COMP: Grumpy Robot Seeks Home

Meet Marvin. He's loosely based on the BBC TV version of the character from the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. I knitted him several years ago as a jokey birthday present for an ex, who solemnly returned it when we split up. I found it again packing up to move house last week. I don't really want to keep him, but someone's got to look after those dodgy diodes down his left-side (if you don't get that reference, you can leave now). So, want him?

Enter this competition. All you have to do is guess how many books I have at home. The closest guess posted in the comments form on this post by 3rd February, 5pm GMT wins Marvin.

Remember to include some sort of link/ email address in your guess so I can contact you if you win. If you don't, the entry will be discounted. I'm happy to post internationally. In case of a draw, I'll pick one out of a hat. I've emailed the total number to myself, so that email can act as a record in case of query. I'm not having people round to count them just to check. I should probably also note it hasn't been knitted to any toy safety standards.

The photo isn't a clue, as it was taken on my bookshelves at college, which I haven't counted. Yes, those are 'work' books, they are primary data for my research. The answer is probably less than you might imagine a lit-PhD-ex-bookseller might have (I'm really, really, not a book hoarder), but it's also probably more than you might imagine too, just because everyone has more books than you think.

UPDATE (3/2/10): and the answer is... 185. So the winner is Mr Robert Weaselspoon, who guessed 172.

Warming jumpers and balling yarn

Happy New Year. I'm sneaking in a quick blog post between start-of-term business and our impending house-move next weekend (no huge life-dramas: it's just that the land-lady's selling up and we're only moving a mile away, but moving is a hassle).

I thought I'd share a recent experience in balling some yarn of my mother's, in case the info is of any use to fellow knitters. Exhibit one: some pretty, but very tangled and very, very slippery yarn.

My mum bought it in Damascus (here). From my own experience with a lace-weight version of the same yarn, I predicted it would be a humongous pain to ball. Loads of tangles, and so slippy you leave it un-gripped for a millisecond and the ball falls to pieces (creating more tangles in the process). I warned her, and insisted she came round to use our swift and ball winder.

I was right about the tangles and slipperiness. About 1/8th of the way through we decided to ditch the idea of the ball-winder (it just slipped off it, you had to hold the ball in your hand the whole time...). We needed a bobbin which could readily be passed through un-doing knots. We looked around the table and spotted some rolls of parma violets I had lying around ready to be sent off to a friend who lives in the states.

They worked REALLY well. The thick pen-like shape was great for wrapping yarn around whilst keeping tight in your hand, as well as pointing through the knots. We then balled the yarn (by hand) from these bobbins and kept the balls secure with some tissue paper and rubber bands. It still took several hours: the finished knitting pieces from this yarn better be worth it!

If you don't know what these Parma Violets things are, they are UK-sweeties (candy if you really must), flavoured with violets. You either love or hate them. See a close up of the 'bobbin' here.

I'll finish with a couple of FO shots - pieces finished over the Christmas break, my last knitting of 2009.

It's the Wedgewood blouse from IW Knits Summer 2006 (but modified as a woolly jumper), and a super-simple top-down raglan cardigan. Ravelled here and here respectively. The yarn for both comes from aborted attempts at Demi (rav link). Which, using yarn from a first-day-of-the-sales trip to John Lewis, is my current WIP. I've modified to work it as a top-down raglan, but I'm a little worried I won't have enough yarn. Wish me luck.

tidings of comfort and joy

I knitted a hat. It took less than a week. Which is handy because it snowed. Yes, in London. Before Christmas. It settled and everything (Don't believe Hollywood London: most years we have no snow at all).

It's supposed to be Selbu Modern, but because my normally abnormally-super-loose gauge gets abnormally-super-tight as soon as I do colourwork, it's more of a Selbu beanie. Which is at least useful for wearing under my bicycle helmet in the cold. It's also slightly square at the top, but that's due to rubbish blocking (might re-block on a balloon or something). Details of yarn, etc on ravelry project page.

Mince pies! Made by Kirsty, not me. Though the flaky-lightness of the pastry is at least partly due to me. Tip from one of my students: use vodka instead of water in pastry. Works really well. The mince pies were for a small Christmas party we held this afternoon/evening. Both Lara and Felix had to cry off ill, but we still had a house full (including Emms) of merry-makers.

Above is a before shot, some chocolate fruit cake (from Feast. Sounds wrong, but really, really works) surrounded by a pile of pfeffernüsse (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recipe), and lights draped over our staircase in the background. We also had gingerbread, dundee cake, goblets of mulled wine and about a trillion other things. Very full now. Signs of the remains are below. Season's Greetings to you all.

Busy-busy-busy as a bee

This jumper took me just under four months to make. Seeing as I'm used to chugging one out in a matter of weeks, this seemed like an age. Cycling-to-work really has cut down my knitting time. Also, it was 4ply, on 2.5mms (2mm for the ribbing), so I guess it was always going to take a while.

It's a product of my stash (which itself is best understood as a product of John Lewis sales). I had a bag of not-quite-a-jumper-worth of yellow 4ply tweed, as well as few balls of brown 4ply left over from this top. Put them together and you get a sweater which stripes pleasingly like a bee. Despite the tiny gauge, it was a very simple project - a basic top-down raglan, done seamlessly in the round. As you can see from the third photos in this post, I didn't bother with any jog-less join (I can do a jog-less join, it just seemed like too much effort).

The stripes are perhaps a little too short, and I definitely made the neck too high/ small - makes me feel slightly as if I'm wearing an optical illusion. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. I really like the triangle shapes it makes around the armpits. Plus, small vertical stripes can be surprisingly flattering. Details on ravelry.

It's a Monday, which is always busy for me, but today I've been busier than usual. My MSc students have an essay due (cue: last minute queries about citations, phonecalls asking for extensions...), plus the undergrads have an essay back and I'm running an event this evening which has suddenly become really popular.

But, I've made time for a lunch break when I can make up a pot of tea, switch off work email and write up this post. It's important to take a moment to pause amongst all our business, sit and think about something other than our everyday routine. Today more than ever, perhaps (I mean the Copenhagen conference, if you don't want to bother following the link).

On that ecological note, and considering the bee-like stripes of this jumper, I should probably make some reference to the plight of the honeybee. Bee colonies are collapsing across the world. This is serious. According to this book, bees pollinate 70% of our food. To repeat one of those lines credited to Albert Einstein, if bees disappeared: "No more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." Scary stuff. If you're interested there's a nice gallery of photos on the subject from the Guardian here and a nice blogpost from BBC's Newsnight here.

Right, busy-busy-busy. I'm off to give a lecture on the cultural legacy of mad cow disease. Then it's the exciting seminar this evening - Mike Hulme, Professor for Climate Change at the University of East Anglia (the place with *that* scandal about the emails...). He's written some provocative pieces in the last week (e.g. this, see also interesting discussion here). Our audience will be a mix of science media people and climate scientists. Should be interesting.

updated

Things I did on my holiday, which admittedly was a while ago (bad blogger, etc, etc): I saw a fantastic exhibition on Open Source Embroidery, sat by the beach, took photos of lanterns, and crocheted a shawl (first crochet lace, details on ravelry page). I also split up with Marcus. Which is sad in the short term, but definitely the right thing to do. It was also a while ago now (and, to be honest, the relationship was over a long time before that). Since then I've done a bit of teaching, a fair bit of research, a lot of start of term admin, chunks of lesson planning, oodles of reading, some socialising and a smidgen of baking.

I also bought a brand new bike as my old one was stolen from Bloomsbury while I was off seeing an art exhibition (about twine, in a disused tram tunnel - there are some great things about living in London, despite the bike thieves).

Knitwise, my stripy-like-a-bee sweater's been progressing nicely. I've done both sleeves and the neck down till just below the waist. But it is taking ages (4ply, 2.5mm...) and, as a seamless top-down raglan, is getting too large to fit in my everyday bag. As my other FO is very complex lace (for which I require excellent light and silence), I needed a small and easy project I could take to knitting groups. So I picked up a couple of balls of leftover 4ply from the back of my stash, cast on a few hundred stitches, making sure it was divisible by four, and then simply chugged along in mindless 2x2 rib. Perfect for knitting nights, including this brilliant Halloween-themed event at the Hunterian Museum, and the FO's been perfect for keeping my neck warm now the weather's getting colder. Again, full details on raverly project page.