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Wick (D Gillies): Week 6 – 10 March

Last week started on a mournful note, waking up with the feeling that the past was drifting ever further away, that the past 40 years have been a dream. I’ve been thinking more and more lately that it is time to do some house clearing.  The thought of re-homing Gordon’s possessions feels like I’m abandoning him as well.  I’m assuming this is natural, another stage on the grieving journey.  Perhaps I should have done more clearing in the early days, when I was still in shock.

Crocus

However, getting up, bustling about, making breakfast, and swigging coffee soon lifted my spirits enough that I was ready to face the day.  It was another morning at the museum, charting gansey patterns.  Among the three or four charted, there were some interesting features.  One was completely in basketweave – alternating squares of knit and purl about 5 or 6 stitches wide and tall – with a ribbed welt and cuffs.  Another had buttons at the centre front instead of at one or both sides of the neck.  The shoulder strap of another had a cable flanked by double moss stitch.  While I am ever grateful that these photos exist, I sometimes wish that there were some extant ganseys in the museum’s collection.  It would be great to see what the gussets look like, as these can’t be seen on the photos.

Quitter

I’ve spent a lot of time on the computer this week, probably too much.  Another website I look after that has been broken for five years, and it was time to finally fix it.  This has been more complicated than anticipated, but it’s nearly done; the last thing to do is figure out how to get the files from the test site on my computer to the live site. 

Snowdrops under the trees

Where would we be without the internet?  We first connected via treacly-slow dial-up, which in turn wouldn’t have been possible without the telephone, which had its start on this day in 1876.  For today is National Landline Telephone Day, to commemorate Bell’s first telephone call to his assistant Watson.  Other ‘days’ today are National Skirt Day, International Bagpipe Day, Harriet Tubman Day, Commonwealth Day, and, um, International Day of Awesomeness. 

Celandine

The gansey, to fit in with one of today’s ‘days’, is coming along awesomely.  The interminable ribbing on the body is done and the border beneath the yoke is in progress, with the gussets started at the same time.  The border is a simple net pattern and is nearly finished.  I’ve used extra stitch markers just before the centre stitch to aid with pattern placement. The gansey is coming right along.

Budding Hydrangea

I’m off on my travels again for the next few weeks – to a handbell day near Edinburgh, a visit to the house in Northamptonshire, which I haven’t visited since last autumn, a workshop near Exeter, and finally a visit to a friend in Cornwall.  Which is a long way of saying, I’ll be back in a few weeks.

 

 

 

10 March 2025 | 9 comments

Wick (D Gillies): Week 5 – 3 March

Here’s something you’ve probably never considered:  Clouds, those ephemeral, ever-shifting phenomena in the heavens, have weight.  Learning this is akin to pondering if, on your next visit to a Gothic cathedral, the ceiling will come crashing down.  It turns out that clouds are heavy, very very heavy.  According to the Meteorology Department at the University of Reading, a fluffy cumulus cloud, the kind you see on warm summer days or during the opening credits of The Simpsons, contains approximately 0.25g of water per cubic meter.  An average cumulus cloud with an area of 1 km3 would therefore weigh 250 metric tonnes.  A bigger cloud, like a meaty thunderstorm cloud, is 10 times larger and contains 8 times as much water – it weighs in at 2 million tonnes. 

Spring branches

And these numbers only take into account the water in the cloud – the air has weight too.  For the cumulus cloud mentioned above, the air within them weighs about 1 kg per cubic meter, which adds 1 million tonnes.  For the thunderstorm cloud, add another 1 billion tonnes.  A Gothic cathedral ceiling?  If the internet is to be believed, it ranges from 450 to 2000 tonnes.  We should worry more about the sky falling than a cathedral ceiling.  Chicken Little had it right.

Clouds stay up because of the air – the water vapour is supported by the air’s weight.  It’s like resting a feather on an ingot of lead.   The feather won’t pass through the lead because it is heavier and denser. I’m still not sure how a cathedral ceiling stays up.  I think it’s a combination of luck, craftsmanship, and physics.  All this brings to mind, in a roundabout way, the old riddle of which weighs more, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers? 

Wave of Snowdrops

Someone who wrote rhymes, riddles, and improbable stories was Theodor Geisel, born on 2 March 1904 in Springfield, MA.  He had a productive career as an illustrator and cartoonist before becoming wildly successful with his books for children.  They are known the world over – his nom de plume was Dr Suess.  I know I had some of his books as a child, and while I can’t remember any of them, thinking of them always has positive associations.

Gorse

Work on the current gansey is slowing, now that I don’t have seven hours on a bus to occupy.  The bamboo needles are good to knit with and are thin enough that they have started to shape to my hands.  One of the points has become a bit dull, but I have reshaped it with a file, which is something I wouldn’t attempt with metal needles.  The joint allows for smooth shifting of stitches from cord to tip, with no snagging.  The knitting itself has been more rhythmic than tedious, but concentration is necessary when stopping and starting.  I’ve caught myself multiple times doing knitting when I should be ribbing, and vice versa. In a few more inches I’ll start the yoke and gussets.

 

 

3 March 2025 | 5 comments