Tilted Blocks and Parrots

I kept going with Tilted Blocks yesterday. It was so grey all day that it really wasn't worth taking photographs. I took this today.It's about 53 inches long now. The pattern says 60, but I would like to keep going beyond that if I can find another ball of this wool.

I could wash it and stretch it a bit by blocking, I suppose, but I wouldn't want to overdo that.

I wonder what on earth it was called; something like Spruce perhaps because that's what it makes me think of. I think it's discontinued.



I watched a wonderful film last night, called The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. That's exactly what it's about, too, parrots which have been accidentally or otherwise released from captivity and live in the trees on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. It's about some of the human beings as well, especially the man who feeds them, although as he points out they don't depend on him and would survive if he stopped feeding them, as he eventually does because he has to move away. He explains this after a passer-by remarks, 'They can't be wild if you've got names for them.' Some of the humans are stranger than the parrots.

It has some surprises, including a soundtrack which includes Jack Kerouac singing 'Ain't We Got Fun?', which for me was worth the price of admission (or rental) on its own. And it has the best ending I've seen on a film in a long time. I won't spoil it for you but I sat and watched it with a big smile on my face, and then ran it back and watched it again.


It's beautifully shot and the colours are as exciting as you might expect; you kind of want to knit an enormous felted bag after watching it.

Back in Business

My computer's happy again. I got in a local therapist, and it's humming away, a little more quietly but probably the better for that.

What would you like to see first? How about a Kaffe Fassett Sock Hat?


It's not actually a sock hat in any real sense, but it's knitted from Kaffe Fassett's Design Line sock yarn from Regia, in the 4251 colourway, Landscape Storm. I nearly got Caribbean, but now I'm glad I didn't. I loved this yarn as soon as I saw photographs of it, but I have come to realize that I am not a sock knitter, so I went for a hat. I don't suit hats at all, and also I have a huge head, so I can't buy hats unless I buy a man's Extra Large, so this might have been a bit rash but I'm actually quite pleased with it.

The colours are lovely, and spread out over a head instead of a leg the colours sometimes come in as a flash rather than a stripe. I just cast on, on a circular needle, and knitted until the wool seemed to be running out. It's the knitting equivalent of a hamster running in a wheel, but I had some sub-titled films to watch so it was perfect.

I watched The World, a Chinese film set in the Beijing World Park, a theme park which contains reproductions of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Pyramids and so on. Although it shows the emptiness and difficulty of the lives of the young people who work there, it was enchanting too and I enjoyed it more than I think I was meant to. The characters spent a lot of time answering their mobile phones and reading text messages, which made me wonder what the keypad on a Chinese mobile phone looks like and how many keys it has.

I also watched A Common Thread, a French film about a pregnant girl who works in a supermarket but wants to be an embroiderer. It was fairly laconic and obscure too as the heroine was not given to chatting, but there was always something to watch and the music was fabulous - Michael Galasso and a French band called Louise Attaque - very jagged strings. The girl succeeds in working for an embroiderer who supplies the serious couture houses in Paris and although I felt she acquired her skills rather rapidly it was still fascinating to see.

There was a scene in this film where a housewife, who was simultaneously complaining bitterly about how nobody ever gave her any help in the kitchen, killed an eel, nailed its head to a shelf and skinned it. I thought, Well, you wouldn't see that in a British film. Or an American one. I wondered if this was a piece of business that the actress introduced during filming or if it was in the script from the start: that would have been an interesting casting call - 'actress, between 40 and 55, must be able to skin an eel'.

Anyway, back to the hat. I did a little umbilicus at the top and there was only a scrap of yarn left over. It won't be the warmest hat ever, but I like the way it looks and the colours are just as wonderful as one would hope.