Self-Stitched September: One
Photographic evidence
I hate knitting sleeves. Everything zips along nicely and then I get to the sleeves and my will to live dies. I think I have twigged why I hate knitting sleeves.
Look at the photo. I'm wearing a Tangled Yoke Cardigan. It was originally knitted by Ms Old Maiden Aunt but it was gifted to me earlier this year. Lilith had knitted extra long sleeves because she likes having cosy hands. Look again. The sleeve is a full inch too short for me, if not more.
I have monkey arms, in other words. I already knew I had long legs because I struggle to find trousers long enough, but I never thought about my arms being long. Still, it explains my hatred of knitting sleeves - I have to knit them extra-extra-long and I had no idea.
Oh, by the way:
'I, Karie Bookish, sign up as a participant of Self-Stitched-September. I endeavour to wear handmade item(s) of clothing/accessories/ jewellery every day for the duration of September 2010'.
Yes, Virginia, I have chosen to participate in Self-Stitched September. I might not photograph every outfit I am wearing every day, nor will I blog my outfit every day (that way madness and narcissism lie) but when I do post, I'll link to the relevant handmade items on my Rav account (or otherwise document which items I have worn). It'll be interesting, although I'm still trying to figure out why I am participating.
- I want to wear handmade items more often (although I already do this)?
- I want to mix up the handmade items I wear (more likely)?
- I cannot resist a good meme?
So, today I'm wearing the Tangled Yoke Cardigan and my Echo Flower scarf/shawl. Let Self-Stitched September commence!
Beads
So, this is your almost-first look at Larisa, a little scarf I designed some months ago and which is currently out with various test-knitters. It is knitted in Kidsilk Haze and has beaded edgings. I'm currently one-third through the scarf itself and find it a really relaxing knit. Just enough interest to keep me going and yet easy enough to knit late at night or during my commute.
I'm not one of those knitters who walk through a meadow and decide to knit a scarf inspired by a particularly beautiful tree. I designed 'Larisa' because I could not find the right pattern for an elegant, yet straightforward, scarf which I could give away as a present. I wanted a scarf which would dress up an outfit, a scarf which was classy rather than fashion-forward. And so I simply sat down with a partial ball of Kidsilk Haze, some beads and my trustworthy notebook.
I would say, though, that I am one of those knitters who love their art and fashion history. I drew some inspiration from Art Deco - in fact, the horizontal line of the beading contrasting with the vertical lines of the lace is a design element I picked up from all those hours I spent reading about sky-scrapers many years ago. I tried out various severe lace patterns with super-vertical lines before opting for a lace insert which combines some vertical design elements with a V shape (or heart-shape depending upon your mood). I just think the pattern looks much softer and more inviting as a result.
Meanwhile, I have finished my crochet bag and meant to get some shots of it today. Unfortunately the weather was not on my side and it proved impossible to get enough light(!) for a good photo. I hit a snag with the lining, actually. It turned out that my sewing machine which I was "not entirely sure actually works" did not work. Maybe you will understand if I show you which machine I have.. I'm not sure why it does not work, except that the bobbin case keeps falling out when I use the machine and the 'overthread' doesn't want anything to do with the 'underthread' (I'm not sure of my English sewing machine terminology - does it show?). So, anyway, well. I had to handstitch the lining and I'm not a fantastic handstitcher. I'm going to rip out the part of the lining I have already attached and wait until I can afford a new machine (or work out why my machine does not work - whichever comes first).
Finally, if you reading smart women writing about what it's like to be a smart woman (i.e. a person), you will enjoy The Anti-Room. I found this little post on Harlequin romances and inherent misogyny.
PS. Faithful readers, do you think me and my full-busted short-torsoed peasant-woman body could get away with this cardigan?
Under the Covers
In the early '00s the blogosphere was very different to what it is today. The number of bloggers was very small and everyone seemed to sort-of-almost know each other. My friendship with Stuart of Feeling Listless goes back to this adamic age and this morning Stuart wrote about another blogger who I had actually forgotten existed: Ms Belle de Jour. Yes, she of the lucrative book deal and the Billie Piper TV series.
To recap: Ms Belle de Jour was a high-end prostitute blogging about her work and her life. She was a good writer, was clearly smart and educated. Like most bloggers at the time, she was anonymous, but interestingly she kept her anonymity even when she landed the book deal and the Billie Piper TV series. People tried to guess her identity: Was Belle de Jour a real person? Was she actually Toby Young (the implication being that no female prostitute could possibly write so well)? Or was she some other published writer having a bit of a laugh (again the same implication as before)? It seemed as though everybody was suddenly Belle - I even had emails asking me if I had invented her because, you know, I was reading the same book as her. I never knew that reading Jonathan Coe singled you out as being a potential sex worker.
And now The Times has finally revealed the identity of Belle de Jour. Yes, she is real and she is "a curvy size 8 with a fantastic figure" and, oh, a research scientist.
This unveiling is a twist which feels incredibly dated to me - it goes to show just how blogging and the whole damn blogosphere has changed in the last four or five years. Blogging has gone democratic: you get personal blogs, corporate blogs, politics blogs, mom blogs, fashion blogs, car blogs, book blogs, gadget blogs, travel blogs etc. Blogging is no longer something you do on the sly - bloggers will link to their Facebook profile, Twitter feed, Skype ID, Ravelry profile, del.icio.us account, Flickr account and LibraryThing profile (and probably a dozen other social networks with which I am currently unfamiliar). Secrecy no longer intrigues; openness appeals.
Tellingly, when Stuart posted the news about Belle de Jour to MetaFilter (itself an online community dating back to the early '00s), the reaction was rather muted. Some had never heard of Belle, others shrugged a bit and most of the attention was given to the way the mainstream media had broken the story. We have become so jaded.
On Languages and Blogging
"It is a sign of a deeply disturbed civilization where Tree huggers and Whale huggers in their weirdness are acceptable... while no one embraces the last speakers of a language." -Werner Herzog
Found here which looks at whether we should preserve languages and whether a world with monolithic language usage would be a bad thing? More on this later.
Mooncalf left an astute comment on my last entry wherein I had a mini-rant about Danish lifestyle blogs being smug and self-satisfied. She linked two blog entries, both of which reacts to the Martha Stewart-ness of some blogs. I really enjoyed reading the entries and I have taken some of their points to heart. I think it is important to remember that all blogs are edited in one way or another. We all have messy tables, bad days, sweaters that do not fit, unread books and frozen pizzas. I tend to shy away from confessional blogging (and I'm also notoriously private for someone who has blogged continuously for almost nine years), but I do attempt to create a fairly realistic picture of my life whilst leaving out things I would feel uncomfortable sharing.
So, bearing all this in mind, please ask me a question.
And, going back to the idea of language, notions of identity etc etc, I found this little tidbit in one of my commonplace books:
"As there is no selfhood without some other, a national canon -- whether attached to land or language -- is constituted in such a way that its identity has both intra- and intercultural aspects. In other words, it is mediated by the memory of the other and its development always involves at least two cultures. The court of Louis XIV, English Classicism, or the Weimar Klassik defined itself with reference to Graeco-Roman Antiquity. Thus, it is possible to argue that national canons reveal an interacting with other creeds. They are intercultural manifestations, conflictual as well as mutually complementary, configurations that are, in relation to each other, not only powerfully reciprocal but also strongly oppositional." -Mihály Szegedy-Maszák
I think that pretty much reveals my stance on whether we should preserve* languages or not.
(* I'm not of a prescriptive bend, mind.)
The Song is Who?
"Based on the books in your collection," the Facebook notification read, " we thought you might like the New York Times best-selling author, Arthur Phillips', new book The Song is You."
A quick google-search came up with a book which the New York Times described as "[reading] like a maladroit mash-up of the romantic comedy “Sleepless in Seattle” (..) and one of those creepy, straight-to-video movies, in which a famous beauty is pursued around the world by an obsessive fan." and which its publisher is trying to promote using the tag-line "Julian Donahue is in love with his iPod."
Some days I wish I were still running my literary blog, so I wouldn't be so out of the loop. Has Facebook moved into target-marketing literary geeks - or am I just super-priviledged? Is Arthur Phillips Spring '09's Jonathan Safran Foer or just a random no-name author whose publisher has paid hefty sums to social networks in a desperate attempt to shift copies? Should I even care enough to blog about this?
Regardless, I am not the reader you are looking for, dear Facebook notification. The book in question sounds absolutely vile and quite unlike anything I'd even consider reading.
In unrelated news, I have contracted the girly version of manflu which means I'm on the verge of dying. In lieu of flowers, please send skeins of Malabrigo or Noro Cashmere Island .. *cough, splutter, cough*
Find An Easier Way
Observation #1: I don't outright hate the Leona Lewis cover of "Run" (youtube link) although I still prefer the the Snow Patrol original (youtube link). I am mildly disturbed and am now going to listen to ironic hipster music.
Observation #2: I recently decided that I was spreading myself thin in social networking and blogging ventures. In real terms, this meant I took a long, hard look at my networking efforts, where I was spending my energy and creativity and what sort of return I got on my investments. My conclusions were interesting, to say the least. I shut down profiles, merged accounts and am now limiting myself to very few outlets. It feels a lot more streamlined, easy to manage and has energised me. I am also surprised/entertained to see how I think of this new structure in corporate terms: efficiency, venture, restructure, investment, and management. Hmm.
Observation #2.1: While I have been pleasantly surprised by my new networking structure, others have apparently been mildly upset by my actions. What I find "better organised", some online friends think of as "shutting out". Is it a sign of how fragile online friendships are (I don't think so) or a sign of how online friendships dependent upon a given context (I don't think so either)? Whatever it signifies, I just want to clarify that I am just as accessible as ever. I have just limited the number of places where people can interact with me. Of course people can also email me, but I warn you: I'm notoriously bad at getting back to mails. Just ask my mother ..
Observation #3: I spent some quality time with my nephew (who's almost three now!) this weekend. I was amused to note that I'm the cool, slightly wacky aunt who dares her nephew to jump into mud pools and who tells stories about gnomes and elves. Oh, and who is really good at Pooh-sticks.
PS. Blur reunion?!.
Dudes!
Where on earth do you guys come from?
Fourth Edition was started last year after a six-month-ish blog hiatus. Earlier the same year my then blog, Bookish, had been deleted by my then web host (others had similar problems with the company and were far more vocal than me - good on ya, Ras). I was reluctant to start all over with a new blog seeing as I had spent a lot of time building up my 'literary blog' brand courting publishers, readers and other literary blogs. However, I have been blogging since 2001 and enjoy the networking and knowledge-generating aspects of it. A new blog was bound to happen.
I decided that I didn't want to make a huge fuss. Bookish had been outgoing and had a definite target audience. I wanted my new blog to be far more low-key and more personal. Until last night I have not had a stat-meter keeping track of how many visitors I have or even what search-words this blog attracts. I had reckoned maybe ten or twelve unique visitors per day (for comparison's sake. Bookish had a daily tally of around 500-700 regular readers plus spikes when linked on popular sites) but I was very surprised this morning to see around five times as many unique visitors as I had anticipated.
Where on earth do you guys come from?
PS. Don't think I'm not appreciative - I'd be weird if I weren't pleased people stopped by - but I'm just going "but why? right now because I didn't plan this.
Crossing The Line
Yesterday someone I knew roughly fifteen years ago wrote to me via Facebook. She asked me if I were dying because she had noticed my status updates on Facebook (and quite possibly this blog) and was, I quote, sooo worried about me!!!!!!!!!
One thing which absolutely fascinates me about blogging and, by extension, social networking on the web, is the idea that you "know" the blogger or the person you follow on a social website. Where does that idea of "knowledge" comes from?
I don't know about you, but I moderate my online persona and I have done so ever since I first started blogging almost eight years ago. I used to be almost obsessively private about my identity, but when one of my blog readers began stalking me obsessively in my then-hometown, I realised that anybody would be able to find out who I was no matter how hard I tried to mask my identity. It was just a matter of how net-savvy you were. These days I link my real name to this blog and use a somewhat transparent web 'handle'. I continue to be very aware what I share online.
Do you know me if you read this blog? Of course not, although you will have a good idea of what to expect if we were to have a conversation offline. Can you deduce anything significant from my Facebook-updates? Quite apart from my having a semi-severe PathWords obsession, no.
I'm slightly amazed that anybody would consider asking me about dying via a casual Facebook message or think I would disclose terminal illness via one-sentence updates on a silly social networking site. I think this proves the divide between illusory 'knowledge' generated by virtual interaction and actual knowledge of the person writing all of this.
Welcome To My Head
I promised E. that I'd list the podcasts I like. I'm relatively new to podcasts (I'm slow on the uptake), so I'm yet to build up a list of definitive favourites. If someone has recommendations, I'd be happy to hear them!
Left Field Cinema is an intelligent podcast looking at both arthouse cinema (like Kieslowski) and mainstream films like Alien. I like the podcast because it assumes the listener is intelligent and it covers a lot of films I enjoy.
The Knit Picks Podcast. KP is a low-budget yarn company focused on the North American market - and they've managed to produce a podcast which is both very informative and very intimate. Kelley Petkun will either irritate or amuse you - she reminds me of a good friend of mine and so I enjoy catching up with Petkun's wide-eyed middle-class commentary on travelling, dogs and golf. I kid you not.
Oxford University's Medieval Podcasts. I have really, really enjoyed their podcasts on Anglo-Saxon texts and culture. This may not be everyone's cup o'tea, but these podcasts have been right up my street. To be avoided if New Historicism gives you a headache.
Lingua Franca. An Australian podcast on language. So far my favourite episode focused on linguistic typology (i.e. classification of languages based upon structural rather than semantic or historical similarities) but the podcast covers a lot of ground: spelling, loanwords, coarse language usage etc.
I'm yet to find podcasts dealing with current literature, modernism, poetry, art history, entertainment or humanism. Anyone?
In related news - that is, "Karie starts using web tools that have been around for years" - I am now keeping up with blogs via a blog aggregator. Gosh, I'm so 2003 sometimes.
Finally, I have (re-)discovered The Phoenix Foundation in recent days. If you like your music indie, mellow, folky and kiwi ..