Knitting Nirvana - Crafty Books, Done Deals and WIPs

Modelling my frilly ChaChaCha scarf

I know, I know, I promised to  be a more consistent blogger in 2012 and I'm already falling by the wayside. I am writing this on Martin's lovely iMac with a big screen and a sleek brushed steel frame, with the iconic Apple and no big tower like in PC world! I'm sorta minding it for Martin but hopefully he'll not be able to fit it in his suitcase when he comes home for Shayne and Jany's summer wedding! Then I'll get to mind it for a bit longer, and will by then have figured out all that I've forgotten about Apple Macs and their quirkily intelligent Operating Systems. 

Already the keyboard is toast, as Martin spilt tea on the lovely slimline objet d'art before  heading to Australia, rendering 5, T, H and N useless and by extension the whole bloody keyboard - *ry worki*g wi**ou* **ose and you'll soo* fi*d out how much you use *hem! So I'm using a clunky old Dell Keyboard - functional but with no aesthetic properties whatsoever! At least the Apple Mouse is still working, except for the scrolldown button. Which I can live without.

This is a little post on recent knitting I  have done. I joined the Knitting Circle at Angela's Design Workshop last year and thoroughly enjoy it. It's on twice every Tuesday in Lismore, and I go to the evening session as being a wage slave prohibits my attendance at the morning session - that's peopled by a number of retired women including a few retired Public Health Nurses - knitting nurses being quite the thing. It certainly whiled away a few quiet nights for me on agency night duty back in the 70s and 80s - yes, even nurses had quiet nights in some of the smaller private hospitals.

Apple iMac - a thing of  beauty!

Rathcooney Mitts in cotton blend - now in Oz!

The knitting circle is a nice social outlet, people meet to chat, share patterns and ideas, and help each other out with tips on patterns and problems , and even do a bit of skill-sharing - some of us who can crochet gave a demo on making Granny Squares a few weeks back. We have tea and coffee, cakes and biscuits and a good laugh is guaranteed. There's something very cosy about a knitting circle, and it's a great leveller as everyone brings something new and we all gain from it, from absolute beginner to experienced returnee  - which I consider myself to be as I only came back to knitting about 3 years ago after a lifetime away from it - probably over 20 years. 

Book Token buys!

My Christmas Wish List this year was books - Knitting and Crochet books - and I had great fun self-selecting on Amazon. I got two wonderful books - Carol Feller's Contemporary Irish Knits and Stitch'n'Bitch Superstar Knitting. The boys and Anne (Shayne and Jany's Au Pair) gave me book tokens for Easons and Waterstones. I still have the Waterstones' one (no shop nearby) and two weeks back spent a blissful hour browsing the Craft Section in Eason's in Dungarvan - where they have thoughtfully positioned tub armchairs for enhanced browsing - and came away with two great books - The Knitting and Crochet Bible, and The Happy Hooker - Stitch'n'Bitch Crochet! 

Mitts I made to match my cowl Knitmas gift

Great series of books!

I've  been making lots of little things since Christmas - fingerless Rathcooney Mittens from Stolen Stitches Blogger Carol Feller's book being a firm favourite and I made a couple of pairs as presents for friends. I made a matching hat too, and a cowl in Feather and Fan stitch which was like the one I got from Caroline (@scattyhats on Twitter) in the Knitmas Secret Santa which I mentioned in a recent post. I sent some things off to Cathy (@cathyqtpi on Twitter) for her Knitmas gift.  

Rathcooney Mitts for a piano-player friend - Merino wool

Best Irish Knitting book of the year! 

iPhone Cover from Monika on Ravelry

I made some frilly scarves for friends and one or two  for myself - and I have been asked to make some for other people! I made some iPhone covers from Ravelry - which is a fabulous resource for anyone interested in knitting - and right now I am patiently working in painfully slow fine 2-ply Noro Sekku yarn (no 7) - a delicious blend of Cotton, Silk and Wool, which I also got from Caroline for Knitmas. I am doing a Feather and Fan lacy scarf which will take forever as I can't give too much time to it, what with work, baking and blogging amongst other things, and I have other knitting fish to fry as well.

Tivoli Twirl scarf made in car en route to Dublin, gift.

I'll link some of the books and show you some of the photos of the projects.  I hope you get inspiration from this post to try your  hand at knitting - and indeed crochet - and remember start small, you don't have to knit a jumper, something small or baby clothes will give you great satisfaction and you'll have something very special to share with the world - or at least your friends and family!

Modelling my Rathcooney Knits

Winter Woollies - StayingToasty in Turbulent Times

Cap and Scarf in Super-Chunky wool

I have been busy knitting warm woollies to help me cope with our winter of discontent. Not alone has the weather been unseasonably cold for Ireland and we've had to cope with frozen pipes and a waterless Christmas, it's now clear that this was but a portend of the disastrous political turmoil of the past week.


Today the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen resigned as the main government coalition party leader but decided to stay on as Taoiseach. This brings us back to GUBU days - no, not Glory Days, but Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre and Unprecedented. This famous acronym dates back to 1982 when a double murderer was found to be hiding out in the apartment of the Attorney General, and the term was coined by Conor Cruise O'Brien apropos of the controversy in which the then Taoiseach Charlie Haughey found himelf embroiled.  We wonder now if the planned General Election - announced last week for March 11th - will be brought forward again as the confidence in the government plummets to new depths.



They say that a week is a long time in politics -well here's a timeline to what went on in the past week and as the week wore on it became apparent that an hour is a long time in Irish politics - the farce could have been written by any one of our wonderful playwrights - though John B. Keane would probably have done it fair justice, what with his acute eye for morality in the human condition, not to mention political shenanigans. The Field, one of his most famous plays, is now showing in Dublin and the radio ad for it is prescient - the voiceover of the Bull McCabe asks - "would we rather have our principles or be millionaires?"

Well, it's evident that the political rulers of the past 14 years veered spectacularly towards the latter, and in the words of Charlie McCreevy, then Minister for Finance in one of the giveaway budgets of the boom years - "when we have it, we spend it". Quite. And now we're left holding the baby the IMF has given us - a debt of billions that will be a legacy for future generations and is going into the black hole of the banks that went under due to the lack of proper regulation.

The woolly gloves

That it coincided with week after proverbial Blue Monday just added to the irony, and it is proving hard for all us political junkies to keep up with the daily upheavals. I won't even go into the detail, suffice to say for those living on Mars for the past few weeks that the country is now being misled by a government with a rudderless party.

Today the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen resigned as the main government coalition party leader but decided to stay on as Taoiseach. This brings us back to GUBU days - no, not Glory Days, but Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre and Unprecedented. This famous acronym dates back to 1982 when a double murderer was found to be hiding out in the apartment of the Attorney General, and the term was coined by Conor Cruise O'Brien apropos of the controversy in which the then Taoiseach Charlie Haughey found himelf embroiled.


So you can understand why I immerse myself in reading and knitting or crochet. Of late I have been mostly
knitting scarves, hats and gloves - and in warm winter russet tones. You can see the fruits of my January labours in these photos - even the self-consciously self-timed one gives an idea of the hat and scarf set, which was made with James C. Brett's super-chunky Marble yarn, which I got in the lovely Lismore Design Workshop from Angela - she has only been open for a few months but already has inspired a lot of knitters to get their needles out and she has also got a knitting circle up and running on Tuesdays - morning and evening! I went last week and it was a lovely few hours, spent sitting by an open fire chatting away to fellow-knitters. The gloves are pure wool, which have to be hand-washed, a slight drawback offset by their cosy warmth.

Mary, Paul and Catherine - the Knitting Circle Table Quiz team (& me!)

We even got a team together for the Table Quiz last night in Ballyrafter House Hotel - a fundraiser for our Travel Writing Festival, Immrama, which happens in June each year. I have blogged about it frequently. We came 5th overall, not bad with a score of 61 out of a possible 72.

Coincidentally, today's Irish Times had two articles about Lismore and its environs - both by Immrama speakers. One was by Manchán Magan, on the joys of staying in Lismore in rhododendron or any season, and the other by Thomas McCarthy, a poet of international renown from nearby Cappoquin, who name-checks Lismore in his writings on the downfall of Fianna Fail, the current political pariah party

This post has just touched on the events of the past week - the Labour Party is coasting towards the General Election and we have a Selection Convention on Monday night in Waterford to formally nominate two candidates - a man and a woman - to contest for the four-seat Waterford Constituency. We hope they will double the representation by securing a second seat this time - watch this space for updates!

From Hairshirts to Hippie Hats and Headbands - Happy New Year 2011

Happy New Year to all the blog-readers and loyal followers of Dispatches from the Deise from my first post in 2011 - I've been blogging just over two years now since I started just after Christmas 2008, and it's been a great journey as I've catalogued various events in my life and numerous random ramblings. I've enjoyed reading other blogs, following many, commenting on some (not enough!) and having over a hundred followers of my dispatches. It's an interesting and diverse community, and without any literary or journalistic pretensions, blogging's a great creative outlet for any aspiring writers - at every level.

Family photo - Christmas Day 2010

I hope you like the family photo taken on Christmas day on the patio - we were all wrapped up for a walk before the turkey dinner, and it was absolutely freezing. The next day it was about 8 degrees Centigrade (above freezing) - and the thaw has persisted but more frosty Arctic weather is forecast - just in case we get comfortable and complacent. The water's back by day, and down to a dribble at night; the pumps are turned off to fill the reservoirs as there are more leaks in the Irish water supply than Julian Assange could dream of in a lifetime - the County Councils here would give Wikileaks a right run for its money.

I wish everyone a wonderful 2011 despite the state of the nation and the economy and the dread and dismay we'll all find in out payslips in about a fortnight or so when the first haircuts of the hairiest hairshirt budget in history kicks in.

Cloche crochet hat with flower - on me.

I am trying all the positive mantras - lucky to have a job, many worse off than me, and amn't I lucky to be a vilified public servant - albeit frontline so maybe my job won't be one of those targeted for the chop if Fine Gael get into government after the General Election - probably March now. I just hope their expected partners in government, Labour, (my party affiliation) will be able to rein them in - Eamon(Gilmore) better make sure his charm offensive knocks the socks off Inda (Kenny) enough to stall the Blueshirts' proposal to slash and burn the public sector as they promised in their recent budget alternative. 

Jany and me with her creation - New Year's Eve 2010

 A question for 2011 - will Bono ask the IMF and the World Bank to Drop the Debt for his own country as he has so eloquently advocated for so-called Third World Countries? That would be a supreme irony as he has lost a lot of street cred since U2 headed off on a tax break of their own to The Netherlands when they moved their assets offshore for higher tax exemption savings - all strictly legal but morally very questionable given his holier-than-thou banging on about helping poor countries - surely the best way to do so would be to pay taxes in your own country?

Random-dyed pink flower detail on headband - crochet

Purple flower detail on headband - crochet

Crochet flower headbands

My thinking is that it can only be uphill from here as we can't get any worse than 2010 from an economic and national morale standpoint - it was a new low for our collective national psyche when the IMF rode into town, and we are still reeling from the shock of losing financial sovereignty with the bailout of €85 billion.

But enough misery - this Christmas and New Year I have been mostly crocheting new projects for myself and teen daughter and her pals - there's a resurgence in Hippie nostalgia and retro headbands and hats have become de rigueur -  at least around here.

Jany, d-i-l in-waiting, has been instrumental in reawakening this fashion fad as she has been busy with scarves, hats and headbands for little Sofia and her work colleagues. So when she showed me how to make 3-D flowers with the help of a wonderful YouTube tutorial from the wonderful Art of Crochet by Teresa, I was hooked ( I know, I used that pun in a recent post - guilty as charged!). You can see how wonderful it is in the link above or the video clip below.

I want to share some finished projects with you too, and maybe inspire you in the potential for a new cottage industry in the lean days ahead - a stall at the local Farmers' Market would be a terrific outlet for the crafty among you. You could do worse for in this age of austerity! 

Jany never crocheted till a few months ago and now she's teaching me techniques and new skills every week - so it's no excuse not to get down to it if you're motivated enough.If I can do it anyone can.

self-timer pic - scarf and hairband/headband with flower

Headband with flower - self-timed pic.

a bit too-close-up! flower cap with brim

 The Art of Crochet by Teresa - amazing tutorials on everything you need to know to crochet.