My review of October’s posts never got written, so this is for October and November. It’s been an intense couple of months, between bereavement and swine flu and the aftermath of our extension works. (Yes, still ongoing, thank you. Why, only this week I have been doing the familiar round of “Where in [...]]]>

My review of October’s posts never got written, so this is for October and November. It’s been an intense couple of months, between bereavement and swine flu and the aftermath of our extension works. (Yes, still ongoing, thank you. Why, only this week I have been doing the familiar round of “Where in the Seven Hairy Hells are the Bloody Builders?” phone calls each morning, for we are going through the arcane and operatic process known as “snagging”.)

What I wrote about

I started October with a Sunday Stash post, which featured a brief meditation on socks. My review of September’s blogging followed, and then I was stopped in my tracks by deaths in the family. When I returned it was to introduce you to my trusty grey cardigan (aka “the 9-year knitting project”), and then it was time for another Sunday Stash post, this time featuring silk from Kolkata. Next, I showed you a sock in progress – fruit of the abovementioned meditation – before turning to consider words on clothes (briefly, I am against them) and unveil my Zazzle shop (where I hope to collect exceptions to that general rule). In my final October post I showed you a dragon, drawn by the Oyster and embroidered by me. (A recent commenter describes it as “the perfect combination of the Flag of Wales and Trogdor the Burninator” – thanks, Phil, I’m honoured!)

November began badly: the Feaster and I both came down with swine flu, and the Oyster soon followed. (I got diagnosed on my birthday. Boo.) I managed a plucky little Sunday Stash post the following weekend, trying to pretend to be a lot betterer than I was. My next post, a work-in-progress shot of my Birch shawl (thanks to the readers who identified it for me!), was rather more realistic, and it doesn’t surprise me much that it was followed by a ten-day lull. I came back fighting, with my single most popular post yet, in which I rant about children’s clothes. I finished the month with a Sunday Stash post about my antique Singer sewing machine accessories. Hardware love!

Life: it’s what you make of it

I haven’t been making much lately. My time seems to be more than usually soaked up by all the stuff I can’t put off – including paid work (which I do whenever I can get it), trying to regain some kind of grip on our household systems (ahahaha), and preparing for the forthcoming festivities.

With my redoubtable mother-in-law I did score one huge triumph in mid-November, when we finally planted the spring bulbs (in the dark of a late drizzly afternoon, with one of us planting while the other danced around to keep the motion-sensitive floodlight active). I adore bulbs – they’re like gifts to my future self, and I can’t wait to see them poking their little green noses up through the bark mulch.

I do have several craft projects on the go, including some that I haven’t mentioned here yet. We’ll see how I get on with trying to make headway on those in the coming weeks. We have a lot to do, as the Feaster turns 2 tomorrow, and we have agreed to host Christmas for the first time this year. (Meep.)

Metrics

For the record, this is my 39th post here. String Revolution is five months old, and at the moment it’s visited by about 400 people a month, who look at around 1000 pages. That children’s clothes rant is by far the most frequently read post to date, with over 200 views so far.

Nine people subscribe through Google Reader, and eleven through the Livejournal feed. I’ve no idea about other RSS readers, because I am essentially clueless about such things.

Posting causes a slight spike in site visits. Announcing my posts on Twitter and Facebook causes a dramatic spike. I need to remember this.

Almost 15% of my site visitors come directly, from people typing the URL into their browser. Just over 11% come through search engines. The rest – almost three-quarters – come through links on other sites. These include Twitter and Facebook (my updates and yours), blogs where I comment, and mentions by other bloggers. I am – quite honestly, cheese and all – humbled and grateful every time you take a moment to spread the word about String Revolution. Thank you.

My top traffic source, overall, is through my comments over at The Fluent Self. (I’m failing to describe adequately what that is. It’s kind of … business yoga. Best to visit, if you’re curious.) I don’t know if this is because Havi’s readers are some kind of “good fit” for me, or if it’s just that her blog gets vastly more visitors than any other one I comment on. Possibly both.

The mountains in my mind

I wonder how evident it is, post by post, that I’m stone terrified to be doing this. I notice that every time I write a “successful” post (i.e. I’m particularly happy with it, or you leave loads of great comments), I run away – because clearly, everyone now expects me to produce morebettermorenow!!! And I don’t know if I can.

So I pack my bags and go off to start a new life in South America.

In my head.

I am making progress, mind you. When I started, I used to get a full-on panic attack every time I clicked Publish. Nowadays, this happens only if I’ve really put my heart into the post, and it’s usually fairly mild. I’m coming around to the opinion that the trick is not to let the fear stop me.

Meanwhile, your comments are the best thing evah. Do, please, keep them coming (or e-mail me if you prefer).

Finally, if there’s anything I can do for you, just ask. You never know – I might say yes.

I’ve never been much of a one for slogans on my clothes.

That’s an understatement. Actually, I pretty consistently avoid wearing anything with words on it. I don’t object to other people doing so, you understand – although I do have a veritable phobia of designs that feature random, vapid phrases (T-shirts with [...]]]>

I’ve never been much of a one for slogans on my clothes.

That’s an understatement. Actually, I pretty consistently avoid wearing anything with words on it. I don’t object to other people doing so, you understand – although I do have a veritable phobia of designs that feature random, vapid phrases (T-shirts with “essential beauty of living” in fancy script peeping through vaguely floral-architectural collage, sort of thing). It’s just not for me.

I make a few exceptions. I wear my “iMachiavellian – Think Dissident” T-shirt, which Niall got me. It’s amusing, it makes geeks smile, and I like the way it’s cut. But with the best will in the world, I don’t wear it very often.

Much more often, I wear my Neighborhoodie, pictured above. (Turns out it’s hard to take an accurate photo of your own torso with your phone.) Why? Well, firstly, because I am pretty damn sesquipedalian, and I don’t care who knows it.

(Sorry. Obviously, that should read …because a cursory reconnaissance of my linguistic emanations would appear to render substantially ineluctable the application to me of the epithet “sesquipedalian”, a circumstance the contemplation of which leaves me profoundly insouciant. Yes, that’s better.)

Secondly, and more importantly, I wear it, and love it, because that’s my word. I thought of it. I giggled about it. I got a tiny but crucial kick out of the fact that it’s 14 letters long, which is the most you can put on a Neighborhoodie without paying extra.

So I started to wonder, what other messages would I be happy to walk around behind? Relatedly, what messages would I be happy to see on my children?

Because as I said, it’s not that I’m opposed in principle to messages on clothes. (Apart from anything else, clothes themselves embody a complex network of implicit messages, whether I like it or not.) It’s just that most of the words I see on clothes range from unappealing to enraging – so much so that long-ingrained habit causes me to veer away from messages I might in fact be glad to wear.

Which is where the Web comes in. Because now I don’t have to choose between messages that make me yawn or wince (or, indeed, provoke an urge to go on a frenzied spree with a pair of pinking shears) – I can have clothes that say what I decide.

All of which is a roundabout way of CASUALLY SLIPPING INTO THE CONVERSATION THAT I MADE A ZAZZLE SHOP LAST WEEK.

Oh. I think I just shouted a bit. Sorry about that.

My point is this. I haz a shop. It is at Zazzle.co.uk (where I am also called leannich). I have stuff in my shop. Some of it is for anyone to wear or use, and some of it is only for kids. If you go to my shop and like any of the stuff, and if you want to own some of it for yourself, or give it to someone else, you can buy it, and Zazzle’s faithful minions will deliver it to your door, and then you or a person of your acquaintance will be able to wear or use this thing featuring words I chose. That would be so stunningly cool I might explode.

OK. Breathe. Was that what’s known by marketing types as a Call To Action?

(Please tell me this gets easier as I go along.)

So, go and look at my shop, yes?

So this week, I will not be blogging much. I will be be going [...]]]> Last Thursday, as my husband’s uncle David was at work, a blood clot travelled to his heart and extinguished his life. He was 55. On Sunday, my mother’s cousin Helen lost her battle with cancer, at the age of 43.

So this week, I will not be blogging much. I will be be going to too many funerals instead.

Another month gone! I can’t believe it.

In fact, I don’t believe it. Here at String Revolution, I’m pretty sure it’s still Mayish. But since lots of people seem to be under the impression that 2009 is 75% over, I suppose we’ll be polite and row in behind that gentle fiction.

If you’ve been reading for a while, you’ll know that one of the reasons why I’m so excited about String Revolution is the prospect of developing some kind of income from it. The idea that I could do these crafts I’m so passionate about as part of my job is wildly appealing.

But [...]]]>

If you’ve been reading for a while, you’ll know that one of the reasons why I’m so excited about String Revolution is the prospect of developing some kind of income from it. The idea that I could do these crafts I’m so passionate about as part of my job is wildly appealing.

But this is where I start to second-guess myself (a filthy habit of mine). Because surely, the risk is that once I’m making money from these gorgeous activities, they’ll take on a different quality for me – they’ll become a chore. I’m afraid of that. Afraid enough, perhaps, that I’m unconsciously dragging my feet a little about getting on with this part of the venture.

For tens of thousands of years, women of all social strata have encountered strong pressures – basic necessity, social expectation, plain old coercion – to produce textiles, and have responded in a range of ways, some of them stunningly creative and inspiring. The key, I’m hoping, is choice. I am choosing to do this work, and I feel amazingly lucky to be in a position to do so.

But I’ve been thinking recently about people, now and in the past, who haven’t had that choice, and what a different experience they must have had: the crafts that to me are pure pleasure must take on a rather more complex set of connotations in those circumstances.

I’m thinking of the sweatshop workers of Asia and the Pacific, who no doubt produced many of the clothes I’ve worn over the years. The garment workers of Lawrence, Massachusetts, who marched in 1912 for bread and roses. The cotton mill workers of the Industrial Revolution. The knitters of Shetland or Aran. Royal embroiderers and weavers and lacemakers. Pieceworkers in every time and place. The ordinary women who, down the centuries, have had the responsibility for clothing their families, starting from scratch – a flock of sheep or a heap of stalks. Teams of slave weavers in ancient Egypt or Mycenae. The spinners of the Late Stone Age.

I wonder about the interplay between the satisfaction of creating beautiful textiles and the lack of choice in doing so. Perhaps, for many women, as for me, textile work has been a positive experience. But doing it from necessity, under greater or lesser degrees of compulsion, must add a darker dimension.

Here in Ireland, the infamous Magdalene Laundries, where “fallen” women were incarcerated throughout much of the twentieth century and treated with breathtaking inhumanity, are once more in the news. (Recently, our Minister for Education and Science, in ruling out any legal redress for the surviving victims, had the barefaced gall to refer to the women as “employees”, which defies belief.) This letter to a national newspaper, from the son of one of the women, reminded me that many of the residents were put doing crafts:

embroidering elaborate tablecloths and other linens sold at exorbitant prices to the tourism crowd (and not a penny received by her).

Meanwhile, girls in Ireland’s Industrial Schools (the horrific history of which is in the process of being made public) were also doing textile work. I quote here from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (so be aware that the link leads to some pretty upsetting material), in a section on girls’ everyday life experiences in the schools:

8.18 Sewing, knitting and decorative needlework were regular semi-recreational activities; several witnesses reported making clerical vestments, as well as socks, jumpers, dresses and school uniforms for co-residents. Specialised needlework and knitting was also undertaken for what witnesses understood was the commercial market and a number of witnesses reported being regularly occupied knitting Aran sweaters, making rugs, embroidering tablecloths, vestments and other cloths for shops and church use.

They used to have these huge tablecloths and I used to have to do embroidery on it and do the designs, I used do the crochet. I used do the vestments, the nuns used give them as gifts to the priests. I used to have to do all the sewing for the girls plus all the knitting during the school’s holidays. Remember I was 14 years old at the time.

8.19 Witnesses reported that mending clothes was a regular occupation in 16 Schools, others gave accounts of lay staff being employed in sewing rooms. In five Schools it was reported that residents darned socks and jumpers for local boys’ Industrial Schools and fee-paying boarding schools.

And here am I, wondering will I break out a skein of handspun sock yarn next, or do a little decorative patchwork. Makes me feel like a latter-day Marie Antoinette, donning my fantasy shepherdess costume to go and milk a freshly bathed cow in the Trianon gardens.

Of course, it could be argued that this in itself is so much middle-class posturing. After all, the essentially non-voluntary nature of most of history’s textile work didn’t prevent the development of a host of fascinating and multi-faceted art forms. Not only that, but it has frequently represented for women a path towards some degree of economic independence (back at least as far as Bronze-Age Mesopotamia, by the way, as absorbingly detailed by Elizabeth Wayland Barber in that book I can’t seem to stop citing).

We may well imagine, in other words, that in many cases textile work is by no means the worst option available (I bet it beat washing the nuns’ menstrual cloths with bare hands in cold water, for instance, which is another memory from the Industrial Schools). I sincerely hope that the women and girls who were forced by self-righteous sadists to embroider vestments and knit school socks in the social dustbins of twentieth-century Ireland derived some pleasure from the work itself.

Even in our modern, globalised context, there’s something to be said for the argument that “the only thing worse than being exploited by a faceless multinational is not being exploited by a faceless multinational” – i.e. unfair trade is better than no trade at all. (That said, this argument is limited, and I continue to support fair trade to the fullest extent I can afford.)

There’s a chapter in Women’s Work (yes, again) called “The Golden Spindle”, which deals with textile work in the upper echelons of ancient societies. It turns out that excavations have on occasion revealed actual, honest-to goodness spindles made of gold, which supports the hypothesis that even rich and powerful women took a hand in textile production – presumably without overt compulsion.

To my mind, this is comparable with our modern-day luxury crafting supplies: hand-painted yarns, multi-coloured knitting needles, designer quilting fabrics, speciality fibres such as banana, soy, or wool from specific breeds of sheep, and – yes, unfortunately – the ability to afford organic and/or fairly produced craft supplies.

As relatively rich people in the twenty-first century (we have Internet access – we’re rich), our participation in the textile industry, if any, is (presumably) entirely voluntary. And yet many of us pick up our modern-day golden spindles and get to work. Plus ça change.

Where does this leave me and my precious little desire to earn money from this stuff?

Well, since I’m high up on most of the kyriarchal pyramids, it’s not surprising that I’m in a good position. Textile work is women’s work, and as such is often difficult, undervalued, and underrewarded, but there are degrees of difficulty, value, and reward. I get to pick and choose how I want to engage with the field.

It helps if I think of it as a continuum. I’d like to imagine myself as carrying on the tradition of those Mesopotamian businesswomen in the third millennium BCE. I’d like to operate in a sort of humble, hyperprivileged solidarity with the enslaved children of the Industrial Schools. I’d like to join the community of those who make their living in the exciting new world of online handcrafts – if they’ll have me!

First step, obviously, is to develop some kind of product or service for sale. Working on that…

At the end of July I posted a quick round-up of what I’d done on the blog so far. It struck me as a nice idea to do one every month, so here’s August’s.

August was … tricky. Listen. If anyone ever says to you, “I know! Why not extend your house while [...]]]>

At the end of July I posted a quick round-up of what I’d done on the blog so far. It struck me as a nice idea to do one every month, so here’s August’s.

August was … tricky. Listen. If anyone ever says to you, “I know! Why not extend your house while living in it?”, poke them in the eye and run away. Most of the filthy work was complete by the time August rolled around (although sneakily not quite all of it), but that left the unspeakably gargantuan task of getting the place back to some semblance of normality in time for (a) houseguests (yay lovely houseguests!), (b) the Oyster’s fifth birthday festivities (FIVE!), and (c) Niall’s thirty-fifth birthday festivities (yay Niall!).

Cue day after day, night after night, of unpacking, furniture-moving, cleaning, stashing, ditching, stressing. So, not much time for blogging, then, as you’ll have noticed. I’m sorry, little blog. I truly meant to take better care of you, but there simply weren’t even the slivers of time I’d counted on.

Still, focusing on the positive, I managed to produce six posts in August. I started with a progress report on the purple thing (which is coming along, coming along, slowly coming along), then wrote the third in my series of Very Secret Mysteries, about crochet. Next, I delved into my chequered (or at least pleated and beribboned) past and hauled out some examples of 1980s doll couture, before turning to the Very Secret Mysteries of embroidery. In mid-month I managed to dash off my first Sunday Stash post, featuring some amazing silk, and finally, while our houseguests were actually here, I published my fifth Very Secret Mysteries post, about quilting.

And there things stood until the end of the month. But the state of the house is improving, and those were some seriously rocking birthday parties. So it’s not all bad.

And now I’m back (I hope). I have posts in the works, and bucketloads of ideas.

On that note, I’d be delighted if you had any suggestions or questions for me. We still haven’t solved whatever problem is preventing the set-up of e-mail at this domain, but you can leave a comment here, or reach me through Twitter or Ravelry.

Thank you for reading – and perhaps next summer I’ll remember how busy late August always is, and be better prepared!

It’s 31 July – the end of my first full month of blogging here – so tonight I’m writing a little round-up of what it’s been like. I may institute this as a regular thing. We’ll see.

I’ve written twelve posts so far; this is number thirteen.

Starting with a personal [...]]]>

It’s 31 July – the end of my first full month of blogging here – so tonight I’m writing a little round-up of what it’s been like. I may institute this as a regular thing. We’ll see.

Baker’s Dozen

I’ve written twelve posts so far; this is number thirteen.

Starting with a personal ad seeking readers, I followed up with a recycled post about a hat, then wrote about some cushion covers I made for my mother-in-law.

Next came the genesis of the purple thing (which is creeping back towards the 49-row point again – rejoice and be glad), a triumphant FO post about the Oyster’s new jumper, and a post revealing where I found the phrase “string revolution”.

The purple thing returned in the company of Shakespeare, and then I shared some tips about knitting design, before writing a memorial to my grandmother.

Something possessed me to start a series next, all about the various crafts I do. First up, knitting. Ha. As if I know anything about it – for in the very next post I discovered just how thoroughly one can fall into the swatch-straight-knit-in-the-round trap. The second post in my series saw me fleeing irksome knitting back into the arms of my first love, sewing.

Chaos

As I mentioned in one or two posts, I could most certainly have picked a better time to start this venture. My home is in total chaos, as we draw near the conclusion of a huge extension project. What little organisation I had around my craft work has been entirely absent since the spring. (That’s the main reason why no fewer than seven of my first twelve posts are about knitting – it’s so portable and self-contained.) Finding a spot clean enough to take photographs, for instance, has been more of a challenge than I like to admit.

Truth be told, I tried to hold off. I knew I was being a little bit crazy to start when I did. But I couldn’t help it. Once the idea took root, I was like a four-year-old with a full bladder (see, this is why you read my blog – it’s the graceful refinement of my similes that keeps you coming back for more).

I had to register this domain as soon as I discovered the name, of course, in case someone else got there first. (In point of fact, they did: the unhyphenated version is taken. Boo. But unused. Yay.) And once I had the domain, nothing would do me but to start writing. So … here we all are.

Connection

Which brings me to the real reason String Revolution exists: connection. This is where you come in. It’s hard to exaggerate the thrill I felt when your comments started arriving.

I’ve written blogs before – quite a few, in fact – but this feels different. This is the actual, genuine me, you see, going out into the world with the stated aim of making real connections with other people who share my passion for crafts. This isn’t easy for me. I’m breaking down some fairly serious internal barriers here, and the results are nothing short of electrifying.

So, those comments and e-mails? Keep ‘em coming! Thank you.

Meanwhile, I’ve been dipping a toe in the impossibly rich and vast world of craft online. Excuse the hyperbole, but there are some incredibly amazing people out there, making some astonishingly beautiful things. (I should maybe do a “showcase” series at some point. Should I?)

Two blogs that consistently make me bounce happily when I see that they have new posts:

• Tiny Happy, written by a New Zealander who makes beautiful little embroideries, clothes for her children, quilts, bags – you name it. She is wildly prolific. I adore the aesthetic of this blog, not least because I have a long-standing obsession with New Zealand (having come within spitting distance of doing a PhD on the figure of the angel in NZ fiction and film).
• Red Pepper Quilts features a steady stream of quilts, each more delicious than the last. The author is in Melbourne, Australia – perhaps the Antipodean sensibility is what’s floating my boat at the moment.

Business

Part of the reason for my untoward excitement about String Revolution is that I eventually want it to provide part of my income (hence the Amazon associate links, for example). So as well as craft blogs, I’ve been reading a lot (really a lot) about blogging for profit, marketing, and related topics.

I’m trying to find a path that will lead me safely through the swamp of crocodile-infested slime that is much of online marketing, because the last thing I want is to go all But Wait – There’s More! on you – that’s not my style at all.

I’ll probably post more about this as I go along, but I wanted to mention it now, because I’d hate for you to be unpleasantly surprised when I eventually work up the courage to offer stuff for sale here. Also because mentioning it makes the prospect a little more real for me. One step at a time.

Well, then, this is where I’m at. So far, I’m loving it, and I hope you are too.

I am all about craft: knitting, crochet, sewing, embroidery, patchwork, quilting, dressmaking. Sometimes I’ll stray in other directions (e.g. gardening, cooking, carpentry), but rarely for long.

You might have been crafting all your life, or you [...]]]> Attractive, intelligent young blog would love to meet hordes of enthusiastic readers for entertainment, mutual inspiration and more.

I am all about craft: knitting, crochet, sewing, embroidery, patchwork, quilting, dressmaking. Sometimes I’ll stray in other directions (e.g. gardening, cooking, carpentry), but rarely for long.

You might have been crafting all your life, or you might have picked up a pair of knitting needles last week for the first time since you were six. You know that it’s not the size of your stash that counts, it’s what you do with it.

You share my thirst for beautiful, well-made things. You understand my sheer glee when function and form are successfully combined. If we’re out together and I suddenly whip out my camera to record a detail (a fern, a skyline, an iron grille), you won’t look at me strangely.

You get why making things is such a central part of me. You also know that there’s a political aspect to this work. You get fired up about that every so often – or if not, then you don’t mind if I do.

Anyway, if this is you – or even if it isn’t – you’re welcome. Pull up a chair, and let’s have some fun together.