String Revolution

As a keen-eyed, sharp-witted String Revolution reader, you may just have spotted that I’m a feminist. Gender politics is one of the things that really makes my little heart go pit-a-pat, and so I post here from time to time about how it relates to crafts – Women’s Work (aka “that book I’m not obsessed with”), textile work and coercion, slogans on kids’ clothes, and so on.

Today, on International Women’s Day 2010, I want to do something different: I’m going to share links to some of my favourite gender-related articles.

These links don’t seem to have much to do with needlecrafts. But as I’ve said before, we live in a political soup. Our actions and decisions are informed and constrained by the social paradigms in which we operate. In other words, it’s all connected, man. (Or rather, woman.)
Continue reading Happy International Women’s Day!

Observe! Here is the Feaster in his beautiful T-shirt from my Zazzle shop. It’s unfortunately already pretty tight – I should have got it much bigger. But isn’t it great? I give you this picture by way of loin-girding, because I’m going to talk about gender normativity and kids’ clothes again, and we need a little something to get us through.

I was in Mothercare a couple of weeks ago, and as usual, I was on the lookout for egregious slogans. (In case you’re mystified, this post from last November explains why I do this.)

There weren’t as many clothes with slogans that day as there often are. (I wonder if that was coincidence, or if there’s some kind of shift happening?) But I did see two contrasting pairs of T-shirts, in the toddler sections, that pushed all the buttons you could wish for.
Continue reading Further Dispatches from the Gender Ghetto

I have been swatching.

This winter just past, I have been afflicted with that whole “cobbler’s children” thing (adapted to refer to knitters). Except that my children seem to have plenty of hats and gloves – I’m the one who doesn’t.

So I’m going to make myself a hat.
Continue reading Hat Swatch

Ha. When I posted about my late-night sock triumph last week, I said I’d write more about them “tomorrow, or possibly the next day”. Well. I should know better than to make rash promises, is all.

Pattern: Spring Forward socks, by Linda Welch, from Knitty (summer 2008).

Yarn: Sock yarn from the Natural Dye Studio, which may or may not be Dazzle (it was bought a few years ago, so they may have changed their product since then).

Needles: 2.5mm dpns.

Ravelled: Here.
Continue reading Those Spring Forward Socks in Full

Here are Niall and I, with the baby Oyster, turning up at the Register Office five years ago, on a fine, cold Tuesday afternoon, to let the State know how things stood between us. As I said in my wedding speech at the party the following Saturday, by any sensible definition of the [...]

Spring is here!

In Ireland, spring officially starts today, the 1st of February, which is the Pagan festival of Imbolc, transmuted in the Christian era into Candlemas, St Bridget’s Day, Lá Fhéile Bríde.

And look! My birch is budding!

But that’s not why I’m slapping this streak of incoherence across your internets. No, friends, for there is a miracle far greater than the budding forth of bare branches.
Continue reading Gesprungen!

Oh, there are posts queueing up in my head waiting to be written, but this evening I must content myself with showing you some progress on my latest Oyster-inspired project. I’ve been nudging it gently along over the past few days, and it’s now at the point where I can start adding the surface stitching.

You can just faintly see the mast and the broadly grinning boatman, which will be stitched using colours chosen in consultation with the artist.
Continue reading One Man in a Boat

I’m sewing another picture by the Oyster (the first one being the dragon). This one uses fabric as well as surface embroidery.

In the photo you can see me starting the reverse appliqué on one of the main sections. I’ve tacked the pattern piece behind the background, then cut out the centre to within about 6mm of the marked outline, and clipped the curves. Now I’m tucking each clipped section under and slipstitching the folded edge to the pattern piece.

I’m loving it. I find hand sewing intensely relaxing, and I’ve enjoyed working on this piece out of the hoop. I imagine you can do appliqué in a hoop, but I’m not sure how you handle the difference in stretch between the background fabric and the pieces you’re applying.
Continue reading No Bigger than Your Hand

I joined the Irish Patchwork Society (Eastern Branch) last September, in a bid to do something about my dark yearnings.

Yesterday was the January meeting, and [trumpet fanfare, angel choir] I won a prize in the monthly raffle! This never happens. Really, never. In fact, I think this may be the first time. I was so dazed by the experience that I didn’t hear the chair call my name to pick the next prizewinning number. Hee!
Continue reading Sunday Stash, no. 7

I finished a sock! And it only took me a sock and three-quarters to do it.

As you may recall, I had to change needle size when I’d knitted nearly all of my first Spring Forward sock, because it wouldn’t go over my ankle. Keeping the cursing and wailing to a functional minimum (there are children present, after all), I flung myself at sock no. 2, and here’s the result.

As you can see, it goes on! (You’ll have to take my word for it that it comes off again.)
Continue reading Inch Forward