The Domestic Soundscape

19 is the number of WW points I intend to consume today; this began with a fruity breakfast of 2.5 points including a sachet of ‘oat so simple,’ and milk.

7:32am is the time today that I got a call from a kindly neighbour to announce that she had our Joey and 7:40am is the time that he was retrieved from her and bought home to a flurry of fuss and several slices of ham. I have barricaded the back door from the invading felines and this weekend will involve the purchase of an electromagnetic cat-flap which only Joey can use and a set of super-soakers with which to defend him from Others.

I have also promised never to turn him into mutant feline-inspired intarsia knitting and am now endeavouring to go in and out of the house without losing him again to the lure of the hidden, catless gardens which he now apparently favours over the cat-infested environs of Mark’s street…

When I bought Joey home he got very anxious and then I spotted 2 strange cats hanging out in Mark’s garden. Clearly we cannot keep the recalcitrant felines away, and I am not sure of the best course of action but I seriously favour finding Joey a buddy who will unite with him against the Others.

The Sonic Tuck Shop is being installed today and will be up for approximately 3 weeks! I had better get on that right away, along with the purchase of iron-tablets, dark meat and tasty green leaves (all low WW points, thankfully.)

ETA: it is much harder to blog from the phone than I thought, so itinerant broadcasting creativity will have to be confined to audioboo and posterous for now. Still, I decided to add in the photos and sort out this post from the easy interface of my laptop… much simpler all round and still contains awesome lofi phone images.

This is a post from my new phone containing simply a selection of happy things from today! First of all, gorgeous new tweed skirt: I LOVE THIS SKIRT! I started it a few weeks ago in Donegal Tweed, and it is made up according to VOGUE pattern V8424. I wrote about it here.

Secondly, Lyttelton by Kate Davies – an awesome knitting pattern that I am thoroughly enjoying. I have divided for the arms and am working on it like a fiend in between marking student assignments, making gnocchi, and playing with my new shiny toy*.

*please to forgive me for the HTC mania. I promise to be over it by Monday. It’s just an incredible novelty to me to have Internets in my pocket, and to be able to do such marvellous things as make a sonic address book etc. etc. but for now, it seems that blogging by HTC will have to be done in words only as the images thing doesn’t really work.

Several online sound projects have come to my attention and it seems that either my subscribing to sound blogs etc. has reached saturation point, or else every other website I look at has suddenly decided to develop a sonic element to their online presence. I have been planning my ideas for World Listening Day, and for the Sound:Site conference I am working on for this October, and the following items have come to my attention via the interwebs:

The National Trust Sounds album, collated by Jarvis Cocker
The OCM Sounds of Oxfordshire project by Robert Jarvis, now available to download for the princely sum of £3.16
Janek Schaefer’s Childhood Melodies album, available free via the ever-inspiring Audioh!
Announcement of forthcoming exhibit ‘Whispering in the Leaves‘ by Chris Watson, including a plethora of fine sounds to download including quality monkey sounds… (this last being most pleasing, of course, to dear Monkl featured above, playing with my knitted headphones at Love is Awesome.)

You may recall the ‘music in everything you hear remix‘ I created a few months ago; in the spirit of today’s joyous sonic overload, I have republished it here and also on my new sounds-only posterous site; a scrapbook I’m putting together on sonic-resources.

In case you were wondering about the bizarre title of this post, it comes from one of my favourite LUSH shower gels – the only cosmetic product I know of which references sound in its title – Sonic Death Monkey. Like this post, Sonic Death Monkey utilises coffee for its energising properties.

I’ll close by sharing with you my answers to the National Trust Sound Survey, which I urge you all to complete as a creative exercise in listening and thinking about sound.

1. What is your favourite sound in the world?

My favourite sound ever is my partner whispering in my ear at night. I love the physical intimacy of this sound, the way it’s a sound that’s just for me, and the sensation of the words literally touching my eardrum.

2. Which sounds evoke the National Trust to you?

The distinctive duet of very old, creaking, wooden stairs mixed with brittle, curved, wooden bannisters.

3. Which is your favourite track from our selection of sounds?

Patterson’s Spade Mill.

 

 Music in Everything: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It’s come to that point when my camera is absolutely stuffed with photographs and I need to delete some. But before I dump them all into the recycle bin, I wanted to share a few of the choice and thus far undocumented moments of recent weeks in Spring, for prosperity, for inspiraton, for fun, and because I deeply need a break from writing my self-evaluation teaching assignment in a windlowless room in my University. I am too weighed down with laptop, textbooks, photocopied sheets, notebooks etc. to joyously trip off outside and into the sunshine and so I must bring it indoors!

First up, I believe these are collared doves, living in the tree behind my bedsit. I have yet to blog about the splendid array of birds and their songs that surround the neglected little patch of land where we all park our cars, but I am constantly amazed by how many birds there are and these two beauties just stunned me the other day when I was out there attempting to photograph my knitwear for this post.

For anyone who was wondering what has happened to all my WW counting and budgeting, these things are continuing and this week I discovered to my joy that I had lost 3lbs! I am feeling super tiny and really enjoying not having 3 arses when I need to run up the stairs to fetch something and I celebrated the news of this happy, lighter situation with a slap-up-breakfast of scotch pancakes, tinned prunes, layered fromage frais and fresh plums.

I particularly enjoy the juxtaposition of these healthful items with the rather less healthy English Fry and attendant sound effects detailed on the Sonic Breakfast Plate. I also indulged myself with some menu-planning stationery; you all know how much I love the stationery.

Joey, at a particularly confused moment. I think what made me take this photograph was the way he was staring so intently at the wall, plus it was a rare opportunity to capture the endearing, boss-eyed quality that his face takes on at certain times.

The A4074 project continues apace; the footpaths appear especially enticing from my car, since the oilseed rape has burst into flower, flushing the hills all around a lavish shade of process yellow. I know from experience that this thrill will be short lived so am hoping to get out there again this weekend. Here is Mark, stopping for a water break somewhere near Itchen. I think he looks particularly dashing here, with his rakish hair being backdropped, Heathcliff-style, by the brooding skies and rolling hills of, ahem Oxfordshire. We must go to more wild and untamed landscapes for the full Wuthering Heights effect, but this is still quite good in the meantime.

Our I SPY/I HEAR Woodstock @ 900 special a couple of weeks ago on The Hub contained many joyous I SPY moments, but I especially like the stocks, and this photo of the book illustration beside the real thing.

I also liked this fearsome bear, in the back of The Bear Hotel. I took this for Mark, in celebration of his ursine inclinations and general ferocity/dashingness. (See above.)

It is a good job that I have shrunk, as my Hourglass Sweater did not fare well in a recent trip to the launderette. I have discovered that a cold wash works wonders over there with my handknits; however the delicates wash clearly involves some kind of felting process (hot followed by cold perhaps? A little bit too much sloshing around in the machine?) Anyway, no matter. The hourglass sweater and the headigan are now smaller than they were by about a third, but the headigan had become baggy from being worn so often and I am approximately two thirds of my original size, so everything fits just great! Now I just wish I could felt all my pants and jeans by approximately one third of their current size…

Here is a top I spotted in the window of a shop in Wales. It is a thing of beauty and I wish to recreate it. I feel confident that my modest sewing skills will allow me to assemble some sort of version of this, but I took the photograph to remind myself of the little details that make this so nice… pleats, thin fabric, pretty colours, that edging…

Finally, here is a photo from Bill Fontana’s amazing installation at Somerset House, which I went to visit last week. It is an excellent piece of work that deserves its own post but for now I shall just give you this tantalising glimpse!

And now I am done with the random flotsam of my camera and must return to the tedium of assignment writing! What random photos do YOU have on your camera?

I’ve had two good weekends on the trot now, and it’s made me think about what makes a weekend good and what things I love doing on the weekend – especially when the weeks are extremely busy!

Last weekend it was Lara’s birthday and so after my day spent at Didcot Railway Centre recording the steam engines, I travelled to London for her party and stayed over so that we could enjoy a nice walk to Mudchute farm the next day. I had a great time at The Old Crown, drinking fine foamy ales and chatting with Liz, Kirsty and Alice. I was excited to learn of various Opera projects Kirsty is involved in, and of Mark Miodownik who Alice pointed me towards. Mark Miodownik is an engineer and scientist who founded the materials library, in order to research ‘the senso-aesthetic properties of materials to understand why materials feel, smell and taste the way they do.’ I love this materials-driven approach to things, and the curiosity and sense of discovery that characterises his projects. I also especially like that he has researched the making of perfect coffee and put together a podcast on this for Resonance FM! In between chatting about all this exciting stuff and dancing and drinking, I gave Lara this, which is a kind of joyous picnic kit.

From left to right the kit contains: one small bag, created to fit an ice-pack inside it for super cooled sandwiches, one bag with 2 pockets and wipe-clean oilcloth lining, one small tablecloth for pleasing outdoor arrangement of noms, one postcard featuring foolish gnome imagery, one round tupperware container for strawberries and other such tasty morsels, one postcard with a cabbage leaf on it for added random spice, one tasty blue biscuit-container so that biscuits will not be crushed in transit and one useful I SPY Wildflowers manual for the correct identification of picnic flora.

I do like the sewing on this, and I was more confident the second time around with using the pattern. The fabric was found in my bedsit; it was large square cushion covers for which I had no filling or use. So I laundered the fabric and repurposed it. I do like the quaint pattern and the fresh blues and greens beside one another.

The next day our hangovers were mostly cured by the healing fare on offer at mudchute kitchen (truly my favourite cafe in London I think) and then made sure that the sheep were also well fed. I have an amazing recording of the pigs grunting which I will endeavour to furnish you with at the bottom of this post.

The Oxford Down sheep at Mudchute were lovely to feed with their soft muzzles and enthusiasm. However sometimes they got so excited about the food that they snorted more of it onto the floor than they actually got to eat. I went home last weekend on Sunday and proceeded to be rescued by Mark who fed me his finest chilli and charmed me with the best Valentine’s day card ever.

This weekend was filled with similar percentages of partying, social fun and outdoor pleasures as last weekend, though I have decided that perhaps it would be good to eliminate hangovers from future weekends. Yesterday we met up with my family in London to celebrate my Pops’ birthday, and enjoyed a brief visit en route to the wondrous Rachael in Prick Your Finger. If you follow Rachael’s blog you may wonder why her and Louise have been building a bicycle powered mill; well yesterday Rachael told me all about the amazing installation they are planning for the Stanley Picker Gallery, and it turns out that for LOUDER THAN BOMBS they will be spinning wool in the gallery. Or as it says on the event flier,

‘By constructing the world’s first bicycle powered wool mill, they will turn unwanted sheep fleeces from within the M25 into a range of seductive yarns, good enough for the Queen.’

You know how much I love a bit of local woolly action and I think this is going to be great so do come along between 16th – 20th March to see this lovely yarn being made from unwanted fleeces!

Finally, today was spent happily walking with Mark and we have consolidated the first circular route on the A4074 soundwalk series that I am working on. We have walked this route a few times now and spent today just making sure we have the route defined before I start trying to map it, or describe it to anyone else. I love this project; I love how walking the road changes the way I feel about it and how much I learn about the outlying landscapes of my most regularly-driven route, just by walking around it. I find I see so many things when I walk that are impossible to appreciate when travelling at the speed of a car.

Today for instance I saw an equestrian weathervane near Toker’s Green; this is one of the items in I SPY in the Country; the book on which I based my last I SPY series for The Hub. The A4074 project will involve a lot of I SPY / I HEAR action, since a major focus is how we think about place using our eyes and especially our ears. I do enjoy the things you get to hear and see when on foot and we spent a really happy time today also thinking about how we could document walking in various ways, like video, on paper, or in audio recordings and podcasts… I kept thinking about Richard Long’s textworks, and all the choices you can make when you walk about how you choose to record or document your sense of a place. This is one of my favourite posts on that topic, over on Kate’s amazing needled blog.

I think Mark will be blogging his video experiments from the day later on the Walk 2012 project blog. I will go through my notes after next weekend, which is also going to be good involving a concert performance of Alvin Lucier’s Gentle Fire and some kind of amazing, relaxing Sunday activity that is yet to be decided. Joyously, this weekend I also started a new sketchpad which is very exciting since I have tended to mostly use this blog as my sketchpad since I started it, and it’s nice to be working with ink and stampers and biros and drawings and paper again.

Looking back over two fine weekends I have decided that the perfect weekend contains the following ingredients:

People you love
Sheep / Wool / Knitting
Trees / Animals / Skies
Purpose
Ales
Walking
Making
Exciting projects
Good ideas
Sounds
A bit of making
Tasty food

I hope you had all/some of these in your weekend.

 

 Crow at Mudchute City Farm: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Finding the way at Chazey golf course on the A4074 walk: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Grunting pigs at Mudchute City Farm: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Rooster at Mudchute City Farm: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today’s morning bought lovely surprises when I switched on my PC and found Colleen’s beautiful Amaryllis, Kate’s gorgeous photo with waxing moon, Liz’s cheery, steaming coffee mugs and Caro’s amazing photos of her garden. Many of my friends are a drive, or a very long drive or sometimes a boat or an aeroplane trip away and it makes me feel closer to everyone to have their photos and words right here on my table. The love and the closeness is what I want to focus on right now; we need it more than ever when it is so cold and dark.

I also find this is a time of year when comedy comes in very useful for driving away the blues, so I must reveal that I have started collecting food packages with amusing names. This is a collection I shall share in its entirety after Christmas to alleviate the sense of anticlimax that attends that time of year. In the meantime, some of the online comedy I am enjoying includes the gallery of regrettable foods, LOLcats, (really, I know this isn’t for everyone but I love this site) and the tweets of Sam Whitelaw who at one and a half years old must be one of the youngest adopters of the twitter technology.

I also found the Meatsweats gig last Friday to be thoroughly cheering; it’s a world away from my own approach to sound-production being a hyper-masculine, noisy, feedback-ridden affair akin to a kind of sonic Fight Club. Unleashed from the confines of the office, members of the band embark on a rapturous, liberating voyage of self-expression via clashing electronica, outsider lyrics and set-destruction. I decided to give up on trying to decipher the sonic maze of B. A. Baracus samples, deliberately rubbish Casio keyboard beats, distorted shouty roaring and baffling costumery (pig masks and shades) and instead to just appreciate the loud mischief of it all. Is it a joke? Is it for real? Does it matter? Highlights for me included the point where the lyrics were improvised to include the particularly hideous knitwear of an unsuspecting audience member*, and the moment when Big Mouth Billy Bass was toted around like a crotch-decoration by members of the band.

In far quieter news we have today’s comparitively conservative sound from the SOUND BANK; the sound of rustling tinsel.

I believe this is the same rustling tinsel that I recorded at poundworld for the Sonic Advent Calendar on sound-diaries, last year. I struggled with notating or indicating the sounds at the time, since they are very detailed and particular. I think all those letters in round circles are like vocalisations which are meant to sound like the rustling sound of tinsel.

I was frustrated at the time that most of the words appear to be visual descriptors or indicators of movement. Throughout SOUND BANK I have struggled with the deficient vocabulary that exists for describing sounds, and have normally resorted to writing about surface qualities instead, in the hope that these go some way to explaining how things sound. Shimmying and shaking are both to my mind movement words, and shimmering, glistening and glinting are all visual descriptions. Rustling is the only explicitly sonic word used on this entry to the SOUND BANK; hence all the little vocal instructions for short noises like sl, rs, sn, ms, s that I have added to my drawing.

I know a few talented wordy people – Aliki and Liz, I’m looking at you – and there are some composers out there who are good with the detailed sound descriptions, so I’m all ears for assistance with tinsel-sound words!

And now I must record a sound in a different way, for sound-diaries.

*I believe the exact words were ‘come here bad knitwear boy.’

This is the first sock I have made in which sound was an influence, and I think it may well be my very favourite sock.

Last year when I was staying in Sussex, Kate and I took a walk on the beach and I found myself comparing the gorgeously light crunch of the seashells and sand underfoot with the delicious crispness of some Swaledale yarn I had acquired from Prick Your Finger. Excitedly listening to the amplified sound of shells and sand through my Edirol and thrusting my headphones upon poor Kate insisting that she too participate in the sonic rapture, I began wondering how this white, sandy yarn could be used – both visually and with its touch – to evoke my whole sense of that place.

Now I know that crispiness is not ordinarily a quality one desires in a yarn, but the distinctive, delicate, sheeply scrunch of my DK Swaledale from Prick Your Finger struck me as being special, and as soon as I heard/touched it, I set about trying to find a way of bringing out its excellent, tactile qualities. The texture of this yarn is very similar, I feel, to that of a sandy beach. The initial touch is soft and pleasurable, but on further handling you realise you are touching something elemental, strong and enduring. I believe this yarn is worsted spun as it is heavier and smoother than one would expect from the wool of one of the country’s hardiest sheep breeds, and the exacting way it has been spun by at Diamond Fibres has lent the yarn a strength and density that make it ideal for walking wear. The more I walk in my woollen socks, the more I desire the sense of sturdy fibres underfoot and the more I want a firm fabric that – while cushioning my feet against the inside of my boots – will not be worn through after a few wearings.

At first I experimented with recreating the textures of the beach at Dymchurch using stitch-patterns.

…but I was unsatisfied with the resulting fabric, and how it somehow made this fine, straight yarn appear thin and curly, and how it failed to showcase the delicious variations of creams and whites within the fibres. After buying some blue Organic Cornish Wool to make the lettering inside Mark’s sweater, I realised that perhaps the best way to emphasise these creams and whites, was through contrast.

This photo doesn’t quite do justice to the incredibly rich blue of the Organic Cornish Wool placed beside the Swaledale, but hopefully you can see the wonderful hairiness of the Swaledale beside this much darker shade, and how the semi-solid blues echo the mix of whites that comprise the Swaledale. I adore these yarns together, and with the floats on the back, the resultant fabric is incredibly warm and strong.

To inform my design, I read Priscilla A. Gibson-Roberts’ book, Simple Socks; Plain and Fancy, which offers several ideas and forumlas for designing socks using short-rows at both heels and toes. This method allows for heels and toes to be replaced with greater ease than in other methods of construction, and this – along with the sturdy fabric created by two-handed colourwork – seems an infinitely practical choice for the development of a hard-wearing sock, for walking.

Because this sock reminds me of a crunchy beach walk with Kate and because I now associate the i-cord bind-off entirely with her, I decided to finish my sock off like this.

I love it and can’t wait to finish the second sock, so that I may thrust my feet inside my boots and go off in search of further sonic inspiration…

Sock #1 ravelled here.

 

 crunchy sand and shells underfoot: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The knitting has been rather murky on this blog for a while. I have been revelling in neutrals, mushroom colours and (as is my penchant) many shades of green. A spate of FOs recently gave me much joy, but I suddenly ran into a wall where I wasn’t enthused or organised enough to proceed with ANYTHING ELSE. The UFOs that are hanging around are part of this malaise, so yesterday – after having an amazing dream in which I started and finished an intarsia* sweater IN THE COURSE OF A SINGLE DREAM – I resumed work on the impatient knitter’s sweater. This is a joyous thing indeed and I love how long and shapely it is going to be. I have also uncovered the previously buried DPNs that will make the sleeves so much easier to do. Also, the single Hopscotch Sock without a partner weighs heavily on my mind. Does anyone else get Sock Malaise?**

In other self-goading re: knitting, yesterday I got my box of delights (The Stash) down from where it was stored rather inaccessibly, and began to take stock. I took a peek at my knitting resolutions again too, to see how I’m doing in terms of my goals and I realised I’m not so far off track which was very cheering. I thought that in planning the next few projects, referring to the resolutions I began the year with would be useful. The articles plan is going well, I’m not exactly on track with either the Zine or the podcast, but there has been plenty of EZ experimentation, some Debbie New reading and I exhibited plenty of knitting at Love is Awesome, where it made sense I think in an Art context. I haven’t done anything with my veg-knitting workshop – sadly – and I haven’t even looked at the colourwork course I downloaded. But there are many months of this year left, so this isn’t too sad. I haven’t saved any yarn-related income towards an SLR yet and I’m not sure if my writing has improved or not from regular practise, but I’m certainly enjoying it.

Re: my first resolution and the buying of yarn, there has been no buying whatsoever of yarn so far this year, from independant UK retailers or otherwise. I have purchased buttons aplenty, but not yarn. I have acquired yarns, however, as very happily received gifts from treasured and generous friends and in terms of re-enthusing myself about knitting, what better to knit with than gift-yarn? I am super excited about the wool I have been given since January, so in tackling the stash, let us begin by surveying the lovely yarn here for Project Potential.

From left to right we have Ruth’s gorgeous lime green handspun yarn of dreams (about 200m in 4-ply/fingering weight) which I have yet to determine an end use for.

Any ideas what this could become?

Then on top we have the lovely berry-toned yarn that Lisa Busby dyed for me as a Christmas gift. I suspect these deep jewel tones would make a lovely pair of Natalya Gauntlets. What do you think? Under this is the bright yellow Yarn Forward magazine yarn that I got free with my subscription. I have an insane desire to turn it into a joyous, bright Belle. What do you think? Could I get away with a jaunty yellow beret? Next to the yellow is a small selection of Buffalo yarns donated kindly to me by Rachael in the hopes that I will be able to devise some awesome, bovine-themed knitterliness from it, and I think it goes well with what is left over from the Slim Shady meets Pill Up Headigan experiment.

Here are Emmylou and myself in our matching Hourglass Sweaters and Pill Up / Slim Shady Headigans. Ravelled here. On the right are yet more gift yarns of joy. There is some beauteous purple/green laceweight mohair which I plan to knit up in a vintage sock pattern with another yarn which will match it perfectly. I love the idea of super-fuzzy purple joy scrunchy bedsocks of dreaminess. I think they shall be very consoling to my feet, which are in a bit of a rubbish state to be honest. I am off to the lake district this week with Rachael and she assures me that bedsocks are a necessity in her parents’ house, so these need to get onto the needles very quickly! Above the purple loveliness one can see a small skein of red cashmere, acquired at the same Oxford Bluestockings Yarn Swap as the lilac mohair. I plan to integrate this into some version of the Lia Sun Shawl, which I find to be perhaps the happiest thing I’ve ever seen on Ravelry. I would leave out the dark edging but I have orange, yellow and red in various fingering-weight quantities and I think this would be a joyous garment and a great stashbuster. The other shawl that I am planning is going to be knit in the amazing Orkney Angora yarn that Kate gave me when we met in Newcastle last week. She also gave me some absolutely gorgeous yarn that a friend of hers dyed, which looks like sweeties and which needs to be a lovely fairisle detail on some mittens… (must drag out colourwork booklet.) Let us take a closer look at the loveiness:

Mmmmm… asuch asexy angora…

Sweeties…

I was thinking of knitting this with the angora. That may be superbly ambitious, but it would make me sooooooooooooo happy if I could do it. I would strut about in my yellow Belle with my giant pink shawl of lace achievement and feel good about everything in my life, at least that is the thing that I feel about this shawl.

Finally, on the very far right hand of the photo of the gift-stash, one can see a glimpse of the wondrous red Noro tape that Sara got for me in her travels. I think the idea was that I could make an incredible Valentine’s-day themed walking stick cosy from this wondrous red, as I had been speaking of this for sometime at Sticks’n'String meetings. But when she gave me the yarn I instinctively felt that it wanted to be paired with my habu cotton tape, to become a cool and summery Clapotis. Yes, it is time for me to make one. I am concerned about doing it in stripes… I wonder if there is a clever way for me to do it with two colours that doesn’t result in 80,000 ends to weave in? If not, I will have to revise… but look how lovely the yarns are together:

I am quite sobered by the realisation that if I knit up the yarn I have been GIVEN let alone the yarn I already possessed, I am looking at a massive and ambitious project-knitting list that probably takes me to the end of the year, unless I get insanely focussed. I have started booking trains everywhere, I have started squeezing extra knitting moments into every day, but none of this is any use unless I am totally excited about what I am knitting, which – after writing this post and thinking through the stash – I totally am.

Thank you so much everyone who has given me gifts of lovely wool over the last few months. It has been a strange, difficult time and the gift of wool is the most consoling one of all because it belongs to the self invention, recreation and celebration that are making ones’ own clothes. Thanks to all this beautiful wool my life is filling up with bright colours again, the murkiness is on the way out, the future is bright, the future is yarn.

*It gives me great confidence in my ability to one day master intarsia that I seem able somehow to do it in my dreaming state, if not when I am actually awake…

**This is a knitting-related impairment by which an acute case of Single Sock Syndrome rapidly turns itself into a much more chronic condition where the sock project not only languishes but somehow quells any further sock-related inspiration. I am in a deep, deep state of Sock Malaise. Hopefully the bright sunshine will bring me out of myself and get that second sock done before the end of April! That way it will have taken less than a year for me to have finished the pair.

Did anyone else’s parents or grandparents accuse them of making ‘mud pies?’ My grandad always referred to whatever I was doing in the garden as ‘making mud pies.’ In fairness to him, I did have a penchant for mixing acorns and soil in a plastic saucepan and ‘serving’ this to my brothers as ‘dinner’ in the climbing-frame that we owned. I loved that climbing frame; you could move the two main shelves around into all kinds of configurations. Playing with it always involved a lot of negotiation; I always wanted it to be a house where I could serve up Acorn Surprise whereas my brothers always wanted it to be a castle. They were very indulgent of me. I once placed a cardboard box inside the ‘house’ and told my brothers to ‘watch the tv.’ They did indeed obediently sit and watch the cardboard box while I made mud pies for them. I marvel at this now. When my Dad covered the detachable slide with sheet aluminium and polished it until it shone, we connected the whole apparatus to our paddling pool and all house and castle dreams were abandoned. We poured water down the slide with my mud-pie saucepan thus creating a waterslide which each of us descended with great glee and much splashing. This worked out just great until the wooden frame of the slide rotted from our enthusiastic waterings, at which point we went back to making mud pies and watching cardboard box tv.

I loved making mud pies. I still do…

This is bentonite clay, fullers earth and water bubbling together for 1. a recording I wanted to make and 2. a facemask recipe I am working on.

I need some kind of stick blender to correct the lumpy texture, but to the boiled mud I will add essential oils and honey, then I will store the facemask in my fridge and use it when I am feeling the need to refresh my face/make some semblance of effort with my appearance.

Not only is this idea exciting because it involves mud, but it also has a nice link to wool. Fuller’s earth was once used in the finishing process to purge woollen cloths of grease, lanolin and other impurities. Now I can use it on my face! Imagine!

The only thing I need is a nice cloth to scrub the mud off with afterwards. I am planning on developing a Mud Pi washcloth, in the wake of my Mothers’ Day Pi washcloth, and the Olive Pi and Cherry Pi washcloths that I made respectively for Kate and Mel.

I love making Pis.

Mel’s Olive Pi.

Kate’s Cherry Pi.

I love that what I have made is a recipe from a recipe; a thing derived from Elizabeth Zimmerman’s original pi-shawl recipe, adapted and changed around and altered (just like any good Pie recipe) with the maths intact but the ‘ingredients’ all changed.

The Pi washcloth recipe will be published in The Knitting Forecast, in the meantime, my Mud Pi and all the other Pis I have been enjoying making so much are ravelled here.

The word is out there that I love all things featuring muffins, cakes, buns and biscuits in their design. This fact is now so famous that Liz’s mum – who I have never met – suggested to her when they were shopping somewhere, that I would love this plate.

I so totally do.

See how beautifully it matches with the pink mug that I have on the left hand side of the photo? I am the muffin queen.

The plate is perfectly sized and coloured to inject my life with lovely cupcake-wonderment and this is all the inspiration I need to get off my ass and go running again.

When I started Weight Watchers in January 2007, I remember how I started collecting knitted/felted/fake buns and cakes in all forms and shapes and sizes as a sort of personal joke. Calorie-free enjoyment of the cake and muffin-ness of confection saved me from the physical dangers of ACTUAL cream, butter and sugar. My life was full of cakes I couldn’t eat; it was a good strategy. Rather than making me think about cakes all the time, the craving for sweet, sugary, delicious comfort was satsified through sweet, sugary, delicious comforting objects rather than through eating.

But lately my standards have slipped.

It is time to shed the self-pity weight that has crept in. Time to put on my running shoes and run twice around the park opposite my house. Time to get a little bit of sunlight into the system.

So I didn’t have cake on my new plate this morning; instead, I had an egg fried extremely lightly in spray oil, on unbuttered fat-free bread featuring delicious, malty teff flour, and oats. Good running fuel.

I love the picture on the egg packet; I think the chicks look rather disgruntled though. Perhaps they are getting squashed by their mother who frankly looks a bit drugged if you ask me.

The new plan with bread is to make 1 x 500g loaf per week as my full allowance of bread. Once the loaf has been eaten, that’s it; no more bread until the following week. I am keen on integrating soughdough into this plan so there is a starter on the side, which I’m hoping to tempt lovely wild yeasts towards…

Mmmm. Wild food.

Plus there will be much more hippy food. Lentils and moth beans and haricots and borlotti beans and potatoes and other cheap deliciousness will feature in the new regime of joy. Also: tinned tomatoes, homemade pasta sauces, smoked mackerel with black pepper and jacket potatoes stuffed with roasted vegetables.

And all my cake cravings will be satisfied by this marvellous plate! Thanks so much Liz xxx