Chamonix and Mont Blanc, and Knitting Spies in Wartime

ross-posting to the knitting blog today because I've realised that five posts from now I will have 200 posts!

Trying to get my anniversaries to run concurrently -- on 6 September, I should reach 1,100 posts on this blog and, come August, I will have been blogging for 10 years!

Came across an interesting article the other day, about knitting used by spies in WWI and WWII:

"During World War I, A grandmother in Belgium knitted at her window, watching the passing trains. As one train chugged by, she made a bumpy stitch in the fabric with her two needles. Another passed, and she dropped a stitch from the fabric, making an intentional hole. Later, she would risk her life by handing the fabric to a soldier—a fellow spy in the Belgian resistance, working to defeat the occupying German force.

Whether women knitted codes into fabric or used stereotypes of knitting women as a cover, there’s a history between knitting and espionage. “Spies have been known to work code messages into knitting, embroidery, hooked rugs, etc,” according to the 1942 book A Guide to Codes and Signals. During wartime, where there were knitters, there were often spies; a pair of eyes, watching between the click of two needles.

When knitters used knitting to encode messages, the message was a form of steganography, a way to hide a message physically (which includes, for example, hiding morse code somewhere on a postcard, or digitally disguising one image within another). If the message must be low-tech, knitting is great for this; every knitted garment is made of different combinations of just two stitches: a knit stitch, which is smooth and looks like a “v”, and a purl stitch, which looks like a horizontal line or a little bump. By making a specific combination of knits and purls in a predetermined pattern, spies could pass on a custom piece of fabric and read the secret message, buried in the innocent warmth of a scarf or hat."

Just the thing to weave -- sorry, knit -- into a story one day!


I was up nearly 4,000 metres last week! Close to 13,000 feet.

The town of Chamonix, France, at the foot of Mont Blanc, is already at over 1,000 metres, and I took the cable car up another 2,000 metres... I was clutching on for dear life, and I couldn't look out the window, but luckily the trip itself takes only about 15 minutes.

On our way to France!

25 metre-high statue of Christ the King

First sight of the Bossons Glacier

Tip of the glacier, apparently called the snout

The cable car up to the Aiguille du Midi at 3,842 metres (Mont Blanc's highest point is at 4,808 metres)

Images of and from Mont Blanc.

Noting for the record that the better, more daring shots, are photos that my mother took, since I was too afraid to lean over any railings or parapets.

It was 30 degrees Celsius in town, and 6 degrees up near the top...

Recording an ascent to the Aiguille du Midi in 1856

Looking down from the cafeteria...

Heading back down

Almost there

I can see solid ground!

The first recorded ascent of Mont Blanc was on in 1786, by Jacques Balmat and Michel Paccard.

The statue doesn't show Paccard, but Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, who gave a reward for the successful ascent.

Old-timey mural

Back in the town of Chamonix

Church of St Bernard

Stained glass showing Grenoble, France

There was a small sidewalk exhibit all about authors and climbers through the ages.

The photos above is of Henriette d'Angeville, the second woman to climb Mont Blanc, 30 years after Marie Paradis in 1808. She caused a bit of a scandal when she married one of her guides, who was not of the same social class as she was. Here's a bit from Wikipedia:

"D'Angeville set off for Mont Blanc in 1838, in the company of Joseph-Marie Couttet, five other guides, and six porters.[1] A suggestion had been made by the guides to join with two all-male groups, but d'Angeville declined.[2] Her arrival in Chamonix created quite a stir; crowds cheered her on her way to the mountain. She received a social call at the Grand Mulets, at 10,000 feet, from a Polish nobleman (who sent his card to her tent), and an English group joined them as well.[1]
D'Angeville's party left for the summit on 4 September 1838 at 2 AM. Along the way d'Angeville proved herself strong and agile enough;[4] particularly on rock she climbed as well as the men,[2] though she did suffer from heart palpitations and drowsiness [altitude sickness].[5] The party reached the top of the mountain at 1:15 PM. Toasts were made with champagne, doves were released from the summit to announce their success, and d'Angeville was hoisted on the men's shoulders and cheered. A cannon salute welcomed them on their return to Chamonix. The celebrations the next day also included a special guest, at d'Angeville's request, the now sixty-year-old Maria Paradis.[4] Also present in Chamonix during that time, though he left the day before d'Angeville's successful climb, was a young, poor, and hopeful author and mountaineer Albert Richard Smith. Smith had tried to attach himself to an expedition but would not climb the mountain until 1851, after which he turned his experience into a theatrical show; he notes d'Angeville's expedition (and the "Polish gentleman [sic]") in his "Ascent of Mont Blanc."[6] ... Since Paradis, according to her own account, was partly carried up by her guides, d'Angeville is often referred to as the first woman to reach Mont Blanc's summit with her own strength.[7]"

I'd never heard any of the names, but they all seem like interesting people.

One young man disappeared on the mountain at the age of 27.

The Arve River, which flows all the way to Geneva.

Glaciers are made of compact ice, not snow, and the ice cap of Mont Blanc pushes out the glaciers, which melt into rivers, dragging silt with them -- which is why the Arve is the sediment-y colour it is.

Leaving the glacier

Two glaciers!

The Bossons Glacier and the Taconnaz Glacier. Apparently, Bossons is a safe glacier, whereas large ice blocks break off from the Taconnaz Glacier, and an avalanche barrier is needed.

Next time, I'd like to visit the Matterhorn, since Tolkien was there in 1911!

A quick ROW80 update!

I've been all over the place the last couple of weeks, slowly drafting a missing scene for The Charm of Time, adding a few changes to Druid's Moon before submitting it again (and the epilogue is done!), writing a new short story (this seems to be semi-regular summertime thing for me, and I love it!) tentatively called "The Tattoo", and working through another round of beta comments on "At Summer's End" before I resubmit it. The latter is this week's priority!

What's the highest peak you've stood on?

Or the lowest place you've descended to?

Hodge Podge! Character Faces and Knitting

odge podge today!

I'm in the calm before the storm, before work gets really busy for the rest of the year (!), not to mention various non-work projects I've signed up for...

I have this summer to finish editing one novel, and then I might have to turn to other things in the autumn. Meanwhile, I'm behind-hand in blog comments!

But I did find the photos I mentioned in my previous post, of Ayşe and Hakan from the short story At Summer's End that I'm currently editing for submission! That's still my ROW80 goal and work-in-progress for the next couple of weeks.

I'm also editing The Charm of Time, but slowly. There are a few big scenes that still need to be written for that novel.

The photos are screenshots taken from advertising -- I always feel badly for these models who, half the time, never get their names mentioned in an ad. Neither do the photographers. Such a shame!

Ayşe

Hakan

Meanwhile, I'm cross-posting to my knitting blog, because I have a wee update!

World Wide Knit in Public Day is coming up on 10 June!

I haven't knit anything in a couple of months, but have a couple of quick projects -- headband! hat! -- that I might even be able to finish in a day.

Here are the two small projects I finished a couple of months ago:

Look! I signed up for my second-ever Future Learn course!

And now I'm off to catch up on an online French correspondence class I signed up for -- wish me bonne chance!

Are you taking any classes at the moment?
What do you think about online courses?

Insecure Writer's Support Group Day, ROW80 Recap, and Story Inspirations Images

ow did it get to be March already?

It seems like only yesterday it was January, and I was starting out with some fresh writing goals, and getting things done...

I'm actually still editing, not being as lazy as usual, but I feel like I've slowed down. This is why I like being accountable to ROW80 and on the blog -- I feel like I'm moving at a snail\s pace, but when I look back at the end of a month or six months, I can see some forward momentum!

All that to say that my latest revised list of goals by monthly schedule looks like this:
March: Draft personal statement (for a university course I'm applying to)
Writers' houseparty!
Draft Druid's Moon synopsis
I'm also getting back into knitting! Haven't done anything since December, but I just started a wee baby hat for a gift.
Meanwhile, I can reveal the results of that secret group project -- a baby blanket! We each knit squares, in Outlander-inspired colours, and one of our group sewed all the squares together. It turned out beautifully!

April: edit Druid's Moon and submit

May: edit The Charm of Time


Today's IWSG Day Question is: Have you ever pulled out a really old story and reworked it? Did it work out?
I have! Quite a few times. It has worked out in the sense that I've been able to edit it much better, bot not worked out in the sense that I haven't placed a story yet, in a journal or magazine.
Oddly, I seem to concentrate on novels a lot. This gives me a good idea -- perhaps next year I'll devote myself to the short stories I already have, and actively work on submitting them to magazines and journals and maybe a contest or two.

Thanks for the great question, Alex and the IWSG Team!

Today's co-hosts are:
Tamara Narayan
Patsy Collins
M.J. Fifield
Nicohle Christopherson

I was glancing at some old blog posts, and I came across a different way of answering the January IWSG Day question ("What writing rule do you wish you’d never heard?").Here's a repost of that old post, from 2007, back when I was drafting The Face of A Lion
(Yes! This August will mark 10 years that I've been blogging!)

Why Published Authors Always Tell Aspiring Authors to READ:

"I agree with Diana that if you want to write, what you have to do is 1. Read and 2. Write (not necessarily in that order).
There are endless good reasons for this, but I came across one today, while reading Dorothy L Sayers' translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Being a product of the 20th Century, it never occurred to me that roads, paths, trails, etc. were not always divided in two, for traffic coming and traffic going. Apparently, in the good old days, people walked wherever they wanted on the road!
If I had thought about it, of course, I might have realised the truth of this. But how much more fun to be reading something entirely different from the focus of your own story, and come across a small detail that counts as research. Back in ancient Ephesus, then, the mixing of crowds passing in all directions on the street would be something Austin might notice and comment on, especially if he's running away from one place and trying to reach another.
(Dante referred to this in passing when describing how the city of Rome organised road traffic on the Bridge of Castello Sant' Angelo for the Jubilee Year 1300. The rule was: keep to the right - just as it is today)."

As for images, here's my end-of-year compilation of Story Inspirations images from my Pinterest board:

Do you collect images that remind you of your stories?
And have you have ideas for how I should celebrate my upcoming blogiversary? Please share!

Knitting and Other Hobbies Review 2016

nitting!

And other hobbies...

My goals in 2015 were to:

1. Finish knitting three more cowls
2. Think about buying expensive wool to make, slowly, methodically, and properly, a gorgeous design by Kate Davies
3. Organise all our photos and print a few, especially for our grandparents
4. Bake more!

These didn't change much over 2016. Instead of cowls, I got heavily into baby blanket knitting:

Photos of the fourth, a purple-y blanket, are here.

In the same post I talked about a secret group project and shared photos of my contribution. Still can't reveal the details yet, but as soon as we've given the gift to its intended recipient, I'll share!

Besides the four blankets and the secret project, I knit:

Three hats (here's one hat)

One shawl, as a gift

One fox scarf:

One pair of mittens

The Azel Pullover

This one didn't turn out quite the way I'd hoped, as the needles I used were a couple of sizes too large given the wool I'd selected, and I also made the pullover too short. But now that I have a feel for the pattern, I'd like to try knitting a child's version of the same item. An excuse to buy wool!


I only seem to have shared one post on my ongoing knitting in the wild series. I like collecting photos of knitting back in the day or in unusual spots or of people you wouldn't expect knew how to knit...

As for that list at the top, I do have some lovely Kate Davies patterns, but haven't attempted one yet. I've actually kept on top of photo organizing and even made a few printed albums, and shared some photos!

I haven't baked as regularly as I'd like. Tried an apple crumble that was a bit of a gooey mess, made cookies often, and attempted a recipe from Outlander Kitchen!:

It tasted good, even if it looked nothing like it was supposed to.

I also have fun supporting artists on Patreon and entering authors' contests every once in a while. Sometimes it leads to fun things arriving in the mail:

Linda Grimes

Sloth mail, through Amanda Palmer's Patreon

Monica Byrne

This year, I wonder if I'll get back to finishing those cowls? Or the sweater I started for myself long ago? I'm trying hard not to have too much extra wool and yarn lying around, and to use what I have before I buy more. That said, one of my first goals is to knit some wee hats and booties to go with the baby blankets.

With all this wool lying around, I read this fun book the other day:

Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen

What hobbies are you exploring this year?

Win Socks For Life! and New Project Photos

ock yarn, actually.

Look at all that gorgeous wool:

All you have to do it is state how your life will most be changed by winning and what you will do with the prize.

Fill out the entry form at YarnCanada.ca -- the contest is open to residents of both Canada and the United States!

Judges will pick the top five entries, and then a public vote will choose the winner.

Come to think of it, the wool would also be handy for gloves and mittens!

I've been busy knitting The Azel Pullover as a gift, but the other day I stopped and made some wee mittens:

And here's a photo of the shawl I knit as a gift a while ago. I finally wove in the ends and have mailed it off!:

Good luck in the contest!