Knitting and Ripping

Yes, Judith, it was Bette Davis in Cabin in the Cotton, 1932. It's towards the end of this clip.



And here she is some years later, talking about kissing in the movies. Get a load of those diamonds.



Back to knitting. I was about to start the Swallowtail for the third time and I took a long hard look at it and decided that the yarn just doesn't suit the stitch. When this yarn was in the skein it looked like a lot of white with a few random dashes of pale blue and green, but once it's swatched there's a lot more colour. So I ripped it and started another Forest Canopy.
I thought maybe the angularity of the pattern would let it overtake the yarn. But that didn't really work so I ripped it and started a Montego Bay Scarf, from IK, Summer 2007. I've meant to do this for a while and even have a skein of Seasilk somewhere, but I decided this was the time to start it. But after a while I decided it would be better in a silky, drapey yarn (like the pattern says, doh!) so I ripped that too.

And I started Argosy, from Knitty. This is designed for a heavier yarn, but I think that if I make it a repeat or two wider and block it so that the points are long and curvy instead of being right angles, it might do very nicely. (Take a look at her other lace; it's beautiful.) This stitch pattern doesn't seem to fight with the colours.
I haven't altogether decided. I'll do a few repeats more and then see what I think. I suppose that I could use this pattern to make a triangular shawl, but one of the intriguing things about the scarf is that the stripes formed by the colours run at right angles to the stripes formed by the stitches, like the Clapotis.

Interspersed with all this ripping and starting, I've gone round and round on Chrissy and have separated the front and back, and am now chugging up the back. It's very wide. The pattern is so oversized that I'm knitting the one for someone five sizes smaller than I am. I wonder what size she's wearing.

I'd like to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair

That movie post was fun. I keep thinking of more quotes. Today's post title is an old favourite: you have to say it in a strong Southern accent, so that 'hay-uh' is two syllables. It was said by an actress who was usually brunette, but she was blonde in that film.

I thought you did very well, especially SuzySZ, who persevered and finally got Flawless right. Flawless is an odd movie; you could be forgiven for thinking that it was actually two films cut together as some sort of exercise or mistake. There is one perfectly adequate plot with Robert de Niro as a retired security guard who has had a stroke and is advised to have singing lessons to help recover his speech; the obvious teacher is his neighbour, the drag queen, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Usually in films, drag queens are played by tall, slim, beautiful leading men but Phil is often described as cuddly, and although I find him steamingly attractive (I have a thing about strawberry blonds), he's not the sort that you think of as having Hollywood good looks. He's terrific in the role, as he is in everything. I saw him in a number of films before I realized he was the same person; his early roles are all so different and this is a long way from his sleazy Scotty in Boogie Nights or the sharp-witted Freddie in The Talented Mr Ripley (I should point out that I don't find him steamingly attractive when he's playing Scotty). The story develops as these two who dislike each other on sight grow to some sort of understanding. And then there is a perfectly stupid crime plot which seems to have been grafted on, and is nothing but a distraction. I had this film on VHS but haven't got round to acquiring it on dvd; I think what I would like to do is record it when it's on tv, and then make my own cut, but it doesn't seem to crop up on television. I should just buy the dvd and skip the offending chapters - by the way, the small son of a friend of mine calls dvds 'deevie deevies' - I'm hoping it will catch on.

I watched Bus Stop on the weekend. I think it's the first time I watched it all the way through. There are some wonderful lines in it too, and some good female roles. How anyone could watch it and then say Marilyn Monroe couldn't act, I don't know. I thought she was just wonderful; her halting, nervous cabaret turn is perfect, and the bit where she has to lose her temper and end with the line, 'Give me back my tail!' which could have been excruciating, is perfectly convincing. The red-and-blue photography (Technicolor?) is marvellous, even if Cherie's 'green' scarf keeps showing up as blue. My favourite line was, 'Well it ain't actually a real diamond... '

There's been a bit of knitting and quite a lot of ripping going on here, but I'll save that for the next post. Thanks for joining in on the film quiz, and don't forget to add your guesses for the post title quote.

Clues

I've added clues to the remaining quotations in yesterday's Movie Meme, although I never find that clues help; they just make me bang my head on the wall even harder. Good luck.