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!

Hand in Glove, Caps and Crochet Knitting Challenges

I got a lovely knitting book recently called How To Knit which does exactly what it says on the tin - and it has some lovely patterns as well as tips on everything you wanted to know about knitting but were afraid to ask. I thought I was a cool knitter who knew all the basics - which I do - but this book has really opened up a whole new world of knitting tips I knew nothing about.

This includes putting names on the different methods of casting on, and different ways of casting off, and about the different types of seams which was all news to me. I guess I was a casual knitter who just got on with the job and didn't think too much or at all about the details like finishing off and seam-sewing,and yet ended up with reasonable end results. So I hope this book will enhance thewhole knitting experience for me and not inhibit me into a stressed-out striving for perfection type who ends up fretting over the minutiae of a project instead of going all out for something because it appeals to me.

Terminology is a whole new world to me - American vs. British/Irish terms which I didn't even know were different - but binding off/casting off, and stockinette/stocking stitchare two that I discovered here. The needle sizes would wreck anyone's head as there is no correlation between the US/Metric/UK sizing. They appear to be completely random and thought up by some hungover sadist having a bad Monday, and I am constantly referring back and forth between various charts.

I've made a lovely cricket vest for eldest cricket-madson, and realised after reading this book I should have used a so-called Backstitch Seam (?) for strength, and I didn't - I just top-stitched the side seams. Now they look fine and I guess they are fit for purpose, but it would be stronger with the correct backstitch one. I would correct this in future, and will do so on my next cardi or jumper. So I have learnt a whole lot of new stuff in this book - and I'll take it on board as needed.

I learnt to knit from my mother and she knew it all in her head, so I never needed to learn from a book. Techniques like blocking and pinning and pressing are Greek to me, and tension squares are only of theoretical interest - more a suggestion than a necessity. Now I do try to match yarn and project within reason, and will aim for the correct yarn and needle size on the pattern, but I've never let such considerations get between me and an interesting project, be it a crochet pot holder or a pair of gloves or a hat.

I have made a nice cap from cotton yarn from Lidl, cheap as chips with a lovely finishand soft texture which washes like a dream, and I decided to make a pair of gloves from the same yarn. I used the pattern in this book, and totally changed the specs.

Result - a terrific pair of gloves of which I am inordinately proud, and which will probably be useless for keeping me warm in winter as they are a) cotton which is a summer fabric and b) a bit big which means they won't be snug fitting. On the plus side,they match the cap, which was also knitted totally off spec, and turned out just fine, and I love it - it's quirky and different and very cosy - so maybe the same will apply to the gloves.

I actually made a glove according to the pattern, using wool and correct tension and guess what? I didn't make the second one because it was a) scratchy and woolly and b) uncomfortable at the seams. So I am unconvinced by the merits of being too bound by patterns - use as a guide and let your imagination flow a bit. I made three bolero cardis last year and love them all - one is cream baby wool with a hint of a shiny thread running through it and is a perfect summer evening cardi; one is the correct wool as per the pattern, and is fine but has a few mistakes I didn't notice till itwas finished, but as I wear it with jeans it doesn't really bother me, and the third is black mohair which is quite classy - all turned out fine and as it's a lacy openwork pattern it has some flexibility built in.

Here are some photos of the gloves and cap - and the book. I made some cool crochet pot holders from leftover cotton yarn, and put a picot edging on them - just to see if I had any memory of crochet left as it was years since I did any and I aspire to make a granny squares throw this winter!

I hope this post inspires you to give theunusual a shot and not be daunted by a seemingly intimidating project - I found the gloves great fun to make and even though they were listed as challenging I made them in a few evenings. There are wonderful sites out there like Ravelry and Garnstudio, so just get Googling for millionsoffree patterns and ideas for inspiration.