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 [...]]]>

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 occupy.

I was a terribly earnest child, and now that I’m a grown woman you’ll rarely find me hanging around at the hyperfeminine end of the spectrum. I can glam up with the best of them, but when I do, the result tends to be more Lady Macbeth than Tinkerbell, if you see what I mean. (I reckon it’s a power thing.)

So let me tell you the story of my vanity case.

This is a sad little story, quite inconsequential in the grander scheme of things, but close to my heart because it features eight-year-old me.

Back in 1983, I entered an essay competition sponsored by the Irish Milk Board. In what was perhaps the first of many such feats of approval-magnetism, I based my work closely on the literature provided by the sponsor – so closely, in fact, that it felt uncomfortably like cheating. Lo and behold, my essay won a prize.

Before I went to the awards ceremony, I had to declare which of their range of prizes I wanted. I don’t recall much about the list, other than that it consisted mostly of toys. But it included one mysterious item: a “vanity case”.

A vanity case! Surely this must be a treasure beyond imagining: a magical container full of the sparkliest, froofiest, pinkest-and-purplest, glitteriest and goldest and forbiddenest of pleasures. I pictured eye-shadows, lipsticks, perfumed powders, sequins and rhinestones. (In my world, such things were the stuff of fantasy – one of my grandmothers wore a little make-up, but that was the height of it.)

So I chose the vanity case, ignoring raised eyebrows from my teacher, and went off to collect my prize. I squirmed with guilty anticipation as I stood on the stage, waiting for my coffer of delights to be bestowed on me.

You can see where this is going, right?

What they handed me that afternoon, under those dazzling stage lights, was a small, plain brown suitcase, with rounded corners and a metal clasp. Completely empty.

*pause as we contemplate with our adult ironic distance the cheesy symbolism of that*

I used the ugly vanity case for years to carry my personal things on family holidays. I knew I could never breathe a word of my bitter disappointment – because then people would know of my shameful secret yearnings, and also because I’d been wrong.

Vanity case. How much heartache could the promoters of that competition have saved if only they’d called it something else!

But let’s come back to those secret yearnings, because they are what prompted me to post about this. You see, part of me is deeply ashamed of my love of softness, shininess, luxury and froth. And I constantly have to overcome this shame in order to make the beautiful things I want to make.

The balance of the struggle has fluctuated over the years, but it’s definitely become more complicated as I’ve got older, because the Real Grown-Up Responsibilities to which I should at all times be directing my attention have become more pressing.

It occurred to me a while ago, for instance, that I have difficulty allowing myself to work on soft household items (cushions, curtains) while hard items (shelving, walls) remain unfinished.

Again, I notice that this is a gendered dichotomy (hammer drill versus sewing machine), and I wonder what effect that has had on my efforts to find a better balance. I love my power tools, but there’s a certain defiance, a certain I’m-as-good-as-the-boys-ness about my enthusiasm.

What I need is somehow to empower the tools on the other side of the fence – quilting foot, seam ripper, embroidery hoop, needle gauge – and get my inner patriarch to shut up while I create beauty all around me, for the sheer hell of it.

Feels kind of subversive, when I put it like that!

This post, incidentally, arose from a comment I left on a post at The Fluent Self wherein Havi talks about wanting a vanity table but needing to “stop getting hung up on the idea that it means [she's] vain”.

[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 [...]]]>

[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 with my last camera but one - and rereading it reminds me how pleased I was with the baby tanktop I made from this wool. I must write up the pattern.]

Believe it or not, although I’ve been knitting on and off for maybe 27 years, I’ve just finished my very first project knitted from a skein – specifically, a skein of delicious Shepherd Worsted from Lorna’s Laces, in the “Watercolor” colourway. I wound the wool ten days ago, while watching the second half of Casino Royale (see under: four-month-old baby with unpredictable evening sleep pattern; films that can if necessary be watched in eighteen-minute segments preferred).

Winding the wool took me back. I did it my grandmother’s way (she knitted constantly, and was my steady source of random ends of yarn for many years – though she, and I, always called it “wool”). She showed me her winding method when I was around eleven, and I went through a phase of winding my own balls from the ends she gave me – and sometimes even from new-bought balls. They were so much nicer, with their pineappley tufts and firm thumb-holes, and so satisfying to make.

So, as James Bond suited up to face Le Chiffre across the poker table, I hung the skein around my knees, found an end, and made a figure-8 around a thumb and two fingers, winding until I had a comfortable handful. Then I laid the handful against my thumb and started winding around both, each turn slightly crossing the turn below.

As the stakes rose, the body count mounted and the question of whom to trust became steadily more open, I wound and wound, rotating the ball on my thumb, feeling it grow larger and more coherent, enjoying the softness and smoothness of the wool, the regularity of the ball’s surface, and the rhythm of my progress around the skein on my knees, around, and around again.

Finally, just when it looked as though Bond had really fallen for the accountant, I came to the end of my skein, and watched the last few set-piece sequences with my hands still in my lap. Only when the credits started to roll did I pull my thumb out from its neat little burrow and admire my finished ball.

This last photo and the one at the top of the post were taken the following day, in the light. (I’m stuck with my camera phone at the moment – looking into sorting something better out soon.) To start knitting, you pull on the loopy bit at the top to retrieve your original handful of figure-8, leaving you knitting from the centre of the ball, just like my grandmother and me. No dancing, tumbling, tangling rigmarole when you want to get more yarn as you knit. So convenient!

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 [...]]]>

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 where I was going, but I was having such a good time getting there that I didn’t care.

My nine-year-old self would have been very pleased, I think, if she’d known how passionate I’d still be about these crafts at thirty-four. But it feels as though my approach is quite different now. I’ve been wondering what advice she’d give me – what have I forgotten in the intervening quarter-century?

Here are, oh, let’s make it nine things she might say … or at least, she might if she spoke in the idiom of a thirty-four-year-old, twenty-first-century mother of two – I am not writing this post in a cutesy, faux-naive style; you can’t make me:

1. Experiment. Take an idea and run with it – try things out. Do a little sampler piece or dive straight into a full-scale project: it doesn’t matter. Don’t be afraid that it’ll all go wrong. If it does go wrong, you can probably fix it anyway, or turn it into something else.

2. Use what you have. You possess an almighty stash, after all, some of which has been around since before you and I were born. I don’t mean “don’t buy any more yarn or fabric or threads until you’ve used all this up” (my god – you actually have money for supplies!) but maybe just … think about it first. For any given project, you probably already have something that can be used.

3. The right tool may make things easier, but the wrong tool can often do the trick. This is related to “use what you have”, but it’s more about inhibitions. That mental tic that says, “But I don’t have any coilless safety pins – I can’t possibly think about making a quilt!”? That’s not helpful. Improvise. You’ll be fine.

4. Produce lots. Creative success implies creative failure. (See? My nine-year-old self definitely wouldn’t have put it that way.) I mean to say, don’t be afraid of having wasted time and resources if a project doesn’t work out how you’d planned. The experience is always valuable. And don’t worry about making too much. Make what you feel like making. That way, you’ll get better at what you love, and you’ll have more beautiful things to give people. Win.

5. No need to shake the universe with every project. Simple is good too. Traditional designs survive because they have some quality that endures. The well made objects that you use every day will bring you at least as much pleasure in the long term as the bedizened creations that see action only rarely.

6. Capture ideas. You seem to have got out of the habit of sketching designs, copying down patterns that strike you, tracing and doodling and planning. You even carry a camera these days – use it! You don’t need to do something with every one of these ideas, but catching them as they whoosh by you can only be a good thing, surely?

7. Go with what you find beautiful. Don’t worry about fashions and trends and what people will think. If you make things that cause your pulse to quicken and a wide grin to settle on your face whenever you catch sight of them, all kinds of good will ensue. Aim to have as much beauty in your life as will fit – I mean real beauty, the stuff that makes you feel alive and aligned.

8. There’s no moral obligation to finish a project. I think you still have one or two projects kicking around that I abandoned in the early 1980s. You know what? That’s fine. Keep them if you want, or get rid of them, or repurpose them, but whatever you do, don’t feel a shred of guilt. The obligation to finish what you’ve started is a real creativity-killer. Don’t yield to it.

9. This stuff is important. What handcrafting means for you – all that complex edifice of memories and skills and emotions – has genuine value in your life. Don’t downplay it. Give it the space it needs, and allow it to nourish and sustain you.

It’s about maximising joy. You know that’s your number 1 priority, right? Right.

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 – [...]]]>

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 skirt that never looked quite right (the elastic casing is way too wide) and the pink skirt that was never finished – I seem to remember that the design was inspired by the figure of Lady Louisa Connolly, who lived at Castletown House in Co. Kildare in the eighteenth century.

Above them, on the left, you see my faithful old Sindy doll, wearing a knitted two-piece from some time in the mid-1980s. I particularly like the three-quarter-length raglan sleeves – actually, I remember making them. I’d figured out (or more likely, my grandmother had told me) that I could decrease by knitting two stitches together, and I was doing it whenever I could.

Sitting with Sindy (although not too happily, by the looks of things – I think they may not be on speaking terms) is a doll I made in the south of France in August 1988. I was thirteen, and on my very first school exchange: three weeks staying with a lovely family in Grasse, not far from Nice. (Hi, Delphine, if you’re reading!)

I’ve mentioned before that I often get seized by the crafting urge when I’m away from home, and have to slake my thirst on whatever is locally available. On this occasion, I struck gold: Delphine’s grandmother, who lived in the house, had a vast stash of fabric and supplies, and she generously let me have the run of them.

The doll is made from bits of an old sheet, I think. She has brown yarn hair, held in place with a skinny strip of cotton along her parting. I drew a rough pattern on copybook paper and stitched her by hand.

I made her hastily, keen to get on to the real business: dressing her. She got two outfits – a skirt and vest top in striped cotton with a hairband to match (just visible in the top photo), and this black and white satin evening gown. Isn’t it just too deliciously 80s?

The white strip down the centre front holds the black pleats in place. On the back, you can see my penchant for dramatic embellishment. (The bows conceal hook-and-eye fastenings.) I was SO PROUD of this dress, I tell you.

The doll looks pretty miserable, though. I’m not sure why I did her face like that – my best guess is that I wanted her to look dignified – to distance her from the childish innocence of a wide smile. Instead, she’s clearly nursing a secret sorrow. I suppose being stuffed with cotton wool balls can’t be all that comfortable.

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 [...]]]>

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 wasn’t much she couldn’t do.

Every morning, she sat down at her desk and wrote for three or four hours. (She acquired a personal computer some time in the 1980s – I bet she would have taken to the Web like a duck to water.) As she worked, she knitted. She said the rhythm helped her concentration. From her needles emerged a steady stream of jumpers and cardigans, which were distributed at regular intervals to her children and grandchildren.

She knitted while at leisure too, sitting in her high-backed armchair by the fire. I used to stand and watch her. When I was very small, I amused her one day by watching silently for a long time before saying, in a tone of fierce command, “Knit my cardigan!”

We were close when I was growing up, and to me she was always a most encouraging grandmother. Where she discerned an interest, she took care to nurture it. She bought me beautiful books of folk tales, a sweet-toned wooden recorder, piano music. (She also paid for my music lessons, although I wasn’t aware of that at the time.)

She wasn’t without flaw, of course, and I can see with hindsight the extent to which she favoured those interests that accorded most closely with her own. We happened to have a lot in common, which made things easy for both of us.

She helped me when I was learning to knit, showing me how to pick up a dropped stitch, and how to loop the yarn around my fingers for an even tension. I still often hold my right-hand needle as she did, like a pen. When she saw that I’d discovered sewing, she taught me cross-stitch and bought me a linen tablecloth with a pre-printed pattern of flowers. I still have it somewhere – unfinished, as these things so often are.

When I knit, I recall the rhythm of her hands, her needles quietly and inexorably advancing across each row, plain and purl, plain and purl, the tiny sound of their clashes whispering alongside the conversation. My output is rather different from hers – she mostly favoured the meditative repetition of stocking stitch, whereas I like a bit of fancy work to keep my interest – but the connection is strong.

Eilís died on 19 July 1994, fifteen years ago today. It feels more recent than that, and although the pain of her loss has faded, I am sad that she did not live to meet my beloved husband and my marvellous children, her great-grandsons.

The photograph above is of a pile of jumpers that she knitted for me and my two siblings when we were children. My mother dug them out a few months ago and passed them along for the Oyster (and eventually the Feaster) to grow into. It’ll be wonderful to see them worn again, and to remember the valiant woman who made them.

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 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 on for the photo? Do you? Gosh, I am witty.)

I used a cabled cast-on, for a nice stable edge – I don’t want it too stretchy.

My grandmother taught me to cast on like her, by knitting into the last stitch and putting the new loop back on the left-hand needle. (The cabled cast-on is very similar but makes a nicer edge, if you ask me.) This was circa 1980, when I was five or six. My grandmother didn’t tell me that hers was only one of several methods – in fact, I’m not sure if she realised.

I’d been knitting for decades before I found out that there was more than one way to cast on. I must be seriously conservative when it comes to my craft methods, because the only other cast-ons I’ve tried are provisional (which I used for Down in the Woods) and tubular (which I’m madly in love with, though I’m not entirely convinced that my feelings are requited).

When I think about it, the cable cast-on has more or less replaced my grandmother’s way (which is known as the “knit cast-on”, incidentally) as my default Here I Am Starting To Knit Something position.

So there’s a tiny little goal for the rest of 2009: explore casting on. What’s your favourite method?