Woolly Legwarmers and Ripping Recession Recycling

The finished legwarmers

I've just updated my blog posting settings to the recommended easy-to-use one so I look forward to hassle-free uploading of posts in the future - or going forward as our ghastly politicians say. The doom and gloom is getting worse by the minute so I thought I'd just share my latest knitting project with you all.

It's short and sweet - a pair of black cable and rib legwarmers for our son Shayne's fiancée and mother of our beloved granddaughter Sofia. Jany asked if I'd knit legwarmers for the winter so here they are. It's a bit hard to see the cable and rib textured pattern in the black but they are quite cosy and warm, (doh, so that's why they're called legwarmers - never have guessed!) and hopefully they'll fit the bill nicely.

I knitted them over about two weeks - I wish I had more time to just knit but work tends to get in the way - as does life in general! I got the pattern as a free download from Ravelry and that is a terrific resource for someone like me who enjoys making new things but might be afraid to venture into unchartered waters. There are millions of patterns - many free downloads - out there and in various knitting blogs there are links to patterns or actual patterns available. You might even be able to read this pattern if you click on the photo. Otherwise here's the link. 

The Pattern for the legwarmers

Just click on the PDF button to get the pattern - it's that simple! You can use pure Merino wool which would be lovely but I didn't - just got a 2 x100g. acrylic yarn, which was cheap and easy to knit. I might make Merino ones later on if I see how these ones look and wear - certainly for warmth you can't beat Merino!

Cable and Rib pattern - legwarmers

Here you can see the finished legwarmers with the cable and rib pattern clearly visible. It was a 12 stitch repeat over 4 rows, and a doddle to do if you have ever worked cable - I used a cable needle for convenience and 4 x UK size 11 DPNs (Double Pointed Needles) - that's 3mm metric and between 2 & 3 US size - how confusing is all that?

The end result

The other innovation for me was to recycle a ribbon-yarn jumper I bought for €7 in Shaws department store in Dungarvan, the town where I'm based for work. It was fine on the rack but not on this hanger - I looked a sight - frumpy and chunky. I'm definitely not as bad as this made me look. So it was at the back of my clothes rail for over a year, and I was clearing clothes out for charity and found it. I thought what a shame to discard it (or foist it on a charity recipient!) as the yarn was lovely. So I decided to rip it - never having done this for a shop-bought item before. Most rip-offs are my own disasters - so it was a new challenge.

A close-up of the yarn

 I got busy with the seam ripper and scissors and had to decide where to cut and unpick - the neck I abandoned as a lost cause as it wasn't worth the few grams of wool I'd salvage - so the stash came from the back, two sleeves, and the front from the V-neck down. Totally - 350 grams - about 12 ozs if my calculations are correct. I have a nice ribbon yarn pattern for a jumper, or I might make a nice cardigan - not sure yet - any ideas out there? I already have a burgundy ribbon yarn cardi - nice and loose and comfy - so if I had a jumper I'd be in the Twin-Set set!

Yes! the makings of another jumper!

Weigh-in

Today is 20-10-2010 - some clever clogs even took photos of their clocks at 20:10 - 'fraid I wasn't that ahead of the posse so I didn't, but that's probably the last of the interesting dates till next year - Armistice Day will be cool - 11-11-11.

On cheap shopping and cheating at bread-baking

A few weekends ago I baked some delicious yeast bread. Nothing unusual in that, except that I felt a bit of a fraud as there was an element of cheating involved. I am not beating myself up over it, rather I felt a bit chuffed at how tasty it was given that this should be the nemesis of true home-bakers everywhere - Bread Mix! This was bread mix with a difference though, as it turned out closer to home-baked bread than I'd expected.

My (potentially!) guilty secret is out - the breadmix came from Lidl, that ubiquitous German store that has, as I told Lynda in a comment on her post, revolutionised shopping in Ireland in the past decade.

Lidl and its rival, fellow-German chain Aldi have hit the Irish multiples where it hurts - on their bottom line. The good news for the hapless consumer who was previously held to ransom by the cartel-like inflated prices of the Irish multiples was that their entry to the marketplace led to real price wars, and drove down prices across all food and non-food goods. Tesco upped the ante with a huge discounting campaign but they are coming under fire for cutting Irish suppliers in favour of cheaper imported products from the UK. Of course with the recession in full swing there is fierce competition for our dwindling paypackets at the checkout, and we are certainly voting with our feet.

There was a terrific price war in the border towns last Christmas, when there was a mass exodus from the Irish Republic (our Official Title) to Northern Ireland (where, being part of the UK, everything is cheaper) and a number of retailers south of the border went bust. Suddenly loyalty was being touted as a virtue and we were being guilt-tripped by the government to shop local and buy Irish. As this was seen as rich coming from a government mired in corruption and scandal on a daily basis, it was greeted with due derision, and rightly ignored.

The protection of Irish jobs, workers and businesses suddenly became a patriotic priority and a civic duty, but as the government were at that moment bailing out banks and developers with our taxes and doing nothing to look after the small businesses , the cynics and sceptics among us became even more despairing.


In the case of Lidl, there was huge snobbery about its potential impact on the Irish "housewife" who was patronised in the media as someone needing protection from herself should she be tempted into the dens of iniquity that these cheeky interlopers represented. Luckily most people aren't fools and could spot a bargain at 100 miles, so flocked in droves to the newcomers. Result- Irish tastes expanded to accommodate the exotic smoked meats and cheese that we could previously get in expensive chi-chi delis or smuggle back from our annual sun holiday.



Nowadays there's a certain perverse cachet to shopping in these stores, and many a yummy mummy is seen loading up the still-ubiquitous SUV in the car park with her purchases. Hard to credit that it's only a couple of years since the chattering classes wouldn't be seen dead in these shops, seeing them as the preserve of some underclass who actually had to watch the pennies. Now that conspicuous consumption - and even the SUV is disparaged as an "Axle of Evil" - is becoming increasingly vulgar in these frugal and recessionary times, the discount supermarket's day has finally arrived. Those of us who always shopped there are having the last laugh at the discomfort of those who make excuses when spotted on the premises, e.g. I'm only here for the marvellous extra virgin olive oil, darling!

In case all this sounds like the death-knell for the small shopkeeper, the corner shop still has its place in every village and suburb, and it is great that there are Farmers' Markets springing up all over the country. Ireland's cookbook industry is thriving, and cookery programmes are being syndicated globally, so all is not utilitarian drabness and a throwback to wartime rationing.

Back to the bread - this wasn't meant to be a polemic anti-government rant (did enough of them earlier in the year and nothing has improved since) - I hasten to add that bread mix does not equate to short cuts.

Method

1. The yeast, flour and salt are pre-mixed but the warm water must be added and the mix kneaded with dough hooks in the food mixer (or a bread maker if you have one - I don't so can't speak with authoritiy here).
2. Then the dough is left to rise in a warm place for 3-40 minutes, and again kneaded down, and put in oiled bread tins to rise for another 30-40 minutes.
3. I use bread tins instead of making rolls or a shaped bread, as it is a wetter mixture than my own home made bread, which is much easier to hand knead after mixing, and it holds the finished shape better in a tin.
4. Baked for about 40 minutes at 200 degrees Centigrade, then turned out and cooled on a rack, it is delicious warm with butter and jam, as toast with your breakfast boiled egg, or whatever takes your fancy.

Top Tip

To really get the best from this bread, a nice cuppa tea is essential. I have some funky Gaudí-inspired mugs from Barcelona - the triangular one was a gift for my son, which I secretly covet - and they are guaranteed to cheer up anyone, even on the most miserable Irish summer's day.

As those of you in the know will agree, that's no mean feat this year.

Recession-proof Art - Sotheby's Irish Sale Preview at Lismore Castle

Easter weekend is over and one of the things on my to-do list was to visit the Sotheby's Irish Sale preview at Lismore Castle Art Gallery which took place on Friday and Saturday, an event that was free to all. I had missed this gig since its inception a few years ago, either because I didn't know it was on, and heard of it after the event, or I was away that weekend. So when I saw the piece in the Irish Times the previous weekend I flagged it as a must-see for the Easter weekend.





The gallery in Lismore Castle is a fairly recent innovation, the brainchild of the current resident of the Castle, Lord William Burlington, son of the Duke of Devonshire who lives in Chatsworth House in Derbyshire in England. I have referred to this family in my blog post on Devonshire Day last month. Lord Burlington had the West Wing of the Castle renovated from dereliction to its present ultra-modern minimalist state, a wonderfully lit art gallery with some side rooms and a round tower, and a smaller room at each end of the main gallery.

Last year there was a number of installations and weird sculpture on display, including a steel plate that the artist had urinated on to make it rust! I guess this is art in the Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin tradition of, well, different! There has been a previous Turner Prize winning entry here on display also, Richard Long's Slate Walk, which was only dismantled this year, and returned to the UK. This has left a long rectangular bed in the lower garden, which would make a nice vegetable patch or flower bed.

This exhibition showed the artworks that will go under the hammer in Sotheby's in London on May 7th from the Irish Sale, and it is fascinating to read the online catalogue with all the detail of the paintings and the artists. I was too stingy to spend €20 on the catalogue at the preview, given the recessionary times we live in, and bearing in mind that the that the Emergency/Mini/Supplementary Budget was still burning a major hole in my pocket I was pretty unprepared psychologically for the reserves on some of these works. I suppose I was surprised some were not dearer, given how well-known the artists are, and also surprised at the high cost of others that I had not heard much about.

This petrol pump painting was one of my favourites - it is so lifelike that I thought it was a photograph - but on closer inspection it is a painting by John Doherty entitled "Pay double this amount" and is oil on canvas with a reserve of £35-45,000/€38-48,000. It reminded me of those paintings of Edward Hopper that evoke rural isolation; gas stations on lonely roads, whimsical and nostalgic. Alain de Botton, the contemporary philosopher and social commentator depicted his works in his lovely book "The Art of Travel" which we read for our book club a few years ago. So for this alone I am glad I saw the exhibition; paintings can trigger happy memories too!

I was absolutely blown away by the more famous works, which I felt really privileged to see, as most were from private collections and going to auction on May 7th in Sotheby's in London, after a preview at Lismore, and two other venues on the island of Ireland, one in Belfast and one in Dublin.

What intrigues me is that so many of these works of Irish Masters past and present are in private collections, and that they are turning up for auction, some for the second year in succession, as Noll by William Orpen was on display last year. Is it being re-sold, or did it remain unsold? I am not sure, and I only heard that it is doing the rounds again through a friend who was at last year's show. It has a hefty reserve of between €250,000 and €350,000, and you would want to have a good large wall to display it.

Now I am not an art connoisseur, and claim no knowledge above that of the ordinary Joe Soap of art and their value, but I was pretty amazed at some of what passes for art and wonder if there isn't a bit of the Emperor's new clothes about it all! I can appreciate beauty and I am probably a traditionalist in that I prefer art that conveys some meaning rather than very abstract modern art. I absolutely love the surreal works of Dalí even though I abhor his Francoist/fascist politics, and have managed to separate them in my mind, whether this is ethical or not, and his Teatro Museum in Figueras is one of my favourite places to visit on the Costa Brava. I also love Picasso and Míro, though I haven't seen so much of their art.

So I was equally thrilled to see the works of Paul Henry, with his Connemara landscapes, and Jack B. Yeats, and also intrigued to see Louis le Brocquy's very abstract impressions of Francis Bacon and Beckett, and thought they would be way dearer. On the other hand I was pretty underwhelmed by the naive modern work by Scott of kitchen pots and pans, and thought I would put €500,000 to much better use, and likewise with the Roderic O'Conor Breton seascape. The latter was beautifully lit and had very vibrant colour but I didn't realise his work was commanding such value. The work by Sean Scully who is a leading contemporary Irish artist was very abstract and I guess I don't know enough art to fully appreciate it.

I was able to take photos with a clear conscience as I had the flash turned off, and the light was good enough to get a pretty good picture of most, except those with glass in the frames. They inevitably reflected the light and this affected their clarity. You can see all the pictures in the online catalogue if you wish, as I only took the photos for my pleasure and yours, and didn't realise they were all easy to view online.

Roderic O'Conor's Breton Seascape "Rocks and Foam, St Guénolé" (£300-£500,000)

It is fascinating to read the background to the paintings in the catalogue, as it gives a snapshot of the history of the time in pre- and post-colonial Ireland.

It certainly puts the recession into perspective, as there is no evidence of any constraint when it comes to private investment in art; perhaps people think there will be less likelihood of an "art bubble" than a property one.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if these great works could be bought by the State for the National Gallery instead of going yet again into anonymous private collections? We sometimes have our priorities skewed when it comes to showing national pride, and it could do wonders for our collective morale to have a stake in this art - surely we can claim it as much our heritage as are Joyce, Yeats and Synge, to name a but a few.

In any event, I wish them all a good home - meanwhile we can all enjoy the fruits of the artists' labours while the haves and the have-yachts agonise over their bids on May 7th in London!

The William Scott (See label below)

A selection of Louis le Brocquy - a tapestry and the Francis Bacon study

The entrance to the gallery at Lismore Castle Arts