The sun is at last shining today, after a week of sometimes quite heavy showery rain. When I was at the museum, it was pelting down so hard I could hear it as I sat at the reception desk. As they say up here, “It was dancin’”.
The rain has kept me indoors more than I’d like, but as a consequence I’ve caught up on various admin tasks, particularly e-mails that needed to be written but had been put off. Some were regarding a bamboo pipes short course in the autumn and some related to my brother-in-law’s estate. Most of his cars have sold at auction and another two privately, with two cars are left. He’d bought these for parts and sat in the yard covered in tarps. They’ll go in July. We’re still trying to sell the family home. The feedback we’re getting from the auction house is that it’s too unique!
Last year: Summer Rain
I’ve been doing a bit of sewing too and working on a Celtic knotwork design for a friend. This last has been an unexpected time drain, mostly due to setting up the underlying grid in a graphics program. Then the grid is printed and the knotwork itself drawn by hand. However, it’s now nearly done, and hopefully the final iteration will be ‘the one’.
As it’s been such a quiet week, I’ll need to fall back on the old standbys of ‘what happened today’. Of interest to textile historians, on 6 June the first nylon parachute was tested in 1942, by parachute tester Adeline Gray, near Hartford, CT. Dupont developed the fabric in partnership with a parachute company. In 1944, Operation Overlord began. More commonly known as ‘D-Day’, 156,000 troops landed in Normandy. This operation led to the end of World War II a year later. Finally, today is World Ocean Day, which “catalyzes collective action for a healthy ocean and a stable climate, working in collaboration with youth leaders and a wide range of organizations in nearly 200 countries.”
Plumlet
The word of the week is ‘servant’, for I wondered if it were related to ‘serf’. They are, both coming from the French ‘servir’, to serve. ‘Servant’ is the earlier usage and has roughly the same meaning in use today. ‘Serf’ is a later borrowing: “A person in a condition of servitude or modified slavery, distinguished from what is conventionally referred to as ‘slavery’ in that the services due to the master, and his power of disposal of his ‘serf’, are more or less limited by law or custom” (OED).
Last year: Armeria maritima
This week’s rain has of course proved beneficial for growing things, knitting included. The back is now finished, and the front is under way. The pattern exemplifies the best of traditional gansey patterning – simple, elegant, good to look at, and not too difficult to knit. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been making mistakes – there have been lots of those! Thankfully, they are usually spotted within a couple of rows, which means they’re time-consuming but not difficult to fix.
The first of June, and the year is nearly half over! As we learned in school, the names of the months come from the Latin – June was named after Juno, Roman goddess of marriage, fertility, and many other roles. The names of the days of the week also had Roman origins, but indirectly. The Roman days were named after celestial bodies: the sun, the moon, and the five visible planets (Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn). This convention goes back to the Babylonians, and occurs in many languages. When the Anglo-Saxons named their days, they used the same convention, but changed the gods involved to their own gods. So Saturday, Sunday and Monday are still named after Saturn, the sun and the moon, but Tuesday is from Tiw, god of war (Mars), Wednesday from Woden (Mercury), Thursday from Donar (Jupiter), Friday from Frigg (Venus).
View at the end of the path
Interestingly, in Denmark Saturday is ‘lørdag’, which comes from an old Norse word meaning ‘bath day’ or ‘washing day’. This conjures up images of burly Vikings pausing in their looting and pillaging, setting aside their helmets, swords and shields, and climbing into steaming hot tubs. And this is actually what they did, for the Vikings placed a high value on personal cleanliness. Hair was regularly washed and combed, faces and hands regularly washed, and clothes were kept spotless. A clean Viking was more socially acceptable than a slovenly one.
Waiting for chips
This past week has been quiet, so quiet that I can’t think of anything of great import. Handbells on Saturday was different than usual in that we played in public instead of a practice. The event was in Thurso town centre and was organised by the Thurso Community Development Trust to entertain and delight passengers from one of the large cruise ships that regularly dock at nearby Scrabster. As well as handbells and Scottish dancers (not together!), there were craft stalls. Cruise ship passengers and many locals strolled past; I’ve never seen Thurso so busy. We had a slot of an hour and a half, and played our plant-related pieces three times through.
‘View of Wick’
With the gansey, the milestone of dividing for front and back has been reached. The achievement came quicker than originally planned. After some thought, I re-visited the planned measurements and decided that the gansey would be too long if I adhered to them. Thus, the gusset was started at the beginning of the week and half-finished by the end. The pattern of diamonds is becoming apparent – alternating panels of ‘long’ and ‘short’ diamonds. On the short diamonds, the pattern changes every row. On the long, the pattern changes every other row, and this is what makes them ‘long’. There are two ‘short’ diamonds for every ‘long’ one, but not exactly. The patterning will continue to the chosen length, meaning that diamonds may be incomplete at the shoulder. This is in accordance with the original photo, and that’s good enough for me – fewer calculations!
This past week or so has seemed quiet compared to the week away, but hasn’t been without incident. Most notably, I visited the dentist again, having dislodged a bridge the day after I returned from holiday. The dentist was able to fit me in this week, and within ten minutes it was re-secured. This included trimming a neighbouring tooth so the bridge would seat properly.
This time last year: river view
Not as notable as the dentist, I booked airline tickets for the next holiday in July/August. This should have been simple but wasn’t. After multiple attempts, and receiving the same error message each time, I phoned the airline. I’d tried signing in and out of my account, different browsers, different payment methods. Nothing. A helpful customer service agent sorted it out in minutes. That was indeed a relief. The next thing to book is transport to the airport in Inverness to start the trip. Living in Caithness, it takes a bit more effort to get anywhere.
This time last year: Beatrice wind farm from the Trinkie
On Saturday, there wasn’t a regular handbell practice. Instead, we’d been booked to play at a ‘Carnival of Plants’ about 16 miles south of Wick. To quote from the organisers’ website:
“The Carnival . . . has been developed to look at how . . . plants and nature can make real differences to people’s physical and mental health. By engaging with Psychologists, Mental Health practitioners and experts in Therapeutic Horticulture, a series of Plant-drawing workshops and a 2-day Carnival have been put together. There should be something for everyone!”
We were one of the featured performers/events. Most of what we played were plant-titled pieces. One piece, though, was a world premiere. In collaboration with a woman with a chronic illness, our music director was commissioned to write a piece about living with a life-changing condition. Along with the handbells, the other instruments were a flute, nails rattling in a biscuit tin, windchimes, and a plant.
This time last year: pathside weed
Yes, a plant. For there exists a device that can pick up electrical signals from a plant using a sensor clipped to a leaf. The signal can then be output using a choice of different sounds. In this case, it was either a musical fluty sound, wood blocks, or drum beats. A Christmas cactus was the soloist. It did well in practice but, a diva at heart, was resolutely mute just prior to the performance. Reinforcements were brought in – a fuchsia and another Christmas cactus – but weren’t needed as the diva started to ‘sing’.
Clematis outside the lounge window
Overall, I prefer to get my therapy by knitting, which, like handbell ringing, requires nearly complete concentration. And good progress has been made this week. In under two inches, the body of the gansey will be done. The pattern has been another mindful/mindless task. Six plain, three pattern, six plain, three pattern – but sometimes the pattern is P1 K1 P1 and sometimes P3. I haven’t even attempted to keep track of the number of times the centre of the three stitches has been purled instead of knit, or knit instead of purled.
What a busy week that was! First, the bus to Inverness, and then the train to Stirling, where we stayed overnight before taking the train to York. There we found the luggage pickup at its appointed place – a man with a sturdy bicycle with a trailer attached. This is a free service offered by the hotel so you can stretch our legs and walk there unencumbered. Our rooms were ready when we arrived and we settled in as best we could until our suitcases were delivered. Being a ‘boutique hotel’, there were many arty touches – for instance, the kettle, coffee machine, cups, etc. were ‘housed’ in a large dolls’ house. The machines were in the ‘house’ and the cups and coffee in the ‘attic’. Additionally, on the floor below there was a ‘pantry’ stocked with sweets, crisps, fizzy drinks, and cakes – all free to guests.
The Dollhouse
The tour officially started for us with a reception for ‘newbies’ in the Guildhall. The other participants came along about half an hour later. Generally, the conversation went, ‘Is this your first tour’, and ‘How did you hear about it’, and ‘This might be your first tour but it won’t be your last.’ Most of the other participants had been on multiple trips with this company.
The Chapter House at York Minster
Following the reception there was a formal welcome by the tour manager and a talk on ‘What is Early Music’ given by an eminent professor who had devised the musical programme for the tour. He was also there throughout, giving two further talks to provide context for the music, and he also performed in one of the concerts. The talk was followed by one of the three dinners provided during the tour, and after this, a concert by the Tallis Scholars in the Lady Chapel of York Minster. It was sublime. I can’t think of any words to describe it.
Hotel stairway
The first concert set the tone for the following days, and we were not disappointed. All the musicians were world-class. It was like listening to recordings, but live. Here’s a list:
The Tallis Scholars in York Minster
Bernard Cuillier, Harpsichord, in the Mansion House
Rose Consort of Viols in the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall
Consone Quartet (string quartets) at Hovingham Hall
Elizabeth Kenny (lute) and Nicholas Mulroy (tenor) in Holy Trinity Church, York
ApotropaïK (medieval/renaissance ensemble) in St Peter & St Paul’s Church, Pickering
The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble in The Hospitium, York
The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Lucy Crowe & Sofia Kirwan-Baez, sopranos, at Castle Howard
Castle Howard
While I did take knitting along with me to the concerts, it was a pair of socks and not the gansey, and I only knit while waiting or during intermissions. I thought I might knit throughout, but when the Tallis Scholars started to sing, my arms turned to jelly and I couldn’t. However, there was lots of knitting on the train, and great strides have been made. As mentioned previously, the body has a ribbing ‘feel’, and I’ve included a detail photo to show the stitch – P1 K1 P1 on one row, and K3 on the next. The hood is washing and drying, stretched out on wires, and will have a drawstring added around the face opening – it’ll go in the I-cord edging.
Another uneventful week, starting with a few days of glorious wall-to-wall sunshine and ending with cloud and drizzle. Unfortunately, I didn’t get out in it often and instead have been spending even moretime at the computer. But first, I completed a sewing project that’s been waiting several weeks to be finished. It’s a dress, and the sleeves and hem are finished with an applied band similar to a waistband. One long edge of the bands had been sewn and pressed in half. To complete the bands, the other long edge needed to be sewn. In the meantime, it lay on the ironing board, patiently waiting. Its time came at the beginning of the week, when the bands were ‘stitched in the ditch’ successfully.
After this, I tackled the jumble of gansey-related files that reside on three external disks and the hard disk. The muddle has arisen through many years of working on files at the museum and backing them up on different devices at the same time. Also, the database I have at home to keep track of the files hadn’t been kept up to date. The database, a free content management program designed for photographers, contains thumbnails from the museum website. These are tagged with information about the photos or showing the files’ status (edited, charted, etc.). It’s been very useful. The database was the easiest to update, but then the various storage devices needed to be compared to find if they all contained the same files. It became a little more complicated when one of the storage devices was lost a couple years ago. It wasn’t a disaster, as nothing important was lost, but some files only exist as ‘print ready’ copies.
Clifftop Tulip
The purpose of all this weeding was to determine which photos remain to be edited and charted. The ‘print ready’ files don’t need to be edited again, and they went in one folder. Files that hadn’t been edited went in another, and some that didn’t need to be edited because there were no ganseys went in another. This still left quite a few files in the ‘to be edited’ folder, but fortunately there aren’t many gansey photos among them. Most are of other knitwear – lace shawls, scarves, Fair Isle sweaters, children in knitwear – and that’s a separate project.
Basking bunnies
As you can see, the hood is now complete. Knitting the hood extension was be quite quick, and I’ve moved on to the next gansey, this time in Frangipani Claret. After more staring at photos and charts, I’ve chosen another pattern from the Johnston Collection photos, dubbed ‘Double Diamonds’. The plate is badly damaged, but there’s enough detail to discern a pattern of vertical panels of diamonds on the yoke. All the panels are the same width, and alternate between large and small diamonds. The original also has a ribbed body, but my version with have a ribbed ‘feel’ instead.
Just launched
I’ll be away next week, so there will be no blog. Friend S and I are spending a week in York. We’re taking the train, so hopefully this will mean lots of knitting! I’ll block the hood when I return and show it then.
The sun is at last shining today, after a week of sometimes quite heavy showery rain. When I was at the museum, it was pelting down so hard I could hear it as I sat at the reception desk. As they say up here, “It was dancin’”.
