fourth edition

For some odd reason I keep going back to the idea of a knitted dress. I found a machine-knitted dress in Monsoon (British clothes shop) which I absolutely loved (apart from the fibre make-up) and then I saw some jaw-dropping Briars and lengthened Dusty tunics. I just sit here in my cold flat and imagine [...]

The economic recession has claimed many victims. The first phase saw people losing jobs, companies going bankrupt and banks folding. Experts say that this first wave is over. Signs of economic growth are visible in the financial sectors. We are now living through the second phase: spending cuts have to be made. This is all [...]

Link dump day!
+ Europe, Explained: a nice map which summarises it all for confused non-Europeans.
+ Puppets need puppets too.
+ Vegetarian-friendly roadkill carpet
+ The prettiest yarn shop in Denmark? I like my yarn shops over-stuffed, but if you like minimalism..
+ Sweden has its own Etsy-like site.
+ This is a real film: Tiptoes stars Matthew McConaughey as [...]

Let the Right One In was a much better film than book. Everything which was overegging the book-pudding had been removed in the film: neverending subplots, irrelevant and distracting characters, and immense wordiness. The film was sparse, beautifully shot, and intense. While not the masterpiece it has been made out to be, the film was [...]

This is the week of receiving gifts, it seems.
When Kirsten Marie visited, she offered to make me some bling out of materials we bought at The Bead Company. I don’t wear much jewellery, but I do appreciate handmade things. And so a few weeks later these earrings arrived by post and I think they are [...]

Yes, I know I said stuff about knitting with grey wool. The phrases “never again”, “not in the winter months” and “I need colour!!!!!” may have passed my lips.
But I’ve changed my mind.
The pattern is Norwegian Woods by Sivia Harding. Earlier this year I knitted a few repeats of it in the gawjuss Old [...]

In my handwritten note I alluded briefly to the idea of handwriting possessing “presence” and printing having only “absence”. In its infancy printing was known as “artificial writing” – the implication being that handwriting = natural, printing = artifice, obviously. I once messed about with ideas concerning printing and how English as a literary language [...]

These are my Buttony Mitts. I test-knitted them for Lilith of Old Maiden Aunt. Basically, she asked me one day if I wanted free handpainted yarn and I replied with my best teenage “dooooh” face.
The yarn is gorgeous. It is a soft alpaca-merino-bamboo blend and is handpainted in shades of forest green, khaki and [...]

I like many things, but there are not many things that I love. I definitely love incunabula (books printed between 1455 and 1500) and early modern period printed books. Yesterday I went to Edinburgh to look at some very old printed books from Scotland. I was not disappointed.
I have long been interested in and worked [...]