Clanking and Cursing

I was at the doctor on Monday - nothing exciting, just a repeat prescription - and the place was deserted. They'd taken away all the magazines and leaflets and children's toys as a swine flu prevention measure, and they're trying to encourage people to stay away. I always thought the receptionists did a pretty good job of encouraging patients to stay away anyway, but now it's official. They want me to renew by post for the next few months but they also want me to go in for a swine flu jab and a regular flu jab, presumably at different times, so I shall have to remember to take in a book, or some knitting.

I spoke to my aunt in the evening and she was at her doctor's that day too, in Bristol, and there everything was as usual, people sneezing over magazines and children licking the toys, so that's interesting.

There is a major repair job starting on one of the chimneys in the building where I live, and they started building the scaffolding for it yesterday. It's the chimney behind my bedroom wall and in my flat the fireplace is long gone. I was trying to have a rest, with all this clanging and banging and drilling going on about four feet from my head, and I actually managed to get to sleep at one point, to be wakened by someone outside the window saying the same two words, three times and with differing emphasis, two words which I couldn't possibly repeat in a family blog. He must have read about this piece of research, which established that swearing increases pain tolerance, although it also contains the warning that, 'If they want to use this pain-lessening effect to their advantage they need to do less casual swearing.' It didn't cover the effects of swearing while knitting lace, which I always find quite effective.

I've been a bit feeble and sore throaty today - but not hot enough for swine flu - so I've been resting again and there was a bit more this afternoon, although it was less colourful, just the one word said once, very precisely. I expect there'll be a quite a lot more of it over the coming weeks: it's a bit like having your very own radio play going on outside the window.

Anhinga has just been more of the same, and the second sleeve looks much like first, so here's a nice little video for you to watch instead. Guaranteed no swearing.



Thanks, Lindsay.

Anhinga Flaps Forwards

I've finished the back of Anhinga, and most of an arm. It is lovely yarn to work with, and I don't notice that it's a tape. I've knitted with ribbon before and had to keep an eye on it (come to think of it, where is that unfinished jacket...?) but this just races through the fingers. I'm following the pattern, not making any alterations or allowances for the change of yarn: my calculations never result in a concrete enough difference for me to want to take any chances. And although the construction is so novel, it's also simple enough that if I have to undo anything and re-knit it, there won't be too much gnashing of teeth.

Smashing Puffin has been very patient and helpful with my eternal questions about tension (knitting tension, aka gauge, not the other sort). She says the rolled edges almost disappear after washing.

An anhinga is a bit like a cormorant apparently, Gretchen, but it isn't one: it's a Darter. Their feathers aren't oiled so they sometimes have to dry them in the sun, hence their elegant posture. Here is another extraordinary photograph. Do click.

Photo by Matt Edmonds. Anhinga drying its feathers at Sawgrass Park in St. Petersburg, FL, 2007

I went to get my hair cut on Friday and that entailed a little railway journey so I got some rows done on Karius on the train but it's still not really worth photographing.

This is where I go to get my hair cut. It was lashing down with rain on the day.

My finger has healed up so I think I'll do some more silk lace soon - don't know though, Anhinga is very seductive. It might depend on what I'm watching. There was a heavenly Cosi fan tutte on t' telly on Saturday and I hardly took my eyes from the screen. It's the Glyndebourne production by Nicholas Hytner, filmed in 2006. His name is Topi Lehtipuu.



Cosi is my favourite opera, except when I'm watching Don Giovanni.

As I've mentioned before, I'm going to a wedding in October. I've already been to two weddings this year, but this one is a bit special - no, it's not mine. It's three months away, which is a dangerous amount of time because you think you have ages, but it can slip away, espcially if you change your mind about what you're going to make / wear. I could end up with three tops and no bottoms, and I can't go to a wedding without a bottom. I need to sit down and establish what my options are, what patterns I have in my head, what yarns I have at my disposal, and seriously, what shoes I'm going to wear. I won't be wearing a hat, so that's something.

I have disabused myself of the idea that I might make myself a stainless steel jacket out of Habu yarn, but I am still torn between Habu Shosenshi paper, House of Hemp Illusions and a floaty piece in Kidsilk Haze.

Or maybe a nice shawl.

Anhinga Takes Off

I've been going round and round and round on the off-blog project. It progresses by about a millimetre for each row (more after blocking, but not much) and at the moment a row is about 700 stitches. I opted to do the version which is 10 rows longer and have been very busy avoiding doing the sum 10 x 700 in my head.

Last night, just after I'd finished a row, I noticed that I had a small, deep, fresh cut on my left index finger. It's about a quarter of an inch long and was obviously done with something very sharp, but I have no idea what. I hadn't even been in the kitchen, and there was no drink taken. It's in exactly the same place as the bad cut I once gave myself with a bread knife, but I use a different sort of bread knife nowadays. A mystery. Anyway, until it's healed, I won't be working with very fine silk yarn which could a) open it up and b) cause me to bleed all over my knitting, so the inevitable has happened. I have cast on for Anhinga.

The preparations have been feverish. I have been following Smashing Puffin's progress avidly, and she has been very helpful, not to say patient, with my badgering questions about Rowan Bamboo Tape.

There has been a lot of this.


I'm not a very good swatcher. I try, but the results tend to be inconclusive. I also spent a lot of time dreaming about it on Friday night, but that didn't yield any practical help - I dreamt about a lot of things on Friday night so don't feel too sorry for me being reduced to dreaming about knitting.

I also looked up what an Anhinga is. I hadn't noticed that the other patterns in the booklet are all birds so I was bit surprised to learn that it is one of these.

Photo by Tom Davis

I can see why though.

All of this asking and swatching and googling hasn't actually made any difference to what I've cast on, except that I'm not making it a size bigger, which I might otherwise have done.


This is the back, and the colour is Gale, 713.