I’ve written several posts and then failed to finish them; I’m still working on some comments about The Gentle Art of Domesticity and about the issues its publication raised, but since the book is in Oxford and I am in Reading I prefer not to comment presently. Expect updates on the subject though, and probably some compositions/sound-recordings dealing with attendant ideas!

Also on the PhD front I am happy to learn that a radio show I put together a few months ago called Domestica will be played by Resonance FM on 11th November at 9pm. Domestica can also be downloaded as an mp3 here; it is much more ambient than The Missability Radio Show, moving through a collage of field-recordings from or about the home. I will post a full track-listing on 11th November, when the show is broadcast for the first time. Highlights of Domestica include the interviews from Mundane Appreciation Week by Claudia Figuerido and Kayla Bell! Expect to hear people enthusiastically describing the way they organise their fridge, in amongst a collage of different, Domestic sounds…

In other PhD news, I have found another artist who has worked with knitting sounds and knitted speakers! I have Ravelry to thank for helping me to find Jodi Green and her exciting, knitted speaker-wire dress project.

I’ve also been thinking about stuff and the management of household stuff; the garage clearance has inspired a lot of thoughts about how on earth to responsibly manage the stuff one acquires in a lifetime. It seems it’s never been as easy or as meaningless to acquire things as it is now and I am overwhelmed by what I own. One of my favourite film lines ever is from Fight-Club:

The stuff you own ends up owning you.

And that never feels truer for me than before a house-move where I have to figure out what will stay, what will go, what to do with all the things in boxes that might one day become something. Thrift and clutter management are not easy bedfellows; storage is my friend. Good storage means that all the old shirts and odd balls of yarn and assorted randomness I have found or bought for a song can continue to be with me, can come to my studio and be turned into something glorious. I have also been organising the very important investment: a stove for my studio. I’m two weeks behind on my injections because they are a nightmare to transport and I’ve been away from my fridge in Oxford, and I’m feeling the cold in my bones and especially in my knees since the 10km run. I know from past experience that the good, dry heat of a well-stoked fire will make the garage habitable for me and my grumpy bones.

Tatami continues to soothe and please, thrifted as it is from a charity-shop jumper that I purchased for £3.99. The 100% wool cost less than the addi-turbos I had to buy to make it knit-able again… the bamboo circular I was using was practically snapping under the weight of the fabric. I am still in the black hole, though, and took a short break from Tatami to knit this:

It is a frivolous thing; a knitted birthday cake for Mark’s mother. But she is really unwell at the moment and sometimes cheerful silliness is more useful, paradoxically, than making something sensible or utilitarian. Ruth seemed happy with her knitted cake anyhow and proudly asserted to all assembled nieces, nephews, children, spouses and partners that she ‘is the only one with a knitted birthday cake. So there.’

I am pleased with how it turned out; I used Oxford Kitchen Yarn in Raspberry colourway along with some oddments of cashmerino, cashcotton and a random, white yarn that my friend Caroline sent me in a birthday package. The pattern is adapted from a full children’s birthday party pattern that I bought on ebay months ago… I am tempted to now make everything in the patter including cocktail sausages and a blancmange.