Experiments

Laptop Cover for Aisling in Drops Andes Alpaca/Wool

I happened across my son, Tom. and  friend, Maura, on the way out of town yesterday and this was the consequence, which in my opinion has a certain pleasingly prehistoric tinge.  I hope Aisling thinks so too.

"We were just talking about you!", they said. "How difficult would it be to knit a lap top cover? We need one for Aisling"

"Not sure how much protection her laptop will get from wool", I said

"More than a thin scarf, which is what she's been using" Maura said.

I went on my way, considering.   It was still on my mind later, to a point that I hunted out some bulky yarn at home, made a few false starts and called up consistent knitting friend Karen, who advocated felting ...

"You  run the end product through a washing machine", she said.  "But definitely do swatches and work out shrinkage first - felting is a very inexact science"  

... which had led to a whole series of fascinating experiments and the discovery that even under boiling water from a kettle Drops Andes doesn't shrink and its colour stays fast...  Eventually however, deciding I should probably just get knitting , I had settled on working on 108 stitches on 4.5 mm needles on the round....slow and a bit cumbersome,  but the fabric was working out spongy and (hopefully) robust.

A bit later Karen called to ask how I was getting on with the felting...

I said, "Oh.. I've just been knitting straight knit all the way.  I gave up because this wool is indestructible - amazing, actually: I even poured boiling water on and nothing happened"

"I told you - you've got to run it through a washing machine", she said.  "It's the action of the machine that shrinks the wool"

And then I remembered I actually had put on a wash earlier, and went off to investigate the outcome on one of my swatches... here's the result  

I really like it, so maybe if Aisling's laptop shrinks... Or then too, there's always the next project...

Conundrums

Nordic Snowflake by Hjertegarn in Debbie Bliss Blue Faced Leicester

For Orla..

…. for Orla, scientist and great friend who even on a low-achieving day is on a mission to improve the lot of humanity through her research. Her intellectual rigour casts up some spectacular results in down-time too - for instance it was Orla who inveigled me to join a grouping on four-wheel drive transport up to the westernmost tip of Valentia Island, County Kerry, and into a disused quarry where a performance of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater Dolorosa was taking place.  It was Orla too who came up with a trip to Havana, where we happened on a performance of the Buena Vista Social Club and Los Hermanos Santos …. And most pertinently it was Orla also who lent me her box set of The Killing, to which I became addicted for any number of reasons, not least Sara Lund’s sweaters…

Orla and myself watched The Killing separately, under different circumstances and in different houses, yet we both became quite fixated with the credibility of conducting a frequently messy murder investigation in changeable-to-downright nasty weather conditions while wearing white wool.   Hygiene issues around Sara Lund's never seeming to get out of the sweater for a whole series were of additional concern. But what really irked both of us was, when she was stabbed in the arm by a villain, who mended the gash in the sweater?

Whatever the answers, I was sufficiently moved to knit this sweater so she could run her own tests.

Making A List

Helene Beret by Harpa  Jónsdóttir in Jamieson & Smith 100% Shetland Wool

classic old Icelandic eight-leafed rose pattern for Karen

One September many moons ago Karen showed up in our school - she was fourteen, and different in a number of respects to the rest of us in the class in a way which went beyond accent or region. The most marked aspect of this difference was she had already learned from events in her own life that there’s no limit to how often lightning can strike in the same place.

Her aura of tragedy was certainly an initial draw because outside books and film I’d never encountered anyone who'd been through quite so much.  But whatever she carried in private, she kept private and it was soon clear that she had no intention of styling herself as some kind of tragic figure. When you got to know her, you knew her, for instance, for her

1 limitless generosity

2 subversive sense of humour

3 constant and ambitious range of reading

4 schemes to thwart The System

5 astounding (and massively useful) instant recall of names,

  dates and addresses

6 forensic dauntless stare

7 awe-inspiring organisational abilities 

8  "     "      "     ability to be totally pissed off 

…and a life-long friendship was sealed.

(Karen is a serious list maker, by the way)

At one point or another, Karen bailed me out of more traumatic experiences than I probably owe her in:

1  creme eggs, peanut butter and digestives,

2  mugs of coffee in Murph's

3 (a) vodkas-and-lime

    (b) glasses of guinness

    (c) bottles of

        (i) Black Tower

        (ii) Blue Nun

       (iii) Lambrusco

4 straights

5 cover stories for home and teachers

6 cost of entry to innumerable gigs/clubs 

7 chips from:

   (a) Matassa's (greaseproof paper bags of)

   (b) The Depresso (plates of)

8  clothes in general but :

   (a) one grey jacket in particular 

9 beds in: 

    (a) Richview Park   

    (b) Castletown & Northend Roads environs 

    (c) Harold's X 

10 more recently, knitting advice and multiple sewing up 

....and as no list I could ever compile could possibly encompass everything, that’s saying something.

 As an adult, Karen has happily turned her organizational talents to more worthy uses than the folly of friends, and is the consistent demon knitter frequently mentioned here.

I picked this Helene beret because:

1  I liked the pattern and hoped she might too

2  It might come in handy as she's taken up dog walking

3 Although she can knit colour, she's not an enthusiast.

4 it's a token of my appreciation for having often had the benefit of all her talents 

5 Karen is one of the few people likely to appreciate how much work it took to make