Leave a bowl of milk on your doorstep, or your cows will go dry. Dress your sons as girls till they’re four, or risk them being stolen. Never travel past a crossroads or a fairy ring or a henge by night, or be driven mad or taken in the dance. Bargains struck with them will always go wrong – for you. Their favour is as damaging as their enmity. They’ll taken you for your beauty, or your talent, or just for the music of your screams.  A right shower, the lot of them. You have been warned.

Personally, I look for the practical reasons behind these old superstitions. Don’t walk under a ladder, not because it’s bad luck, but because the eejit on top of it will probably drop his hammer on your head. Black cats crossing your path are bad luck only if you trip over them, and thirteen is an unfortunate number of guests at a formal déjeuner.  Now, thorn trees have been used forever as boundary markers, hedging, and so on. Great stuff for keeping the sheep contained, and keeping the grockles orff yore laaaaarnd. Funnily enough, if someone were to take an axe to your thorn tree, well, there go the sheep, and all sorts of undesirables would be turning up on your doorstep. Bailiffs and landlords, for example, or that land-grabbing fecker down the road who can now claim that the boundary marker between your farms is that tree 200 yards closer to your house than the one that’s now warming his hearth…

Anyway. The Thorn Maiden. She’s seen only briefly in the programme, a pouty, willowy nymphette with a cloud of dark hair, in wispy robes entirely unsuited to the Irish weather, waving her arms ineffectually at the gasúr chopping down the tree while whortling in a vaguely Enya-like manner. In the story, the wielder of the chopper is driven crazy by this apparition, and forced to make reparations before fleeing the country.

Umm, no. That skinny wee girleen wouldn’t scare the hens off their mash. Somehow, I’d expected to see someone like Bang, my old boarding school matron: a dour, curmudgeonly spinster in stout sensible shoes, carrying a lump of gnarly wood vainly passing itself off as a walking stick. To see Bang bearing down on you with purpose in those dragon eyes was to know true fear**.

That’s my Thorn Maiden – more thran than thorn. Now, get off my laaarrnd!

* Link to PDF about the episode. AFAIK, the video is no longer available.

** Actually, she was a lovely woman. Just scary as all get out.

New Pattern!

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Because You Can Never Have Too Much PI – pi fez!

Okay, it’s a beanie – unless you felt it into shape. And add a tassel. The numbers down the sides list π to 50 decimal places. To  be specific, it starts: Π ≈ 3.14… i.e., π approximates to 3.14, etc. Cos that’s how I roll.

Fun Facts About Π:

  1. 50dp is overkill. Only 39 decimal places of Π are required to calculate anything to redundant levels of precision – for example, you could navigate across the known universe and be no more than one atom’s width from your intended destination at the end. More than my satnav can manage…
  2. The Guinness World Record for memorising Π is held by Lu Chao – 67,890 digits. Some people really have nothing better to do.
  3. Π is known to 10 trillion dp – calculated by Shigero Kondo in October 2011, using an ordinary home computer. Mr Kondo was unavailable to comment at his parents’ basement, as he was waiting for a pizza delivery.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

Monday midday I got a call from the Children’s Hospital. They had an 8am Tuesday cancellation, if I could get the Mighty Offspring there fasting for his endo and biopsy. Given that his own appointment might be months off, I went for it. MIL drove down and collected us that evening, and drove us to the hospital in the morning (my car is still off the road…).

Mighty Offspring was stellar. He put on such a performance, all the staff loved him. He told jokes, explained the procedure to them, got drinks and ice lollies for the other patients after they came back from surgery. He was a bit sick and woozy after the procedure, but that passed quickly.

The worst moment for me was when he passed out when they gave him the anaesthetic. One moment he was blowing up the “balloon” like a good’un, then his little arm flopped down and his eyes closed. It felt like he’d died. I had to go outside and chain-smoke until the ward sister rang to say he was in recovery. I never want to go through that again, but I will.

The surgeon didn’t see anything on the endo, but he says that in his experience, with MO’s numbers, the biopsy usually comes back positive for coeliac disease. If that happens, he’ll need another endo in six months, to confirm that a gluten-free diet is working. If it’s not positive, the diagnosis will be latent CD, and the endo will have to be repeated in 12 months.

Either way, I’ll have to watch my only baby flop into unconsciousness again. And I’ll do it.