String Revolution

I do not, I think it’s fair to say, present as frivolous. All those words like frothy and frilly and frou-frou, they just don’t fit me. And let us spell it out: these words are associated overwhelmingly with that other f-word, femininity, which from an early age has been a problematic space for me to [...]

[Some years ago, I started another craft blog, which quickly died a death. Today on Twitter, the incomparable Kate (of Rebel Raising and I Blame the Mother, among other valiant and inspiring endeavours) suggested that I repost this entry, which I'm delighted to do. It's from spring 2008 - hence the amazingly grainy photos, taken [...]

This past little while, I’ve been thinking a lot about myself as a child, doing my crafts (that’s me there on the left, in 1984). It all seemed so much simpler then, as I rummaged through my great-aunt’s bags of remnants or my grandmother’s yarn ends to find what I wanted. I didn’t always know [...]

I was in my parents’ house yesterday, and I took the opportunity to go rummaging in my old room. Sure enough, I found some of the things I’ve been remembering recently.
There must be a huge cache of my doll clothes somewhere around the place. Yesterday I found only a few things – like the spotty [...]

My paternal grandmother, Eilís Dillon, was a multi-talented woman. Author of over fifty books (mostly children’s novels, but also detective and historical fiction) and a keen amateur cellist, she maintained households and vibrant social networks on two continents, spoke several languages (studying Russian and Hungarian in her sixties), and generally gave the impression that there [...]

I cast on the purple thing last night. It’s flying along now – I’ve done almost 10cm. But I wanted to show you it in its newly cast-on state, because I love that. Just a few rows done, the pattern barely discernible – it’s such a hopeful little ribbon of knitting.
(See what I posed it [...]