Busy Needles

Easter

Belated Easter greetings. I had a a great long weekend catching up with knitting. Kingscot is finally on the move again. Sleeves are done and the back is steaming ahead. Like most of Norah Gaughan's patterns, the cables mixed with ribs provide a lot of interest as well as elasticity to the garment. Look forward to starting the fronts as bobbles are something I've never done very well.

The long weekend also gave me a chance to visit the Picasso exhibition at the National Gallery in London. It was small and intimate enough to walk around in just over an hour and the audio guide on a ipod type machine was very informative without being overwhelming in detail. I liked the self-portraits and the voluptuous nudes best.

Happy New Year of the Ox!

Happy Chinese New Year! I now have a second chance to make some new year resolutions including finishing a few more knitted items.

I have no suitable pictures to show at the moment so here are a few views from Venice: a city I never tire of visiting.

 A typical Venetian courtyard.

Poster advertising an exhibition of Art Deco designs by George Barbier - some fine stuff, too. There was a wonderful piece of fabric printed with parrots which I would gladly have taken with me.

  A laundry line catching the sun.

A London icon

The question mark inside

This was St Paul's Cathedral in November. For one week, it was the canvas on which changing words were projected in succession for several hours each evening. The art installation (commissioned by the Cathedral to mark the 300th anniversary of Christopher Wren's building)  was inspired by the answers that members of the public gave in response to the question: what gives your life meaning? It was a memorable sight in the winter evening. Single words were projected in sequence onto the dome and included 'music', 'love' 'God'. I think I saw the Arabic for 'Allah'. Longer phrases were shown on the west elevation of the building.

Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures. I only had a pocket camera with me unlike the gentleman I saw on the street corner one evening carefully positioning his SLR on a tripod to get a good shot of the main facade.

Happy New Year!

Good wishes to everyone for a peaceful and healthy 2009!

London has welcomed in the new year with chilly temperatures and grey skies; the kind of weather that makes me want to hibernate and not emerge until March. Still, it didn't deter my neighbours from setting off a midnight fireworks display and solitary reveller who enjoyed a few remaining fireworks at 6am this morning.
Later on, I set off into London to see the Byzantium exhibition at the Royal Academy where I enjoyed the visual feast of much jewellery (the concept of 'bling' is not new), illuminated texts and several exquisite icons. There were several striking images of the Virgin Mary and the suffering Christ and a rare chance to see paintings from St Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai. Apparently even the monks do not usually see these close-up as they normally hang very high on the wall. There were also a few examples of church textiles which were surprisingly well-preserved with elaborate embroidered and woven motifs. I also saw an Annunciation with Mary holding her spinning in one hand.

Byzantium is not a familiar subject to me, but it was clearly a rich and eventful period. I need to read Judith Herrin's book on the period.

Knittingwise, I am still working on Kingscot, my main project. The few days of holiday this week should give me some time to make a little more progress.

Local urban wildlife

Here is a fox I saw on my way to work the other day:

Sleeve island

I've begun the sleeve of Kingscot as a way of testing gauge. In this case, it has all worked out OK using RYC Extra Fine Merino DK. The sleeves are plain sailing as far as the knitting goes and the shaping is all very minimal. I have shortened the cuff by about an inch as I prefer my cuffs a little less emphatic. I'm quite pleased with the colour which is quite cheerful.

Norah Gaughan cardigan

After a long hiatus, have finally managed to settle down to some blogging and knitting. I've just started the Kingscot jacket by Norah Gaughan from the latest edition of the Twist Collective which has great patterns and will be a very useful resource. It's a classic Norah Gaughan design with lots of decorative ribbing and cables that are interesting without being tortuous. It should be an enjoyable knit.

Winter is back with a bite as we were blasted with Arctic winds this weekend. Below is a a reminder of summer with a picture of Venice where the weather was still balmy in September.

Will be back soon

I know I haven't posted for a while, but I am still here and intend to get going again soon. With luck, there should be knitting and travel pictures here as soon as I find a bit of time to settle down and produce a decent post.

Architecture

Architecture is always interesting to me and this example really caught my eye on a recent visit to Paris. It's the Institut du Monde Arabe near the boulevard St-Germain (close to the Metro Jussieu) which houses a library and museum dedicated to Middle-Eastern culture and history. The glass windows which you can see above have beautifully carved shutters behind them which respond to daylight and open and close to maintain a constant level of light inside the building.

The museum inside is worth a visit and displays some well-preserved artefacts from all across the Middle-East. I was struck by a copy of the Koran written on a scroll no more than a couple of inches wide. The delicate Arabic text was as closely written as if it had been embroidered.