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Knitting knote – sock round-counter and cable needle

Sock round-counter and cable needle

I’ve always had a bit of a problem keeping track of what row I’m on. Was it row 122 or 123? Damn and blast. Nothing to do but count them, again. Many of my knitting patterns are covered with notations like those usually depicted on the walls of prisons – endless repetitions of four vertical lines scored through by a diagonal fifth – made in an effort to keep track of where I am. Or there’s the mechanical row-counter, slid onto the end of a needle and turned on a unit each time a row is completed. The problem with both these methods is that it’s very easy to forget to make the mark, turn the bezel.

And that’s just on two needles, knitting flat fabric back and forth. The problem becomes more complex knitting in the round because there’s nowhere useful to stow the row-counter, no needle-end for it to nestle up against. But I’ve come up with a solution so cunning that it’s almost impossible to go wrong. And, I must point out, I thought this up *all by myself* although no doubt it has been known about among those wise in the lore of knitting for several hundreds of years.

So. I always know the beginning of every round because the stitches are on four needles and the start is marked by the tail of the cast on. So I always know which is “needle one”. On it is placed, as you can see above, a stitch marker (in this case a safety-pin with a conveniently-sized circle at the end). It’s placed after the number of stitches indicating the number of rounds that have been repeated. So in the arrangement shown in this photograph I know instantly that I’m on the third round of the 10 round pattern repeat. It’s impossible to forget to move it on because it’s physically there when you knit along the needle.

Oh joy! oh happiness!! No more feverish counting of hundreds of tiny rows to work out whether it’s this row I need to make the cable on, the next row or (worst of all) the row I’ve just completed and will subsequently have to unravel and rework.

The cable needle is half a toothpick, sanded down and varnished with clear nail varnish.

I’m ridiculously pleased with my own ingenuity.

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Lesnes Abbey

Another top photo expedition suggested by Neha which took place on a beautiful sunny day. Many pictures were taken. I find this one, of part of an ancient mulberry tree, entirely unintentionally spooky:

mulberry branch

It’s taken me quite some time to sort out the pics, but I’ve had fun messing around with effects in black and white:

cigarette

I love this one of Neha in typical pose:

no hat

The Abbey itself is an ancient, fascinating and extremely well-kept building. I was most interested, however, in the juxtaposition of the old and the new:

fern

The most important part of the day (apart from eating, of course, which happened in a particularly delicious fashion) was the handing over of Neha’s hat.

hat3

I have to say that I’m extremely impressed by her choice of colour. It suits her most excellently.

Have I mentioned how much I love knitting things for people? There’s currently another pair of socks for my father underway and I’m so happy to have a picture of their construction!

Neha’s photoset here, my photoset here.

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links for 2008-04-20

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Joan As Police Woman – the gig

Well I’m very glad I went. I got there at just the right moment, I reckon, when it wasn’t so crowded that I couldn’t get a spot right in front of the stage but not so early that there were hours to wait.

I took up my position feeling like I was doing a very good impersonation of a pro. Looked at the position of the singer’s mic, the lighting, set various important-seeming settings on the camera. Of course I’d forgotten that she (Joan) divides her time between keyboards and guitar so I ended up on the wrong side of the stage and therefore not in the best position at all.

she wore a hat

She wore a hat. She told us it had been a bit of a last-minute decision. She took it off later and apologised for her hair being such a terrible mess. I found the effect anything but unpleasant.

she took off the hat

Here’s another one of bassist Rainy Orteca. Is it as good as the one I put up yesterday? I dunno. Slightly out of focus, no smile, but I’m not sure I don’t prefer it.

rainy orteca - bassist

The drummer, Parker Kindred (what a great name it is, now that I’ve discovered it), spent a lot of the time with his brow furrowed in a worried-looking fashion like an emaciated bloodhound. In this picture he looks somewhat more sanguine.

-)

I love watching musicians. The intense inward concentration, the expressions sometimes bordering on agony; it reminds me of people enjoying really good sex.

she played guitar

I’m sure it’s a comparison Joan would appreciate. She explained that the song (from the forthcoming album To Survive) Hard White Wall was a song about lust and the consummation thereof against the eponymous structure.

So, as TG pointed out on the previous post, enough with the visuals already, what was the music like? I am sorry to have to report that the sound balance was so appalling that I can’t really give any meaningful appraisal. Maybe it was my position at the front of the stage, but I really can’t imagine that I should not have been able to hear the vocals above the keyboards.

The opening song was To Be Loved which is lined up to be the first single from the new album. She was nervous, visibly and audibly nervous, but warmed up quickly.

The set mixed new material with the three tracks from Real Life which had been released as singles – Flushed Chest, Christable and, as the encore, Eternal Flame. Of the forthcoming release I’m already familiar with To Be Lonely, Start Of My Heart and Furious from the video of the concert she gave at Amsterdam’s Paradiso which appears no longer to be online.

For all these tracks it was just about ok that the overall sound quality was rubbish and the balance appalling, I was singing along anyway. But when it came the stuff I hadn’t already heard it was extremely frustrating.

Worst of all was right at the end. After the encore drummer and bassist left the stage leaving Joan alone at the keyboard. And every sound she made produced a rattling noise akin to the sound of stage thunder from the speaker. It sounded to me like an open mic over the drum kit picking up some kind of resonance off one of the skins. Or maybe by then the speakers themselves were ashamed of the noise they were having to pump out and were giving up the will to sound.

So the finale of the evening, the title track of the album, To Survive, was for me entirely ruined by the accompaniment of the rattling of dried chickpeas in a large tin trunk.

But if I had to draw a conclusion I would say that the new album looks to be as powerful as the debut with a mix of haunting, intimate songs and the harder, faster and syncopated beats of Hard White Wall and spitting power of Furious. As a performer she is protean in her ability to move from tender to ferocious, she’s witty and charming as she riffs with the audience while retuning her guitar. Oh, and her footwear is always worth drooling over. I shall definitely buy the album when it comes out, and would love to see her again live, with the added and as yet unachieved advantage of being able to hear her properly as well.

(Gig on 17 April 2008 at the Roundhouse FREEDM Studio [“the square room in the round building”])

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The gig and the battery

My battery’s running low and that of my camera totally died during the Joan As Police Woman gig. I’d expected this, charged up the spare (actually it was the spare in the camera, cheap, short life, swift death and generally not very satisfactory) but then rushed out leaving the reliable one still on the charger.

Can you imagine how frustrating it was to have merely to look at the beautiful images moving one after another in front of my eyes without being able to attempt to capture them? Well, it was difficult that’s for sure.

Too tired to process all the pics tonight, and still got yesterday’s trip with Neha to sort through, so here is a teaser to be going on with. Sort of head to toe without the head.

necklace
tuning
shoes

Those shoes are so utterly wonderful. I want several pairs in various colours. And the painless acquisition of the ability to walk in them.

JAPW is a trio. The bassist was introduced as the “enigmatic” Rainy Orteca (or was it “mysterious”?)

rainy orteca

And this is the drummer whose name I’ve forgotten and will find out tomorrow.

drummer

I’m really very pleased with some of the pictures.

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Entranced

I took part in further hypnosis research this morning, and very fascinating it was too. The first part, if you recall, demonstrated that I’m highly suggestible, the second that I’ve got great frontal lobes. This, well, I’m not sure what part three showed other than that I might be a suitable candidate for an fMRI scan.

The inducement of a possible brain scan all of my very own (or rather the hope of a digital image of the result) was what got me involved in the first place. And of course nobody can promise anything. But I live in hope. I also await the assessment which will determine whether my “maintenance” dose of Citalopram will disqualify me from taking part. Oh, the agony! Imagine, so near and yet so far. I’m booked in for a scan this coming Saturday morning but unsure whether it will happen…

Even more tantalising is the discovery that the scientist in charge of the neuroimaging part of the study is – wait for it – a meditator. And extremely interested in the neuropsychology underlying meditation. And any links there might be between hypnotic and meditative states. Hot, hot, hot, hot damn. I would absolutely definitely stop taking my maintenance dose, if that prevented scans, in order to have something to do with *that* research. After all I only take it because the doctor suggested it was a good idea, not because I feel I need it. (See how keen I am?)

So. Today. It was at the Psychology Department at University College London and involved being hypnotised by a professor there in a space the level of shabbiness and disrepair of which (tiles hanging off the ceiling etc etc) I’ve come to expect of our prestigious centres of excellence (sigh). Then a series of very small movements of one hand under various different suggested conditions.

I’m not sure I’m qualified to say what it’s “like” being hypnotised, having only been so twice recently and once a couple of decades ago. But so far I would say it’s unlike any other experience I’ve had. It’s not like any meditative state I’ve achieved, that’s for sure. There’s an extraordinary passivity about it which, possibly because it’s so far from my normal mode of curious engagement, not to say ornery cussedness, I find rather delightful.

So the hypnotiser says “just sit there”, or words to that effect, and I just sit there. The thought passed, fleetingly, through my mind “how long might I just sit here entirely motionless other than breathing? how many hours?” but it passed and disappeared and I just sat there, how long for I have absolutely no idea. It’s the nearest experience I’ve had to being a machine, operated by someone pushing buttons. I’ve been *treated* like a machine, more than once and in several different circumstances, but this is qualitatively different, because I *choose* to allow it to happen under certain clearly defined circumstances over which, ultimately, I feel as though I have the ability to change should I wish to do so.

Anyway, enough of that. Navel-gazing taken to a new level! I still await the scanning-suitability-questionnaire and the results thereof. However even should I not be able to have a scan the other research tasks are more than fascinating enough to keep me coming back for more. If asked.

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Small but very determined

enraged dog

A huge hen pheasant had the temerity to waddle across the garden. Maizy, who becomes incensed at small insects daring to occupy her territory, was enraged. She can jump four feet from a standing start under normal circumstances. She was positively flying in her efforts to make the glass between her and the bird disappear. And of course grarking (a mixed growl and bark) loudly the while.

enraged dog too

Eventually I let her out. A hen pheasant laid a clutch of more than 20 eggs in my father’s garden right by the front door last year causing much inconvenience as it was decided that she and her nest should not be disturbed. He suspects it’s the same one back again, casing the joint, and doesn’t want a repeat performance this year. She did appear very full of eggs. She managed, just, to elude the slathering hound let loose on her and lumbered away after a long, scrambling take-off and disappeared over the fence.