Random saturday

1. The worst part about finishing book 1 of a series in early December is that I don't dare buy book 2 in case someone's already got it for me. I'd hate to ruin someone's carefully planned gift idea. The book in question is The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss. It's pretty standard anti-hero-ish slightly gritty epic fantasy - the main character's a special genius, but at least he doesn't have a special destiny. There's a mysterious woman who he desperately admires. He's the best in his field at whatever he chooses to do. It's pretty well written, though, and has some interesting adaptations of standard fantasy tropes. I'm planning to read the second book.

2. I've done very little knitting of late. I finished an adapted Tilting Tardis cowl in DK Blue-faced Leicester in Something Herbal from Old Maiden Aunt. I've made one Snapdragon Mitten but haven't yet cast on for the other one, in the same yarn.

3. I've pulled three quilt blocks out of my scrappy quilt and have used one so far for a cushion cover. It looks pretty good on my sofa for now, but it has a different home in mind in a few weeks' time.

4. I'm hopelessly behind on my reading goals for the year. I've read 37 books so far, but I'd rather be averaging somewhere around a book each week. I'm reading MaddAddam at the moment, though, which is wonderful and I'll probably finish this afternoon.

5. I've finally got central heating and cooking facilities back in my house. It feels so good to be able to take a hot shower again - living without heat is no way to be in the autumn/winter.

6. I'm taking full advantage of having cooking facilities back to cook a big batch of spaghetti bolognese this afternoon. It's a little sad how excited I am to cook real food in my own house again.

Only Connect

This morning, on the train, I made accidental eye contact with a stranger. He was a young man, probably a student, wearing a faded band tee shirt with a tartan flannel shirt over it. His eyes protruded and he had a long face with curly hair that stood tall on top of his head. He glanced at me at the same moment that I glanced at him and our eyes met. I smiled at him, and, after a moment of hesitation, he smiled back. A minute or so later, our eyes met again and we shared another smile. When he left the train, he smiled at me again. It was a rare but lovely moment of connection with a stranger. There were no demands, just a moment of shared humanity in the freezing train.

I asked a particularly flirtatious friend of mine, LadyV, does she flirt with everyone? She considered for a moment, then said, no, not everyone. A lot of people, though. It's not about sex, though, she said. It's about human connection. It's about forging links with people.

In about my third year of undergrad, I read a series of novels for classes about human connection. The one that sticks in my mind is Howards End. I think sometimes about Forster, about how his novels explore the barriers between people that lead us to miss each other. A Passage to India is about people connecting despite these barriers. He was not, I think, a happy man, but he was a great writer.

Waiting in the rain for the tram on Thursday, I moved to make room for a young woman to shelter at the tram stop. I caught her eye and smiled, glancing up at the sky to let her know why I had moved. She thanked me, asked my name, offered hers in return. She was from Albania, she told me, and asked had I heard of it. Mediterranean, I guessed, and she nodded. Good food, I told her, and she admitted that she's a terrible cook, though she enjoys needlework. She tried to guess my accent, declaring that I was Italian and then American before she gave up. I have no explanation for my higgledy-piggledy accent, but told her that I'm English, born to English parents. She said that she can't get used to the way that people here don't strike up conversations with people on the street the way they do in Albania. I asked what she does, and she told me she works for her church, showed me a badge declaring her a member of the LDS church. She asked what I do and I told her I teach literature. The tram arrived, and she smiled at me. 'God bless you,' I told her, and she said, 'the same to you.'

I'm recently returned from a visit to my partner, who lives in Scotland. We're lucky in that we have nightly phone calls and regular video chatting to sustain us, and we try to spend a weekend together each month. I can't imagine trying to keep up our connection through weekly letters and nothing else. We sometimes spend all evening skyping, carrying our laptops into our respective kitchens to cook together and eating together at our respective tables. It's almost like living together, except that the physical affection on which we both thrive is missing. When we're together in the flesh, we're almost always connected physically, holding hands or tucked in to each other's shoulders. Waiting at a red light, he briefly rests his hand over mine on the gear lever. These moments of connection are important.

The internet has made the world so much smaller. We can connect with people over vast distances and strike up friendships that are rendered no less real for the screen names and distance between us. These networks of friends make us more human, I think. I have friends on every continent except Antarctica. I think that's pretty cool. I have blog readers all over the world.

Wherever you are, I hope you have a lovely day. I hope you have some human connections in it. I hope the same sun shines on you as is shining on me just now.

It's the most ridiculous time of the year...

Upon reflection, December is possibly the silliest time of year to begin a blog. It's certainly not that I'm not crafting - there's as much of that going on as time and work allow - but that most of the things I'm crafting are gifts and so I'm loath to release them to the internet before they're received by the lucky souls who will be unwrapping them come the solstice.

On the other hand, for a knitter, this is a lovely time of year. For this knitter, anyway. The arrival of late autumn and then the delights of winter heralds the digging out of all of the beautiful handknits which are put away during the warmer months. I can't be the only knitter with a handmade hat for every year I've been knitting, and even I concede that my gloves-and-mittens collection is frankly rather silly, and that's after giving away most of my less worn handknit accessories to friends and loved ones.

So I've mountains of hats and enough gloves and mittens that I could probably wear a different pair every day of the week, and many, many shawls. However, as seems to be often the case, there are a select few that are worn most often, either because they're newer, they coordinate well, or they suit my purposes well.

The Baskerville Hat

This year, my hat of choice is the Baskerville hat (Ravelry link), designed by Karina Westermann and knit in Old Maiden Aunt blue-faced leicester in Something Herbal. I love this hat. It's such a delightfully versatile shape, and can be perched on the head elegantly or (more often the case for me) pulled down over the ears to keep as much warmth in as possible. The colour is beautiful and subtle and it coordinates beautifully with my purple coat. I have the yarn and intentions to knit a cowl and mittens to go with it, but haven't yet managed to find the time. This is the newest thing I've knit for myself, and was completed in October, so it's still quite new.

The scarf I wear most is actually a shawl I knit over a year ago. Also knit from Old Maiden Aunt yarn (you will notice a pattern emerging here), this shawl is 50% silk and 50% wool, making it shiny, soft and very warm. To add to the luxurious feeling, it's also peppered with silvery beads, several hundred of them, making it sparkle and shine. I really enjoy wearing a triangular shawl instead of a scarf, because the point of the triangle tucks so nicely into the open point at the collar of a buttoned coat. This shawl also squishes down very easily and thus goes just about everywhere with me, squashed into my bag. I can't count the number of people who have temporarily borrowed it in the cold office. The pattern is called Sunshine and Pinwheels, and I added the beads because I find it almost impossible to follow a pattern all the way through without changing at least something.

I have a pair of gloves which match the above shawl perfectly, being made from the remnants of the yarn and the same beads, and during November I wore them a lot. The silk keeps them really warm and they fit so nicely, I keep them in my bag all the time. However, gloves are not quite so warm as mittens, and they've taken a bit of a back seat in the last week or two. The pattern is called Eisblume, which means Frost Flowers. Isn't that pretty? By now you will have noticed a certain colour theme to my winter accessories. Purple is my favourite colour, and this definitely shows in my day-to-day existence.

Now that it's that much colder, mittens are far warmer than gloves, and - remember what I said above about finding it hard to follow patterns exactly? - my favourite mittens are a pair of adapted Endpapers. I changed the pattern to be pointy mittens, following the diagonal lines of the motif, and they're delightfully warm. These were knit over 2 years ago, and I never got around to taking pretty pictures of them (the best picture I had was on top of a television - why, Lilly?) so I've photographed them in their two-year-old state. I think they're holding up pretty well.

I do own knitted things that aren't purple, I promise! It's just that they aren't getting quite so much wear right now. Some things are just made for occasional wear; others may be put away for a period of months or years before coming back into the limelight. I hope they all go somewhere they'll be eventually loved, though.