The second area of mess lies upon the bed we have inserted into the downstairs living room in order for me to embrace the wonderful thing that is Life Without Stairs. Upon this bed currently lie millions of records that have been enthusiastically retrieved from the attic in lieu of the new USB turntable that The Man bought last weekend. We have been discovering many old, audio treasures and this turntable means that we can spend many a pleasant night in the living-room/bedroom listening to records and knitting.

…this brings me to the final mess for today’s Messy Tuesdays post, which is my disarrayed knitting area. On the sofa we see half an infant’s fancy silk sock by Nancy Bush knit in Wensleydale, the Tatami which still awaits buttons, some guilty yarn purchases and my knitted bag, the contents of which probably exceed the brief for Messy Tuesday’s in their extreme state of randomness and disarray. Unseen in this photo is the bag of half-finished knitted roses and the potato-chip scarf I have been making for my friend’s daughter which are just on the floor beside everything else. There is also a half-eaten easter egg somewhere in the vicinity of this lot, which is a nasty mess of foil, broken chocolate pieces and giant, extensive, sinfully wasteful plastic egg-packaging.

The biggest mess of all, however, is in my head. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of that. I’ve recently been awarded a commission which I can’t write too much about here, I have surgery on Friday, my PhD funding application needs to be completed this week, and ten million things need to happen before the operation in order for anything to be possible afterwards. My coping strategy for this dazzling array of mixed news is brilliant: it mainly involves adding to my online swaps list, expanding my Ravelry queue and purchasing expensive sock yarn that I can’t afford. calmly organising everything I need to organise, downscaling my activities and preparing an appropriate amount of movies and knitting to take into hospital with me.

Ravelry has helped me in numerous ways, once again proving its invaluable nature to us knitters. Searching through the forums for yarn/knitting in films, I found a great post pointing to Beverly Hetherington’s Listmania list: ‘The Top Ten Characters Who Knit in Movies.’ This list includes a very funny and insightful commentary on the appearance of knitting in movies and I shall copy it here for your pleasure. Many thanks go to Beverly Hetherington for her brilliance and for assisting me in making Lovefilm selections:

#10. The one everybody comes up with when you say you have made a list of ten characters who knit – Madame Defarges in “A Tale of Two Cities” – in my view best played by Blanche Yurka in the 1935 version who could portray bitterness and revenge better than almost anyone. Be afraid of women who knit. Be very afraid. Heads will roll.

9. Debra Winger as Joy Gresham in “Shadowlands” – she is sitting at home knitting a jumper when she acknowledges her bone cancer has returned. So not only was Joy going to die but she was also not going to be able to finish that jumper. I don’t know if that’s what the director intended but that scene symbolised to me the tragedy of her loss and left me a red-eyed, tear stained quivering wreck.

8. Joan Crawford as Lucy Harbin in “Straight Jacket” – a 1960s horror film in which Crawford is required to age from 25 to 45 despite being 56 when the film was made, she takes drugs, downs bourbon, attempts to seduce her daughter’s boyfriend and knits like a woman possessed. She also knows how to wield an axe rather well too.

7. Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” in which, when asked what she is knitting, says “Jose brought up the blueprints for a new ranch house. I have this strange feeling that the blueprints and the knitting instructions got switched. I may be knitting a ranch house!”

6. In “Dancing at Lughnasa”, Rose and Agnes, two of the five unmarried Mundy sisters earn a bit of money by knitting gloves to sell in the local village and even that is taken away from them when the glove knitting business is industrialised and a factory opens. Many people see this as a wistful bitter sweet film of a summer that changed the lives of an ordinary family forever – I see it as yet another warning of how you just can’t expect to make any money by knitting.

5. Lumi Cavazos as Tita in “Like Water for Chocolate” – well known for its use of food to symbolise love, pain and passion, the knitter perhaps will be more aware of the symbolic use of yarn and needles as Tita begins knitting a wedding blanket which grows and grows and gets longer and longer throughout the film symbolising her endless grief. The soundtrack is also called “Theme of Tita Knitting” – one of the few if not the only knitting theme songs in existence.

4. Greer Garson as Mrs Miniver is a truly stoic knitter in a close knit family living in a close knit community in England during the Second World War showing how sticking to normality can carry you through even the most difficult times. She shows how important her knitting is to her when then is an air raid one night and Mr Miniver asks if she has everything she needs with her as he’s not going to risk his life for her knitting needles again.

3. Often in films characters who knit obviously have never picked up two needles and are obviously doing it wrong – to a knitter this is as bad as any continuity error – however one film where they get top marks for accuracy is “Ladies in Lavender” where Judi Dench as Ursula not only knits but knits socks on four double pointed needles, when not being a sister of mercy.

2. Emily Fitzroy as Cornelia Van Gorder in “The Bat” – made in 1926 this atmospheric house of horror film features the Bat, a serial killer he flashes a bat onto the wall before he strikes. (That sounds familiar somehow.) The owner of the spooky mansion where much of the action is set, Cornelia is constantly seen knitting throughout the film.

1. Carole Laure as Solange in “Preparez les Mouchoirs”: she is the wife of Gerard Depardieu who is obviously unhappy so he sets up meetings for her with a variety of men, all totally unsuitable. Throughout the film Solange knits – often in bed, which perhaps should have been a clue to Gerard – and as the film progresses each male character she meets wears once of her identical knitted sweaters.

So, messy as I am both in terms of personal organisation and physical untidiness, I have enough movies and yarn to keep me distracted over the next few weeks.