Writing

I’ve recently discovered Tomorrow Museum, which helpfully describes itself “collection of images and speculative essays exploring how technology, science, and economics are affecting the fine arts” (helpful, as I find succinct definition entirely beyond me tonight). It is deeply interesting and engrossing, and so far every link is worth following. The most recent post, Caring for Your Online Introvert, especially resonates with me.

Project Gutenberg and Google Books are excellent resources for plenty of free books, but I recently found the Chawton House Library collection of early women’s writing, which features rare and little-known works “which explore such broad-ranging themes as satire, slavery, marriage, witchcraft and piracy [and] signal the rich texture and innovative character of women’s writing in the period 1600 to 1830″. I’m enjoying the preface to Romance Readers and Romance Writers: a Satirical Novel, in which the author gleefully exposes some of the awful writing in romances she dislikes.

Music

The Headphone Commute podcast (here’s the FeedBurner link) has been supplying me with sound for some months. My particular favourites are Intelligent Breakcore, Ruckspin – Ranking Studio mix, and Bop – Micromixes. If you are at all inquisitive about “electronica, glitch, idm, drum’n’bass, breakcore, dubstep, trip-hop, modern classical, post-rock, shoegaze, ambient, downtempo, experimental, abstract, minimal and everything in between” (thank you, about page) you should try one or more of these mixes.

Just over a month ago I was spinning a beautiful braid of Wensleydale fibre from The Thylacine’s November fibre club, and I’m happy to say that I’ve finished. Being a longwool (and a Google image search will make the meaning of that term abundantly plain) it has a lovely sheen and a good deal of strength. It’s not as soft as a shorter fibre like merino, but it’s very hard-wearing. I haven’t the faintest idea what I’ll make with it, but am quite happy to admire the skeins for now.

Where I live it’s getting darker, colder and snowier—just the setting for curling up with a book and a hot drink. The brains behind the advertisements for Carte Noire (an instant coffee, two words which should never exist in the same sentence) think so too. They’ve got Dominic West, Greg Wise and Dan Stevens to sit and read book extracts of ten to fifteen minutes in length. If you can ignore the occasional soft-focus shots of coffee mugs and focus on a) the wonderful prose and b) the lovely men reading them, I think you’ll enjoy these little videos. I know I did. Here is the link; I recommend Dominic West’s reading of a certain infamous scene from Pride and Prejudice in particular.

I’m going through the initial stages of designing something. As is evidenced by the photos above, this involves trying out stitch patterns, reading up on good design practice, and a fair bit of maths. The process is slightly hampered by the fact that I’m resting a sore arm and am therefore not doing any knitting, but I can at least crunch some numbers while I’m waiting. My graph paper notebook is my best friend. (I have three, and have managed to start them all, which is fairly normal for me. I have a slight notebook obsession.)

No knitting means more reading, because I’ve not yet worked out how to read and knit at the same time – unless it’s an ebook. Theoretically, I am being firm with myself as regards books. No new books will pass the threshold until I have read and/or gotten rid of some (preferably both!). I’ve gathered together a pile of historical non-fiction with the intent of blitzing through it in a few months, although I don’t think I’ll be donating any of these. (My other slight obsessions are the 18th and early 19th centuries, and the books shown below are, thus far, very good indeed.)

At the moment I’m reading Harriette Wilson’s Memoirs, which is, apart from the lengthy introduction, entirely in the lady’s own words. She wrote and sold the memoirs in her middle age when in need of money. Before doing so she wrote to all her lovers, offering to refrain from mentioning them if they’d pay her £200, to which the Duke of Wellington famously replied “Publish and be damned!”. The book must, by necessity, be read with a rather large pinch of salt, but it’s an entertaining and fascinating insight into the everyday (and not-so-everyday!) goings-on of Regency life.

I won Vogue Knitting Book 35 on eBay a few weeks ago. It was a fairly quick purchase but I’d been thinking about it for a while. I love vintage knits but own very few actual patterns, which seemed silly, and this excellent post on needled reminded me that I really ought to go back to the original vintage designs if I want to understand them. So, a lucky bid later (okay, it wasn’t lucky – I planned my bid strategy like an army General) and this lovely book was mine. I believe it to be from 1949, based on their numbering system, the date on the American version, and some calculations, but I may be slightly off. I’ve posted some photos of my favourite patterns, plus my notes and thoughts, into the rest of this entry.

(It may be worth mentioning that this is the British version, and that the American one seems to differ in terms of pattern content. The cover is slightly different too.)

Cover – stocking stitch jacket Although this is knitted in the simplest of stitches, I love it. It’s nicely finished with turned hems, pockets and a flared double-thickness collar, and it would be a peach to accessorise.

Read the rest of this entry »

The nights are drawing in (they seem to start at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon), the weather is worsening (we had snow on Sunday!) and it is the perfect time of year to stay indoors with a book. Or indeed several books. I have a to-read pile that’s beginning to rival the Eiffel Tower, so I really shouldn’t be looking for more reading material, but I can’t help it! I think it’s my version of hibernation. Anyway, it seemed like an idea to share some of my recent online findings. Some of them are rather good.

I think most people are familiar with Project Gutenberg, a site with over 25 000 free ebooks (mostly older texts whose USA copyright has expired), but I recently discovered ManyBooks.net and like it even more. It has most of, if not all, the PG texts, but allows you to download them in almost any format you like. (Since most PG texts only come in .txt or html formats, this is a real boon.) Where applicable, it also links to the LibriVox recording of the book.

I love old books and the richness of their language, so I leapt at The Castle of Wolfenbach (written in 1793 by Eliza Parsons) which is seriously Gothic and mentioned as one of seven “horrid novels” in Austen’s Northanger Abbey. I also liked The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe. Both feature copious amounts of gloomy castles, strange men, and fainting women. They’re a wonderful escape from modern life, enjoyably thrilling, and not a little silly.

There is a fine collection of P. G. Wodehouse, always a treat and a joy to read. I’ve just finished Mike and Psmith and am about to start Psmith in the City. I could sing Wodehouse’s praises for days, but suffice it to say that he is a very funny, witty writer of clever, light-hearted books.

The whole Pirate Tales category looks fascinating, ditto the Nautical one – but I have just been reading Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander, so am particularly susceptible to anything involving backstays, t’gallants and studding-sails (all parts of a ship).

Continuing the theme of old books, the site fromoldbooks.org has a good collection of online reference books and images. Of particular use to the modern reader might be the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – “a dictionary of the slang of the British underworld produced in 1811″ – which contains definitions for such delightful words and phrases as “captain queernabs“, “frummagemmed” and “malingeror“. I’m also enjoying Nathan Bailey’s Canting Dictionary.

A recent and wonderful discovery is Real Life in London, published in 1821 in two illustrated volumes. (Although it’s available at ManyBooks.net, it didn’t come with any of the pictures which the Project Gutenberg version contains.) The full title is in fact Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. Or, The Rambles And Adventures Of Bob Tallyho, Esq., And His Cousin, The Hon. Tom Dashall, Through The Metropolis; Exhibiting A Living Picture Of Fashionable Characters, Manners, And Amusements In High And Low Life, which I think says it all, really! An extract that made me laugh follows below:

A vast crowd of dashing young Beaux and elegantly dressed Belles, calling about them for oysters, lobsters, salmon, shrimps, bread and butter, soda-water, ginger-beer, &c. kept up a sort of running accompaniment to the general conversation in which they were engaged; when the mirth and hilarity of the room was for a moment delayed upon the appearance of a dashing Blade, who seemed as he entered to say to himself,

“Plebeians, avaunt! I have altered my plan, Metamorphosed completely, behold a Fine Man! That is, throughout town I am grown quite the rage, The meteor of fashion, the Buck of the age.”

He was dressed in the extreme of fashion, and seemed desirous of imparting the idea of his great importance to all around him: he had a light-coloured great-coat with immense mother o’ pearl buttons and double capes, Buff or Petersham breeches, and coat of sky-blue, his hat cocked on one side, and stout ground-ashen stick in his hand. It was plain to be seen that the juice of the grape had been operative upon the upper story, as he reeled to the further end of the room, and, calling the attendant, desired her to bring him a bottle of soda-water, for he was lushy, by G—d; then throwing himself into a box, which he alone occupied, he stretched himself at length on the seat, and seemed as if he would go to sleep.

(I think it’s the phrase “It was plain to be seen that the juice of the grape had been operative upon the upper story” that really gets me.)

I can’t finish without mentioning a valuable non-fiction resource: the Antique Pattern Library. In their own words, “This ongoing project is an effort to scan needlework pattern books that are in the public domain, to preserve them, so we can keep our needlework heritage in our hands”. Truly a worthy goal.