The hellgoddess knits
PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE WILL BE A HARASS OISIN THREAD ANNOUNCEMENT TOMORROW.
That look of fixed concentration
It’s already the middle of the night—no, no, midnight is early night—but Tilda and Bronwen have only just left. Knitting is so much more fascinating than mere conversation.* Tilda arrived yesterday declaring that I was going to show her how to knit, and she was then going to complete a hellhound blanket square.
I showed her how to cast on once. She then proceeded to cast on perfectly.
I showed her the knitting stitch once. She said, oh, okay, took the needles away from me . . . and knitted a perfect hellhound square.**
Sigh. I mean, great . . . we have another knitter.*** But I feel she could have had to struggle a bit.† She did not have the No No I’m Too Stupid I Will Not Be Able to Learn This moment. I could say this was from my brilliant teaching, but it wasn’t and I won’t.
The things that fuel a hellgoddess: Peter's mayonnaise and champagne
Bronwen, who clearly really likes duelling with sea monsters, came down again today but—thanks to the sea monsters—was again about two hours late. Niall had just left, leaving Tilda draped over the sofa in a blurry-eyed, brain-blasted state, having suffered two hours of handbells—and two hours of handbells when you’re a beginner can be fatal. I had to take poor neglected hellhounds out for a sprint, and met Bronwen toiling up our slope. When rather less neglected hellhounds and poor exhausted me returned to the cottage, there were Tilda and Bronwen sitting companionably side by side on the sofa . . . knitting. Bronwen had taught Tilda to cast off, which is a good thing, since I’m still doing it with my fingers.†† She also taught both of us to purl . . . yes, Fiona had already taught me to purl . . . was it only Tuesday†††? . . . but I’d got sufficiently freaked out at this business of having to count the stitches on the ribbing for my legwarmers that I reverted to hellhound squares and had managed to forget again. So I purled a hellhound square. Which of course looks exactly like a knitted hellhound square.‡ Now I’m starting the legwarmers again. . . .
Meanwhile . . . as I approach the one-month anniversary of my learning to knit, I have four projects on actual needles with actual stitches on them. There is nothing wrong with this. One of my enablers has just been emailing me that in her rich, varied experience of knitting and knitters, how many projects you have going at one time tends to correlate with whether you’re the kind of person who reads one book straight through from start to finish before you start the next . . . or whether you’re the kind of person who is reading several at once. Oh good. I’m consistent.
The particular quality of this fixed concentration is because I'm frelling purling.
* * *
* Although this seems to me another of knitting’s great virtues. If you’re all sitting around knitting, you are not obliged to try to find something to talk about. If there is something to talk about, great, splendid, but I am a lifelong failure at chat. I tend to rate people anyway by whether they’re easy to be silent around, but knitting takes the stress out of finding the answer to this question.^
^ Tilda and Bronwen both being repeat visitors you can guess that they had already passed this test.
You will also note the extremely neat and tidy ball of yarn.
** She arrived at handbells this afternoon brandishing it and saying, Look look! Now you have to show me how to cast off!
Now this is where it gets scary. Niall said, You know, I should learn to knit. . . . ^
^ Don’t worry. I will certainly ask him about this rash statement again. In fact I may ask him repeatedly.
*** There has even been . . . please don’t damage yourselves laughing here . . . some idle conversation about going to the yarn shop tomorrow. The truth is we probably won’t have time: I’m still sleeping twelve hours a night (apparently) and Beltower takes precedence—yes! Even over yarn!^—because I need serious mentoring in this latest frelling computer method ringing simulator. Gaaaah. It’s the usual thing: I am doing too much anyway, computer programmes and I are not the best of friends at the best of times and Beltower is a lot more complicated than it needs to be. Why don’t supergeeks understand that the rank and file might like to learn
FIFTEEN stitches?!?!!! How does it DO THAT??!???
to do little teeny bits of geekery too? There is no hellhound-blanket equivalent to learning to use Beltower. Tilda had demonstrated hers to me the last time she was down here, but she had spent a lot of time figuring it out and setting it up. I spent maybe two hours scrimmaging with the damn thing and it won. Shortly after this ajlr sent me the link to the review of my beloved bell ringing iPhone ap and—remember ‘doing too much anyway’—it is extremely easy to decide to spend your limited time doing something you can do and neglecting something you can’t. Pooka is brilliant for handbells but I have yet to find a computer programme that is any use at all teaching me to ring on tower bells. But Tilda is convinced that Beltower will teach me to ring horrible Cambridge places^^ and we are going to have an intensive tutorial tomorrow.
^ Yo. Cut me some slack here, in the cordage of your choice. She has a perfectly good yarn shop at home in . . . + . . . wherever.
+ I’ve been trying to decide if I can invent a secret coterie of Finnish method ringers, with bell towers in underground silos etc, so I can declare she’s from Finland. I like Finland. If I ever start travelling again I want to go to Finland.
WORKING stash
^^ She demonstrated her prowess tonight ringing Cambridge major at New Arcadia practise. I would be ecstatic to ring Cambridge minor. However. News flash: I am beginning to get the hang of Grandsire Triples. Only beginning, mind you. And Edward is still calling carefully, so the wavery little git on the three is not too taxed. Still. Progress.
† People who can ring Cambridge Major don’t struggle. You can pick them out in a crowd because they walk on a little cushion of air between their feet and the mere ground.
†† Tilda is now working on her third hellhound square. Bronwen also did one. All Visitors During the Next Eight Months Will Be Required to Produce a Hellhound Square. Needles and Yarn Will Be Supplied.
††† If you’re counting, she also showed me three weeks ago, but we decided that one thing at a time was good.
‡ Ah the quaint physics of knitting.
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