Hello, everybody, and once again welcome to the Apple
Basket!
Considering the recent extreme weather across the
pond, I cannot complain, but I will comment on the weather: it is windy, to say
the least, and the rain is pouring down. The few leaves still trying to hang on
are being stripped from their branches and thrown about. A perfect day for
snuggling up on the sofa with a hot drink and some woolly knitting ... I will
be going out in a bit, though: it is the last Sunday of the month and so time
for the local knitting café.
This is also the day exactly mid way between the birthdays
that mark the beginning of the festive season: Thomas was 17 last Sunday, and
Andreas will be 19 next Sunday. I am continually amazed – how did I get to have
boys that big all of a sudden?
But first, before I brave the elements, let me bring
you up to speed with my recent exploits. There will not be a lot of knitting
this time – after all, not so very much has happened on that front since
Tuesday apart from progress on the wips – but instead talk about books, music
and dyestuffs. And pictures.
Words,
words, words
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| Sunrise above the clouds |
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| A Rhino parked outside Warhammer World |
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| Lovely weather in Nottingham |
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| The Ultra Marine guarding the elevators |
For all these years, my main impression of Warhammer
has been through the figures that Andreas collects, assembles, and paints. And
very well, too, by the way; if he lets me, I’ll show you some one day.
I even at some point bought a set of three female
warriors (I forget which), painted one, and never got round to doing more.
Knitting makes so much more sense to me. And playing the board game doesn’t
really appeal to me, either. I can see that it’s all about tactics, an
elaborate version of something akin to chess; but still. Not my thing. Oh,
well, to each his/her own.
But the bookish side of the whole thing should speak
to me – after all, I have read vast amounts of books in all genres since I was
five years old (not all genres at first, of course).
So, as I mentioned several weeks ago, I read the Eisenhorn Trilogy by Dan Abnett before
going to the weekender – to find out a bit about what it’s all about and not be
a total noob ...
And, to my vague surprise, I really liked it; getting
into the flow and the ambience of the story, I found myself invested in the
characters and hoping for their success.
I don’t know why it should surprise me, though: I’ve
read tons of detective stories and sci-fi, and I’ll take Band of Brothers over Sex
& the City any day of the week. So it’s not like this is an alien world
to me, if you’ll pardon the pun.
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| Dan Abnett signing for Andreas |
During our stay in Nottingham, I read First and Only, the first book in a
series, also by Dan Abnett, called Gaunt’s
Ghosts. These are war stories: brothers in arms, fighting in the trenches,
being screwed over by armchair generals while battling Chaos enemies; stories
of loyalty and bravery – or cowardice, in some instances. Andreas had brought
this particular volume with him to be signed by Dan Abnett; it was the first
Black Library book he ever bought, in Edinburgh in 2006. It is battered and
coffee-stained, much read – and now signed by the author.
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| The hotel lobby was turned into a book store |
The event schedule was packed: in each programme slot
were three simultaneous events, which called for some deliberation, prioritising
and choosing. I let Andreas set the pace and just tagged along with my knitting
– while, of course, soaking up as much as I could. Listening to a Q & A
session with an author is always rewarding, even if you haven’t read any of
their books.
And in this case, everybody is working within the same
parameters – all the books are set in the Warhammer universe. A lot of the stories
take place in the 40K part of it, including the ones I’ve read so far, which
means that the time is around and after the year 40,000 A.D. (I use this
denomination deliberately due to the religious nature of the civilisation).
Then there is the major event of the (relative) past,
a galactic civil war named the Horus Heresy, which took place around 30,000
A.D. So far, 23 books of war stories have been published on this subject, and
they say that they have about as many left to do. In-universe, the Horus Heresy
is comparable to World War II: stuff happened, in this case thought out by the
game masters of Warhammer; and a band of writers tell the stories of battles,
treacheries, what happened with this or that legion of Space Marines, etc.
It seems from the way the authors and publishers – and
artists, for there is a whole painter’s side to this, as well – interact, that a
huge part of the loneliness of a writer is alleviated by this collaborative way
of working. And, as Dan Abnett put it when asked about writing within a given
universe: sure, you can make up your own world, but then you do have to make it
all up, define all the rules. Most of his writing is about knowing the rules of
the world he is writing in, and following them. The parameters are already there,
be it Warhammer, Doctor Who, Marvel or Wallace & Grommit; you know, as a
writer, what is possible and what is not. And so, you can concentrate on
telling the story.
Lately, I’ve been mostly into sci-fi and magic in my
reading: the Warhammer books, of course; and I listened to a new Doctor Who
story, The Wheel of Ice by Stephen
Baxter. This one features the second Doctor, with Jamie and Zoë – and it is
read by David Troughton, the son of Patrick Troughton who played the second
Doctor. Here, again, you have the whole writing-within-parameters: everybody
knows the Doctor and his companions, when and where they come from, and how
they look, behave and are likely to react to the unfolding events.
Having kids who read is a blessing – sometimes, I’m
reading their books more than my own. Victor collects the Discworld series (by Terry Pratchett), and now I’ve read the second
as well. I got him into the Dresden Files;
I bought three of them months ago, he discovered the audio versions read by
James Marsters (a.k.a. Spike from Buffy)
and got them from Audible, and now we can actually get all of them on audio
book here. So I am currently listening to the fourth Dresden File, Summer Knight. They are by Jim Butcher;
the protagonist is the Chicago-based wizard detective Harry Dresden.
One of the great things about Audible is the way you
can download your books any number of times; so if you access your account from
someone else’s computer, you can download a book to their computer and so share
audio books just like you would lend out a paper book. Oh, and they just
introduced a Returns option – which I promptly used, having inadvertently
downloaded an abridged version of Rose Tremain’s Restoration. I want the whole thing.
So, November. Or Movember, if you’re into moustaches.
Or Wovember, if you’re in Britain and want to support the local wool industry –
which I’m all for; no offence to New Zealand, but in this part of the world
should be able to produce our own wool. Of course, I would primarily support
Icelandic and Faroese wool, and Greenlandic.
November also means NaNoWriMo, the national novel
writing month. I heard about this first on the CraftLit podcast;
binge-listening as I do to old episodes, I have listened to Heather talking
about her attempt at writing a novel in November 2008, and her success at doing
it in November 2009.
I only found out that there is a Danish group when
November had already begun, and anyway I am nowhere near ready to take on that
challenge – writing a 50,000 word novel during the month of November – this year.
But now I know about it, and I can practise my writing, and next year I can
either not do Christmas knitting or plan ahead.
If
music be the food for love ...
This past weekend, the music schools held their annual
talent competition for young musicians. As I may have mentioned, my youngest
son, Victor, plays classical guitar, and this was his first time to
participate. The budding musicians have to have played their instrument for at
least two years and be entered by their tutor; so it is not open for everybody.
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| Victor playing Prelude no. 4 by Heitor Villa-Lobos |
The music school in Viborg, where we live, hosted the
competition for the Mid-West area this year; and somewhere around 50 or 60
young musicians gathered to perform for the judges and audience during the Saturday.
All day: from 9 a.m. to around 8 p.m. And one of the judges even had to go and
do the same thing at another music school the next day. The set-up rather
resembled X-Factor or American Idol with the three judges at the table and the
performing musicians in front of them – except these judges do not have to
contend with the clueless.
On the Sunday, there was a gala concert featuring
those of the gold winners who had been selected for the finale this coming
Sunday, when they will be competing against finalists from other parts of the
country. After that, the diplomas were given out.
The scoring system awards bronze, silver or gold
according to merit; everyone who participates is guaranteed at least a bronze
diploma. This year, they said, they had raised the bar compared to previous years
because of the high numbers of talented musicians. I must confess, that gave my
insides a twist; waiting for the announcements was every bit as nerve-wracking
as waiting for the result of an exam – and I was only excited by proxy! Victor
had to perform Saturday morning and then wait
until Sunday afternoon for the verdict.
In Victor’s group, the 10- to 14-year old soloists,
they gave out 1 gold diploma, for a brilliant violinist, 4 silver diplomas, for
Victor (yay!), one of his guitar buddies, and two others; and 8 or 10 bronze
diplomas.
The silver for Victor was not a surprise (but it was still
a relief to have it announced): he is very good, and he practises diligently –
and willingly. I have never, in the four years he has played, had to remind or
coax or threaten him to pick up the guitar. Or the ukulele. Or the banjo. Or
the piano – well, he doesn’t pick that up, of course, but you know what I mean.
Next year, though, he will be in the older age group
and will be competing not only against his two buddies, one of whom also won
the silver, but against the older and more experienced musicians, including the
15-year old guitarist who won gold this year ... Oh, well, he’ll just have to
keep at it. And no matter what comes out of it, the participation itself is a
huge, confidence-enhancing experience.
Colour
My mother has been hinting about another scarf /
shawlette being a good Christmas present, and confessed to wishing for a burgundy
Haruni, when I asked her outright. So the blue Hitchhiker I was knitting for
her was put on hold – she is my mum,
after all – and I set out to make a red lace shawl.
Phase 1: some dyeing experiments to see if I could get
a wine red. So on Tuesday, I set several dyestuffs up for soaking overnight:
madder, brazilwood and logwood. With madder, I usually get an orangey red;
brazilwood yields pink, and logwood abounds with blue or purple depending on
the mordant. So some mix of those dyes might get me a burgundy.
And I made six 25 gram sampler skeins from the lovely,
soft undyed Arwetta Classic sock yarn (80% merino, 20% nylon) to play with
before getting into the real thing. I was going to mordant three with alum and
three with copper and dye them two by two to compare the results.
I left everything to soak overnight and came back to
it Wednesday morning – and found rust stains at the bottom of the pot for
copper mordanting. Rust, as in iron oxide. Somehow, I had managed to not only
not read on the jar, but to measure out, and stir while dissolving in the pot, pale
green iron vitriol instead of bright blue copper sulphate without noticing. Brilliant.
Well, flectere
necesse est, as they say, and nobody got hurt in the process. I adjusted my
plans accordingly and went ahead.
There is a reason why treating fibre with iron is
called ‘saddening’: the colours all become darker and greyer.
Compare
brazilwood on alum versus iron in the two middle skeins: pink and purplish grey.
These pictures are all of the newly dyed, still wet yarn
hanging outside to drip.
Anyway, for the burgundy shawl I chose the madder-brazilwood-logwood
combination with lots of madder, some brazilwood and just a bit of logwood to
pull the colour from the orange towards the purple.
I am quite pleased with the
result, even though it may be a stretch to call it a wine red – it would be a very new wine, in that case!
So, that’s it for this week.
Have a great coming week, and I will look forward to
chatting to you again soon. Until then:
Happy knitting!
