Remembrance

Today is Remembrance Sunday, a day I approach with mixed feelings, as I had more ancestors in the German and Austrian armies than the British in the first world war, my maternal grandparents being of German, Austrian and Czech extraction.  My paternal grandfather's brother fought in and survived the first war and his sisters nursed, but it is still a day that makes me feel my mixed heritage more keenly than normal.  Although it is a day to remember the dead of all nations and of all wars, the first and second world wars do tend to dominate in this country, partly, the cynical historian in me thinks, because we won both wars, but also because Remembrance Sunday was founded in response to the widespread grief following the first war.

However, my ambivalent feelings are increased because Remembrance Sunday seems to be focussed on the soldiers who fell in the wars and of course should be remembered and mourned. But meanwhile the civilians, who also died in great numbers, seem forgotten.  I feel this personally as somewhere in the region of three-quarters of my paternal grandfather's family died or disappeared as civilians, whole families vanishing in their entirety, in the Holocaust during the second world war.


From a synagogue destroyed in Berlin on Kristallnacht Flickr Commons

This year Remembrance Day falls on the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht when the Nazis attacked Jewish people, homes, businesses and synagogues in Germany and Austria in reprisal for the killing of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jewish youth.  Ninety one people died and 30,000 were sent to concentration camps, but it marked the beginning of the Nazi "final solution".  My grandfather and his mother were lucky, they got out, my grandfather on the last train he could legally have got; his father and most of the rest of his family were less lucky.


My grandfather in his 1935 Czech passport

These events and the sense of loss they created have cast a long shadow across my family.  We need to remember all who have died or suffered loss on all sides, and never to allow remembrance to become glorification of war.  Although on the last point I think this ex-serviceman, writing in the Guardian puts things better than I can.  When I hear the jingoistic writing from the beginning of the first war repeated again and again by politicians, the media, social media, as part of remembrance day I shudder inwardly.  One might as well repeat the last line of Wilfred Owen's Dulce et decorum est and omit the all important context, of "the old lie".

And for the future?  We need to keep talking, keep telling the stories, try to stop ourselves repeating the same mistakes again and again.  We need to make sure our remembrance does not become justification for current or future war and work and pray for peace and reconciliation and healing.

Father forgive us our follies, grant us peace, comfort those who mourn, help us to love mercy and seek justice and walk humbly before you.

I leave you with Michael Tippett's Oratorio A Child of Our Time, which was written in 1939 in response to Kristallnacht.

An Insomniac's Miscellany

Once again I cannot sleep.  No matter how relaxed I try to get before bed as soon as I lie down I get tense and my jaw clenches and the more I lie there, the worse it gets.  So I find it best to get up and potter gently about, listening to quiet music, doing a little simple knitting, reading, anything to try to relax as I sit in the lamp light.  This being unable to sleep has been going on for a few months now and I have reached the point where I am sufficiently fed up that I have made a doctor's appointment, so that is Tuesday's fun outing.

So lack of sleep is making the rest of life harder and I have little to report.  Dad's jumper is coming along nicely and my thoughts are increasingly turning to Christmas, a festival I love.  All those sparkly lights and hope in the darkness and familiar rituals; I love Christmas in all its infinite variety.  Although I do need to get realistic and try to curb my desire to make everything for everyone.


Puddings pre-cooking

A few weeks ago we made two Christmas puddings, as we had got down to only one left in the store cupboard and the puddings really are best matured at least a year.  It was a nice family occasion, my parents and I each took tasks and shared out the work; Dad managed to get himself the job of adding the brandy!  I must try to write down a recipe as my mother pretty much carries it in her head, which would make it tricky if I ever wanted to try making one on my own.  Next on the agenda is an attempt at a Christmas cake, which I have less experience at and past attempts have not always been a great success, however, I have been reading up and gathering tips.  How do you decorate your Christmas cake?  My family are not keen on the traditional marzipan and thick icing so I am looking for ideas.

For now, back to the task of trying to relax enough to sleep.

Progress Report

It is now two weeks and a day since I cast on Dad's Fair Isle jumper, having swatched over the weekend and the body of the jumper is now 12 inches long.  I am in the middle of the last "OXO" repeat of the sequence and will start again from the beginning, but with the "OXO"s differently aligned next.



The jumper is somewhat all consuming and has kept me occupied for most of my knitting time and I am enjoying the rhythm of the knitting and the absorption it requires so as not to make a mistake.  It is mindful knitting, which keeps me focussed and in the present.  Meanwhile, the geometric nature of these old patterns cleverly breaks down complicated effects into variations on simple themes of, for example, three stitches of one colour, followed by one of another across one row and the opposite across another.



Without wishing to sound overly self-satisfied I must confess that I am thrilled at how well the colours have come out, I never dreamt they would work so well first time and thought I would have go through a tedious process of changing colours and making several orders to get it right.  It is a real boost to have it go so well.  Anyhow, there is plenty more to do on it so I had better get going again before my Dad notices - I would knit it my every waking hour if he had his way!

The Right Time To Begin

You may, or may not, have noticed that this week is Shetland Wool Week, which is being marked in Shetland by a variety of events.  Entirely co-incidentally this is also the week that I have made a start on the Fair Isle sweater my dad has wanted for ages.  He is one of the most knit-worthy people I know, not only wearing the things I make him but also showing them off to all and sundry and taking care of them.  His love of being knitted for is life-long and he has not quite got over his mother switching from knitting for him to knitting for his nieces and nephew when he was in his late teens.  Although he later made up for this by getting his grandmother-in-law to knit for him, a mutually beneficial relationship as she loved having someone to knit for.



After a day spent studying the Jamieson's of Shetland spindrift colourcard, a thing of beauty in itself, until I was in a whirl of colour, I eventually picked out my colours, with some trepidation in case they did not work out.  Mercifully they do seem to work, bright and colourful without being too "in your face" or garish.  I wanted colours that had some tradition behind them, but that avoided the beige background of many Fair Isle sweaters.


Swatch

I have put together motifs from an old picture featured in Michael Pearson's book Traditional Knitting, which he had helpfully charted, together with a variety of peeries, some from the original sweater, some from Alice Starmore's invaluable Fair Isle Knitting.  Michael Pearson's Traditional Knitting was a library find and the book that first got me interested in the knitting of the past.  For the charts themselves, rather than spending hours hunched over graph paper, I found some excellent software online called KnitBird, which is charting software for both colour work and textured or lace knitting and allows you to flip and repeat motifs among other handy features.  The finished charts look professional and polished too; I'm pleased with it, well worth the money.

So now all I have to do is knit it.  I began yesterday and am something just over an inch through the ribbing.  Here goes... I may be some time.

The Ravelry project page is here and has details of which colours I am using.

Seasonal bewilderment

This unseasonably warm weather has caused the garden to be a profusion of flowers and unseasonable new growth, so that alongside more usual sights there are also fresh nasturtiums coming up, summer flowers still flowering and even supposedly spring flowers putting out fresh flowers.


Next door's apples ripening in profusions


Holly berries ripening, we shall be unlikely to have any left by Christmas for the Christmas pudding given the birds' appetites.


The roses by the pond, although they have flowered in mid-winter before, they have a natural enthusiasm.


Summer flowers and foliage


A hoverfly on a poppy


More poppies in waiting


And lastly some enthusiastic primroses

Crash

Right now I am in the middle of an ME and fibromyalgia crash, caused by trying to do too much and not saying no enough and things just happening that I have had to deal with and not enough sleep over a number of weeks.  It seems a cruel irony that a fatigue causing illness should come with the inability to sleep.

I am trying not to feel sorry for myself, or blame myself too much, although I know that this is what happens if I overdo things; neither am I asking for your pity.  But there might not be much interesting blogging going on for a bit while I regroup and keep practising resting.  I am trying to teach myself to see resting as constructive, not simply wasting time or achieving nothing, this effort is in its early days so far.

For now I shall go back to bed, in between short times knitting, I think having something restful to do is so important with any kind of chronic illness.  It provides something else to think about outside oneself and helps pass the time.  Certainly I have become good at finding low-energy things to do, perhaps one day I shall have to write about it here, when I have rested that is!


A gratuitous picture of some roses because they're beautiful.

On the needles

As it has been a while since this blog, supposedly about knitting, has had much on it about knitting, I thought i would do an update post on what I have on the needles.



A couple of days ago I finally finished this pair of socks, which, embarrassingly, I started in February.  The delay was owing to how long it took me to get the hang of the pattern and also various interruptions, but now they are finished I am very pleased with them.  The pattern is Elm by Cookie.a and the yarn is from one of my current favourite indie-dyers, Countess Ablaze.  Although I do increasingly enjoy a plain "vanilla" sock, particularly in stripy yarn, I do sometimes enjoy a more challenging sock, particularly by Cookie.a whose designs are so clever, I often marvel at how she does it.



Inspired by autumn's imminent arrival, I have mostly been working on Lady Marple cardigan by Nadia Crétin-Léchenne in Artesano Alpaca Aran, which is a gorgeous mix of alpaca and wool making a lovely warm, not too heavy fabric with a slight halo.  The yarn is slightly tweedy in its depth of colour - the shade I am using is called twilight and is a mid turquoise with hints of red. The pattern has a nice balance between mindless relaxation and a bit of lace to keep it interesting; it is an adult version of a pattern written for a child - Miss Marple.  As it is on 5mm needles it is making fair progress and I am currently a few centimetres from dividing at the armholes to work the back and two fronts separately, and so I am fairly confident of finishing it before the cold weather (touch wood).




Apologies for the quality of the photograph, it can be quite challenging photographing a work in progress, this was taken over a week ago too so I have progressed a fair bit from there.

In between times I have been finishing off some baby knits and really need to get more done - there seem to be a lot being born at present.