Knitting on Planes, and Jamie Fraser

ecently, in anticipation of vacation, I've read quite a few posts about bringing knitting needles as cabin baggage on airplanes. Everyone has different advice about whether to carry them, display them, hide them beneath the standard-issue blanket, use pencils with thick erasers instead...


Each airline's website states varying rules. And of course, I happen to work for the one section of the United Nations that actually sets the international standards for this.

But there's no getting around the fact that a transatlantic flight is long. And sometimes - gasp! - I just can't read on the plane. Knitting would be the perfect past time, especially as, last time I counted, I've got five babies and at least three adults to knit for. And I haven't knit a stitch in at least two weeks.

What to do?

Robin's advice.

About's take on the matter.

Suggestions from a blogger with a great name: Damn, Knit and Blast It.

Air Canada says I'm allowed plastic needles, as long as I'm not flying to the UK. Well, there's that loophole scuppered.

EasyJet won't allow knitting needles of any kind. The airline calls them "blunt instruments" and puts them on par with hockey sticks, sabres and swords.

Guess it's a good thing Jamie Fraser will never travel forward in time.

(Gratuitous non-red-haired semi-inaccurate (well, it's not Ioan Gruffudd or Diana Gabaldon's choice Allen Scott-Douglas, now, is it?) Jamie image from Crazy Horse Woman. There's a good one here as well.)

Scallop-edged Blanket

eturning to a long-lost project is not as easy as I thought it would be. Mianly because I seem to have lost all original copies of the pattern I was using.

I think it's this scallop-edge baby blanket. But if it's not... I'm halfway through a row and I'll have to tink any mistakes. Dangerous enterprise - wish me luck!

Here's what it ought to look like:

Lilian Jackson Braun

Cross-posted from my writing blog, The Girdle of Melian:

willeran, Merlin James. Kao K'o Kung (Koko). Yum Yum.

I was all set to do a post on my knitting blog about the latest Lilian Jackson Braun book I've finished - The Cat Who Saw Stars - since it features an older Scottish gentleman in full regalia piping at the head of a parade that includes Qwilleran's oldest friend knitting a sock with four needles on the Friends of Wool float; and this coming Saturday is World Wide Knit in Public Day. But.

Found out this afternoon that Ms. Braun passed away last Saturday, at the age of 97, two weeks shy of her 98th birthday (condolences may be sent to the family here).

What's that you say? Never read a Cat Who... book? Well, I hadn't either, until I started writing my middle grade a few years ago. Every time I told someone there was a talking cat in it, they asked me if I'd read the Cat Who... books. So I finally picked up a couple at a second-hand bookstore. Well, Koko and Yum Yum are nothing like my Kedi - obviously those people had never read the books. If they had, they'd have been recommending them to me on their merits alone.

The Cat Who... series is part mystery, part social commentary, part ode to cats, part tribute to small town Northern America. There's a little bit of everything, in fact, and Qwilleran himself, the main journalist-crime solver-author-man about town is just the sort of well-rounded character you'd hope to meet someday. He'd sure treat you to a nice dinner out, at least.

Ah, heck. I'm not doing the flavour of the books justice at all. Why don't you start at the beginning, with The Cat Who Could Read Backwards. Margot Kinberg had a post on The Cat Who Could Read Backwards a few months ago, which described it all a bit better. Also, Clarissa Draper included Lilian Jackson Braun in her list of 5 Most Influential American Woman Mystery Writers.

Here's the lady herself:

Ah yes, the knitting. But first, Christopher Smart, the 18th Century poet. Qwilleran quotes a few fragments in The Cat Who Saw Stars, on the subject of cats in general, and of Smart's cat Jeoffry, from Jubilate Agno:

"For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the sound of a cat is in the most useful preposition κατ' ευχην.

For the pleasantry of a cat at pranks is in the language ten thousand times over.

For the purring of a Cat is his τρυζει."

If anyone knows what the Greek words are, please tell me!

As for knitting... I've gone back to work on a scallop-edged blanket, but I seem to have lost the pattern since I last worked on this project. That's okay; all my spare moments are taken up with editing. A Round of Words in 80 Days: The past few days I've been drafting like mad, finishing up scenes that were missing. For a fourth draft, I seem to have quite a lot of blanks remaining!

Andy Capp and World Wide Knit in Public Day

ndy Capp! Well, not him, but his wife Flo: knitting at the pub! (Hi Helen! *waves*)

World Wide Knit in Public Day is coming up 11 June! Where will you be knitting?

(Also, if you're lucky enough to live near Kingston, Wool-Tyme Kingston is having a major ongoing sale!)

Sewing!

irst off, yes, I've finished the blanket!

Second, have you seen knitter Robin Hunter's Field Guide to Knitters? Part 3 includes Technique Knitters:

"Description
This type of Knitter rarely completes a whole project. Often they become fascinated with figuring out better ways to reach their goal of perfection but then move onto the next challenge before completing the item that provided their last one. ...

Habitat and range
Often isolated from other Knitters due to the complexity of their knitting, when they do step out to share their insights they have no knitted items to wear publicly."

I'm not that much of a technique knitter, but the description reminds me of myself, as us Multiple Project Knitters also rarely have knitted items we can wear publicly. And of course I've got piles of UFOs...

Third, sewing! Look at thus adorable turtle, made by my goddaughter's grandmother:

A Blanket for My Goddaughter

o, I haven't actually finished a project. But it's been too long since I featured my goddaughter around here and she's not only grown, she has a baby sister!





I'd started this simple blanket a while ago, and I'm this (holds thumb and forefinger ten centimetres apart) close to completing it. But I couldn't resist draping it over the little one yesterday:

After all, it was her grandmother that gave me the wool!

And here's Big Sister, pretty as ever:

Knitting Paintings

iscovered a new knitting blog the other day, called simply, Knitting Adventures. Look how lovely these free patterns are!



Speaking of the Royal Wedding the other day (which I might be at a local pub at 5.30 am (!) to watch), if you've got photographs of England, send them to Pictures of England. We've got one on there from the time we visited Holmfirth.

I wanted to share an old painting featuring knitting (since I've been focused on Orientalist paintings of late) and when I Googled paintings with knitting just now, I came across this wonderful site - Knitting Links from the Victoria and Albert Museum.

I couldn't find a painting that looks like my character Rosa in Out of the Water (unlike the many paintings I find on The Orientalist Gallery) but this one comes close in tone:

The Knitting Girl by artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1869

Cowls and Scarves and Hats, Oh My!

eally, I`m working on the blanket, I swear!



Can't match my mother's speed, however. In one week (!) she knitted all of these items, plus three others not shown, for various charitable organizations:

Scarves:

Hats and Cowls:

Closeup:

Might just appropriate one of these items for myself...

Knit Your Own Royal Wedding

ook, I finally have photos!

And I've actually gotten further on this blanket since last week, though I still have many many inches to go.

The background to these photos is a family tree showing how Princes William and Harry are descendants, through their mother only, of Charles II. Natural descendants of course, since Charles did not have children with his queen.

As for Prince William... Thanks to the folks at Pond Parleys, I just found out about the book Knit Your Own Royal Wedding by author and knitter Fiona Goble.

Who wants to knit a corgi? Or Camilla?

Progress!

rogress with a capital P!
I actually got somewhere today on the easy peasy baby blanket I'm knitting.
Back with photos soon.
Meanwhile, here's a knitting LOL cat: