Spring has ... sprung?

You wouldn't know it from first glance at our front yard. We didn't get to do our final fall lawn cleanup because our first snow came early here in Boston, so there's quite a mess awaiting me this month. By late March, we usually have a few croci but I have yet to see one poke up through the ground.

Or maybe I'm avoiding looking at the mess in our border gardens!

This winter kicked my butt, mentally and physically. I was sick most of March and still don't feel like I have my energy back. That said, I've managed to get quite a bit of craft work done while recuperating and hiding out from the snow.

My big project of the season was mastering the tailored shirt:





 

Both shirts were created in Pam Howard's excellent Craftsy class, The Classic Tailored Shirt, which I highly recommend if you have any interest in making (or wearing) custom tailored clothing. One of my strange fascinations is with men's tailoring ... I can spend hours watching YouTube videos about old Sicilian tailors or the future of Savile Row. When my husband and I honeymooned in Italy, I swear I was more excited about his getting a custom tailored jacket in Milan than he was.

A hand-tailored shirt can run into hundreds of dollars, and there's usually a minimum order, which means unless one has thousands of discretionary dollars sitting around in a checking account, this kind of clothing is out of reach of most ordinary folks. I am definitely "ordinary folk," but I do have some mad sewing skillz, so this winter I decided to master shirt-tailoring. My ultimate goal is to fit and create shirts for my husband's wardrobe, and my interim goal is to master the details that go into fine shirtmaking by sewing shirts for myself. The pink shirt was my first attempt. It's made of linen, which was lovely to press and sew, but a bit too ravel-ly for the flat-felled seaming I had to do. The blue shirt is cotton chambray, and I definitely improved on this second attempt. Each shirt took me about a week to complete; I would spend a couple hours each night on one facet of construction, such as cutting fabric, sewing the collar, or felling seams. This schedule worked out great for me as I never felt rushed or tired, and each night I could see my shirt taking shape.

The pattern, btw, is Kwik Sew 3555, view A.

I have been sewing since I was in junior high/middle school, and although I was always enthusiastic about creating clothing, I was never very good at it, simply because I had no patience and wanted to wear what I was making that night. Cue a lot of wiggly seams and ill-fitting attire. The turning point in my sewing career came when I started knitting. See, it can take months to knit one sweater and a week to knit one sock. However, sewing an item of clothing, even when I'm patient and methodical, can take just hours. Sewing feels F-A-S-T to me now, even when I spread those hours out over a week or two.

Still, knitting is my true love, and I've been knitting up a storm. Here's a peek at a sweater I just finished but haven't properly photographed:



I'm using notions and trimmings from my stash, so I decided to go with the plaid, which ended up being a great choice for the thistle color of the wool, don't you think? Very Highlander. :)

Some odds and ends ... I have been thinking about a blog post entitled "Buying is Not the Only Way to Engage," written by Samantha at A Gathering of Stitches. This part really struck me:

"Look at your stash. Yes, right now, go look at it, really look at it. Pretty nice,huh? Wouldn't it feel really good to just pull it out, piece by piece and start using it? What are you saving it for? Don't buy more, until you use some of what you have! Buying is dangerous. It is a temporary exchange. Once that thing comes home to you, you adapt to it and become de-sensitized to it, and it is no longer as satisfying as you thought it could be.  So you push that button again and buy something else.... A vicious cycle ensues.... "

I am guilty of this kind of behavior, thinking I can't start a project because I don't have the right thread or that my creative life would be so much richer with a Juki F600 on my sewing table. Samantha's post made me realize how much possibility I have already, and it inspired me to get back into my sewing room and work with the riches I already have.

Next -- a couple days ago I got a nasty paper cut on my left hand, which has now gone all itchy. I'm convinced I've contracted an MRSA superbug and will shortly be losing my hand ... okay, I'll stop with the drama. My research led me to this interesting PBS news report that a medieval treatment of garlic, wine, and cow's bile can kill MRSA bacteria. Here's the video: fascinating!



Lastly, are you watching Wolf Hall on PBS? I had a terrible choice Sunday night: Mad Men or Wolf Hall, and I went with Mad Men because I knew I could watch Wolf Hall later on my PBS app. When I was a kid, I was fascinated with Tudor history, and as an adult, I'm still a little nerdy about it. I watched the first episode twice, and next Sunday I'll probably save Mad Men for another night. I've read the book, but have yet to read its sequel. On my reading list ...

The Duchess of Cambridge and her court shoes

Of course I've been keeping up with the Cambridge's grand tour Down Under and reading all the breathless commentary on stylish Kate. She certainly has a great pair of pins, and today I learned her secret: nude court shoes!

Here in the U.S. we call these shoes "pumps": closed-toe, low front shoes with heels. According to the fashion press, nude pumps/court shoes give the illusion of long legs when the color of the pump and the skin are similar. Which makes sense, as your eye tends to stop when you get to a jolt of black or red at the feet.

Sign me up!



According to the folks in the know at the Daily Mail, Kate's preferred court shoe comes from London-based retailer LK Bennett and these shoes are, unfortunately, sold out in the U.K. If you're stateside, you can purchase the style "Sledge" at Nordstrom for just $345.

If you, like I, don't have a royal allowance for footwear, here are some lower-priced options.

Here's the Madden Girl Fastenn pump for $34.30 at Belk. The LK Bennett pump is a bit more taupe, but I think the Madden Girl version would work better on someone with fair skin. It must be a popular choice with Kate admirers because most sizes are hard to find: Belk was the only online retailer where I found a variety of sizes available.

If you've got more dosh (sorry, I've been reading the latest Elizabeth George mystery), the Cole Hahn Chelsea pump is very similar to the LK Bennett court shoe. They're currently $199.00 at Zappos ... and free shipping. Like the Madden Girl pumps, though, popular sizes are unavailable at the moment, but Zappos will let you know when your size is back in stock.

 



The Michael Kors Ionna pump is quite nice, too, and a more reasonable $130 at Zappos -- that is, if they have your size. The only thing I don't like is the bling on the back of the heel.

I saw some other nude pumps by Kate Spade and Christian Louboutin, but if I can't afford LK Bennett, it goes without saying I can't afford these versions either.

I'm curious to see the "nude" effect on my own legs, so I'm heading down to our local Marshall's to give it a try. I'm not so sure about that platform look; my mind goes to porn films, hookers, and Times Square in the 70s, sorry. And those heels -- some of them are 4" or 5". Never mind walk in them. Could I even stand? We'll see ... I've sewn a bunch of skirts in the last couple months, and I'm eager to see if nude pumps are the trick of the eye my figure needs. :)

Knitting reduces stress...and don't call me a goddess

Two links for you today. On the front page of CNN, an article that will surprise no one who knits, or does any kind craft work: Crafting can help those who suffer from anxiety, depression or chronic pain, experts say. My own non-scientific self-study shows this is true. Had I not picked up my knitting needles at the end of 2010, I'm not sure I could have gotten through 2011 without turning to scotch. Sometimes I joke with friends who ask why I knit so much, "Knitting saved my life," but the truth is, it kind of did. :)

Then a spot-on blog post I stumbled upon yesterday, written by blogger and author Kim Werker, former editor of Interweave Crochet, where she says and I quote: "My pet peeve is this: woo-woo rhetoric in the context of business advice for women. It seems like everywhere I look, someone is selling an ebook, course or seminar on some or another topic that involves the words goddess, soulfulness, or spirituality. Or some variation or combination of words like that." It was one of those posts I wish I'd written because the mashup of business education and feminized woo-woo claptrap annoys the stuffing out of me. Full disclosure: I teach a class for freelance writers of either gender designed to help them develop ideas for magazine articles, but they find no talk about spirituality, inner goddesses, or discovering their souls although I do urge students to write about topics that speak to their interests. Practical advice, not potions!

The snowstorm we were supposed to get fizzled into nothing, which is fine with me ... no complaints. It is, however, quite windy and cold. I've been standing in the kitchen window with my hot cups of coffee, watching the birds feed outside our garage. O and I are getting better at bird identification. So far, we've spotted male and female cardinals, tufted titmouses (titmice?), hairy woodpeckers, female blue jays, juncos, and chickadees. Oh yes, and a very naughty squirrel who climbs down our garage roof and onto the birdfeeder, draping himself over it like a blanket to nibble the black oil sunflower seeds upside down. It's so funny to watch that it's hard to get mad at him. Next time I see him out there, I'll get a picture or video through our kitchen window.

How is your week going?

Hello Ladies

I was thrilled to read the first positive review of HBO's "Hello Ladies" this morning. Dade Hayes, a columnist for Forbes.com, writes, "Over the winding course of its flinty, eight-episode run, the show has blossomed, becoming at once antic and deeply felt, an unusual mix of sharp wit and melancholy."

At last, a critic gets it!

If you haven't seen the show, it's the brainchild of Stephen Merchant, a frequent collaborator with Ricky Gervais. (He was Gervais's sidekick in this hilarious skit with Liam Neeson I wrote about here last year.) Merchant plays the lead, a socially awkward British web developer named Stuart Pritchard whose main goal in life seems to be scoring with a supermodel in his adopted town of LA. Critics have lambasted the show, calling it "cringeworthy" because of the outrageous and uncomfortable situations the supremely self-unaware and often unlikeable Pritchard gets himself into: telling homophobic and racist jokes during a hot tub party whose guests included a gay couple and a black editor from Vanity Fair and demanding that a bouncer return a tip when Pritchard doesn't physically step into the club.

Basically Stuart Pritchard is an English Larry David, but for some reason the critics who loved "Curb Your Enthusiasm" can't stomach "Hello Ladies." I fear it's a case where the more acidic British sense of humor is a little tough for some Americans to swallow. Case in point: "The Office," which Merchant co-created with Gervais. I know Americans who adore Michael Scott on the U.S. version of the show, but they watch an episode of the original British version with Gervais playing David Brant, and they sit there with stony faces, occasionally shifting in their seats with physical discomfort. (I happen to like both versions for different reasons.)

Other things I love about the show: the rest of the cast! Especially the character of Jessica, Stuart's pool-house renter and aspiring actress, who is just dorky enough that you can't help but root for her. (The actress Christine Woods deserves kudos here. She plays Jessica with such nuance.) If you're an "Alias" fan, Kevin Weisman's face will be familiar to you. He plays Stuart's foul-mouthed frenemy who uses his disability to charm the pants of beautiful girls, much to Stuart's annoyance. I haven't spent a lot of time in LA, but its portrayal in "Hello Ladies" feels right to me: Like some of Merchant's characters, I feel invisible there because I'm not blonde, buxom, and Botoxed. Bonus: soundtracks include Hall & Oates, Gerry Rafferty, and Al Stewart. Remember "Year of the Cat"? I hadn't heard that song in years until watching "Hello Ladies."

HBO hasn't renewed "Hello Ladies" for a second season, and I'm nervous because critics were so hard on the first two episodes. I won't give anything away, but last weekend was the first season finale and for those critics who thought Stuart Pritchard was entirely too self-obsessed, well ... there's a heart beating in that pigeon-chest of his. I hope the network that gave us TWO seasons of the dreadful "Mind of the Married Man" will give Stephen Merchant another year to develop this very funny -- and yes, oftentimes uncomfortable -- comedy. If they renew it, I'll definitely pay Verizon for the HBO upgrade.

What do you think? Have you seen the show? Thoughts?

The Great British Sewing Bee finale

If you're wondering who won the Great British Sewing Bee, here's the finale:



Did you like this show? Will you watch another season? (Please BBC ... make the next season longer!) Are you happy with who won?

If you're a redhead, we're related

 

There's no question I'm a carrier of the redhead gene: my hair is auburn, my brother has carrot red hair, my paternal grandmother and her siblings all had red hair, and their Scottish grandfather certainly looks as though he could be a redhead in pictures. And while my father has dark hair, his facial hair, when it grows, is bright red!

My husband's family, however, was a mystery, but when I popped out a redhead, it became evident my husband was a gene carrier for red hair. (Since the redhead gene is recessive, both parents must be carriers for its expression.) Since O was born, I've found out that my husband's ancestors hail from Yorkshire in northern England, where red hair is fairly common.

I just read about a DNA test from ScotlandsDNA that will tell you if you carry the red hair gene. They say every person who carries the recessive gene is a direct descendant of the first person to ever have red hair. Which means my husband and I are distantly related, I guess. ;-) Six to 18 million people in the U.S. have red hair, more than any other country on earth, and there are more gene carriers here, too. I guess that's a good thing since people here don't seem to mind red hair as much as they do in other countries, where redheads are often bullied. I know my brother hated people commenting on his hair all the time ("Hey big red!" or "Where'd you get that hair?") but that was the extent of it. O was a strawberry blonde when he was younger, but now it has gotten darker and more red. People don't call him "Red" or anything like that ... they mostly tell me they wish they could get that color out of a bottle.

And boy, so do I!

Additional reading here.

Knitting update

I've picked up the needles again, damned and determined to finish this Aran sweater. What you see in the--crappy--picture above is the back panel, the two arms (with a mistake in one of the seed stitch rows, which I let go because you'll only see it when I raise my arm), and the right side cardigan panel on my circular needles. And woo-hoo, I get to knit the button bands with the panel instead of picking up stitches. "All" that will be left is the left panel with its buttonholes, seaming the shoulders and knitting the neck ribbing, seaming the rest of the sweater, adding buttons, and I'll be done. I'm thinking traditional leather-look embossed buttons for this, though I may go for something non-traditional once I get to WEBS on Monday and am so inspired.

That's right ... the plan is a mother/daughter pilgrimage to Northampton while my son is on spring break. WEBS happens to be having its anniversary sale this month, and all their Cascade 220 is on sale. I want to buy enough in a blush pink for ... another Aran. Yes, I am crazy. But a. I've always wanted a pink Aran sweater after spotting one in Alice Starmore's Aran Knitting and b. I don't plan on knitting this right away because there's something else in the queue.

This. Isn't it lovely? Rarely do I fall in love with a knitting pattern, but I fell hard for the Modern Wrapper. I have small shoulders, which normally would have me running from a pattern like this, but the model seems to have a frame similar to mine and she looks quite comfortable in this. I even love the color and plan to knit a jewel-tone purple one for myself. Weirdly enough, I'm not a "purple person," even though colors with names like "eggplant" and "plum" are very flattering to my complexion/hair. I priced out the yarn for this, though -- 14 balls of Rowan Fine Tweed and 6 balls of Rowan Kidsilk Haze came to $130 and some change, not including shipping. Yikes!  So I may have to make a yarn substitution to keep costs within reason.

As a palate cleanser between projects, I plan on knitting a few pairs of socks. I miss my sock knitting dreadfully. My stepmother has been diagnosed with Reynaud's Disease, which causes loss of blood flow to her fingers and toes. She is now a big fan of my handknit wool socks, which keep her feet cozy warm. It's nice to have someone in my family I can knit for, especially knowing that the product will actually help her stay healthy. :-)

The second episode of the Great British Sewing Bee was posted on YouTube this morning, which I watched over lunch. Oh, I wish the show was longer than four episodes! I really like all the remaining contestants, but I guess I'm rooting a little for Ann because she's 81 and a total rockstar. One thing that bugs me about Project Runway here in the U.S. is the bias toward contestants, especially female, if they're over 40. I even noticed it with one of the most successful over 40 contestants, Laura Bennett, who was frequently called out for designing clothes that were too "matrony." I wish fashion designers would realize that not everyone wants to dress like an 18-year-old. Heck, not every 18-year-old wants to dress like an 18-year-old! Favorite line from Ann: "Can you imagine a boy in pair of jeans his mum made? No, thank you! Imagine the horror!"

My long-lost Scottish grandfather

Before O was born I got sucked into researching my family, thanks to my mother, who used to spend her weekends researching our Norwegian ancestors at the LDS library near her home in Connecticut. Since my mother's side of the family was covered, I thought it would be interesting to find out more about my father's family. When I was in my early teens, my paternal grandmother shared many stories about her childhood, replete with servants and one nanny whom she adored. She had some framed photographs of my great-grandmother, a beautiful blonde-haired society girl named Lulu. One of the photos was of Lulu's enormous wedding party, dressed in their Edwardian finery. It was definitely not a budget affair.

While certainly not poor when I knew her, my grandmother wasn't living with servants like she did as a child, so once I asked what happened to all the money. The distant look in her face faded away and she said, "My father lost it all." She seemed annoyed by my question, so I dropped it. Knowing that my grandmother was born in 1918, I assumed the family fortune disappeared in the Market Crash of 1929. Further questioning on my part was fruitless. No one in the family wanted to talk about my grandmother's father; my own father knew very little and, in fact, had never met him. All he could offer was that his grandfather had died "downstate." My father is a Vermonter, so anything south of him is "downstate," including Brattleboro, the Everglades, and South America.

I got a few more clues from my great aunt and great uncle in the late 1990s. My great-grandfather's name was John "Jack" Forrest and he'd worked as an executive for Remington Typewriter. That was enough to get me started. I eventually found out his full name was John Prescott Forrest, and he was the youngest child of a prominent Canadian minister and scholar, the Reverend John Forrest. Rev. Forrest was president of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he served until shortly before his death in 1920. His wife, Annie Prescott Duff, had come from an equally prominent Canadian family; her father, William Duff, was a Scottish-born Presbyterian minister like her husband.

The only thing I knew about Reverend Forrest's parentage was that his father, Alexander Forrest, was an M.D./surgeon and Scottish immigrant. Back in the late 1990s and early 00s, I spent hours scouring microfiche and computer screens at the New England Historic Genealogical Society searching for info on Dr. Forrest, but to no avail. The older members of my family were interested in my research and gave me as many clues as they could, but eventually I had to put the research aside and focus on other projects -- one being the birth of my son in 2001. Since then, my great aunt and great uncle passed away, taking with them any last clues. Or so I thought ...

Fast forward to last week. Every now and then I type my gr-gr-grandfather's name into Google to see what pops up. I was surprised when one of the top hits was a blog that had mentioned his name. My mouth just about dropped open when I started reading the blog and figured out that one of my cousins, C--, had gotten into genealogy and done an enormous amount of research on the family. I quickly added a comment to one of the blog posts and within minutes he e-mailed me.

If you're at all interested in the Forrest family of Halifax, Nova Scotia, I urge you to check out C--'s well-researched blog -- I don't want to repeat what he's written there. Today I just want to talk about my gr-gr-gr-grandfather Alexander Forrest, the Scottish surgeon.

[caption id="attachment_2191" align="alignleft" width="191"] Dr. Alexander Forrest, 1870, courtesy of CThomas[/caption]

Some months ago I blogged about a movie called Burke and Hare starring Simon Pegg, a film based on the true story of two Irish graverobbers who murdered and sold their victims' bodies to the medical school at the University of Edinburgh. (Cadavers were hard for doctors to obtain, so they often relied on unscrupulous sorts to get them the bodies they needed for dissection and study.) I speculated that Dr. Forrest was probably studying medicine in Scotland about the time of the West Port murders, although I suspected he studied in Glasgow. C's research confirmed that Dr. Forrest studied medicine at the University of Glasgow from 1823 to 1825. However, he then went on to study at the University of Edinburgh in 1826, and obtained  his medical license from the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh in December of 1827, the same year Burke and Hare started selling bodies to the University. Yikes, I was closer than I thought!

Dr. Forrest opened a private practice soon after graduation, and also served in the Royal Navy, before marrying my gr-gr-gr-grandmother Barbara Ross McKenzie (a Highlander!) and leaving Scotland for Nova Scotia around 1832.

It's fascinating to learn that my ancestors played parts in history. Now I have a (tenuous!) family connection to an unsavory crime that led to the 1832 Anatomy Act in Britain, which provided legal access to human cadavers for medical study. I have family who fought in the Revolutionary War, others who were chased out of Boston for being British sympathizers, a gr-gr-grandfather shot and killed by Irish nationalists, a cousin who was the American ambassador to Germany shortly before Hitler grabbed power (letters reveal he was not impressed with Adolf), and a gr-grandfather who was friends with Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.

The stuff you find out just by digging around! I'm so happy to learn more about my Scottish ancestry, since I already know quite a bit about my British, Irish, and Scandinavian family. How about your family? Any historic connections or wild factoids?

 

First recordings of family Christmas found

Last night I was knitting and watching BBC World News when this story caught my attention. Curators at the Museum of London found the earliest recordings of a family Christmas celebration. The recordings, made between 1902 and 1917, capture the holiday festivities of the Wall family in London (above). Back then, recording ordinary family activities was quite rare, according to the BBC report. The phonograph machine was cutting-edge dictation technology used in offices, not in family parlors.

Do check out the recordings on the BBC's website. They are quite special! Like the museum curator, I, too, got chills listening to their voices, especially of the seven-year-old boy singing.

 

Daily Mail = Daily Laugh

I've often considered staring a new feature here on Hail Britannia called "The Daily Laugh," the sole purpose of which would be to mock The Daily Mail.

To wit: Yesterday's headline on a story about the Duchess of Cambridge, which read, "Girl who'll give Britain its first classless sovereign - Kate's injection of DNA changes House of Windsor bloodline forever."

Yes, Sherlock, DNA does that.

And in another story speculating on possible royal twins, the author points to the Danish royal court. "Last year, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark – that country’s next monarch – gave birth to twins. There was some anxiety beforehand that her babies might have to be delivered by caesarean section, leading to speculation that it would be the obstetrician who chose which child to deliver first and thus which would eventually rise to the throne." Where were the DM's factcheckers? While the Crown Princess will someday be queen, she will not be the monarch. That role will fall to her husband, the actual heir to the throne. And the twins in question are the couple's third and fourth children; there was never any question which one would "rise to the throne" as they are 4th and 5th in line respectively behind their father, older brother, and older sister. Good grief, why do I know this stuff. Why? WHY? I'm going to blame it on my childhood obsession with Tudor history.

 

 

A strange week for women

The past week has been a strange one for women. Writing about the 2012 election season, New Yorker writer Margaret Talbot wrote,“If there was a war on women this year, it looks like the women are winning" with a record 20 women taking U.S. Senate seats next year. Candidates who made extremely unpopular (and I must add offensive) remarks about women and rape did not win their elections. In this respect, it was a good week for American women.

Then I read Expat Mum's blog yesterday, who alerted me to the delicious irony of Liz Jones. Jones had been invited to speak at a mom-blogging event in London and really put her foot in it declaring herself not a writer but an artist. In her column she ridicules the women who stay home with their children and blog for income. Because, you know, brand-dropping, divulging one's marital woes in excruciating detail, and insulting one's neighbors in newsprint is what real writers -- I mean artists -- do.  Given the chance, I think Liz Jones would defend Todd Akin if she knew it would give her more page views.

And today? Back across the pond we've got a massive DC sex scandal that gets stranger by the day. At the center, two women, one who had an affair with the head of the CIA and the other, it's reported today, was dallying with the top U.S. general in Afghanistan and who also happened to be the target of hands-off-my-man e-mails from the woman who had the affair with the head of the CIA. The mind boggles! The older I get, the more I believe that some women never evolve past seventh grade and men, no matter how smart they are, are guided by the heads in their pants. Anyway, I think this sex scandal is going to be a potboiler. I sense offers from Playboy for the two women. Two steps back. I can't help but wonder what U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is thinking of all this as she's traveling in Australia with the U.S. Secretary of Defense today?

Today I'm 48. Here's one of my birthday presents from a secret admirer, a skein of sock yarn from The Woolen Rabbit in New Hampshire in the most appropriate colorway, Scottish Heather. Sorry for the cruddy picture but it's very dark and gray here today, a common occurrence on my birth day. I love the muted purples and heathery greens of this yarn; it will make a perfect cowl to go along with my gray down jacket.

British media law baffles me

Several weeks ago I mentioned my interest in the Jeremy Forrest case, the British schoolteacher who ran off to France with a 15-year-old student he was tutoring. The student was returned home to her family in England, and a few days later, Forrest was extradited to the UK.

The story disappeared.

I searched the papers online to find out what happened next. Surely The Sun would run with a salacious headline, or at the very least, the Daily Mail's gossip pages would rehash the saga of Forrest's abandoned wife. But there was nothing. It was as if the duo had never run off.

Then yesterday, I spotted a short piece in the Guardian that reported a British court had lifted a ban from the defendant being named in the press, thanks to a challenge from  ten media organizations, including the Guardian and the BBC. Still, there's been very little on the case, except that there's no longer a ban. Great, but what's next? A court date? Probation? Prison time?

Here in the U.S. it would be highly unusual -- if not unheard of -- for a media organization to be banned from naming a defendant in a court case, especially in a case that has already drawn media attention. The exception I can think of would be if the defendant were under age 18, and even then, it would be extremely rare.

So I ask my British readers: why the ban? I also notice that British newspapers often turn off commenting features on online stories involving a crime "for legal restrictions." Any insight?

Criminal or besotted?

Normally I avoid news stories about older men seducing young girls -- pedophilia stories give me nightmares -- but the recent case of British math teacher Jeremy Forrest, 30, who ran off to France with his 15-year-old student Megan Stammers nabbed my attention. Not because of the creepiness of it all, but because it highlights the gulf between Anglo and Gallic sensibilities.

The British focus on the fact that a teacher ran off with a student, a child in the eyes of the law (I believe the age of consent in the UK is 16). Stammers was cast as the victim, Forrest the manipulative kidnapper. Some papers reported that he'd seduced female students in the past. The case has British police urging David Cameron to continue cross-border arrest and investigation work with the EU, as Forrest was charged on an EU arrest warrant. With that kind of cooperation gone, what will happen when the next British schoolchild is ferried off by a creepy pedophile?

The French, on the other hand, took a laissez faire stand. The age of consent in France is 15. What could be more romantic than a pretty girl running off with her musician boyfriend to the south of France? So there's 15 years between them ... love is blind, they say. He had a wife? Eh, so what? Men will be men. They just didn't see why the British were making such a fuss.

In the end, Forrest was arrested by the French police and he's about to be extradited to Britain, but again, his attorney on the Continent  exhibited that classic Gallic attitude: "Jeremy Forrest is in no pervert. This is a story only about love and passion … I believe it will never end. His only crime is to have fallen in love with a 15-year-old, without any recourse to violence or manipulation.” Ah, so this is why Woody Allen loves Paris. It wasn't the baguettes.

American newspapers that reported on this story took a similar stance as the British, not surprising given our Puritanical background and our hardline position on underage sex, especially when it involves a teacher and a student. We just aren't very tolerant of that, unless the teacher is a female and the students are 16- and 17-year-old boys -- then the attitude seems to be "those lucky lads."

What do you say? Do you take the Anglo/American position that Jeremy Forrest violated the law or the French position that he was simply following his heart?

Deep romance?

A couple nights ago, my son and I were watching television and my attention was drawn to this commercial:



"You've got to be kidding," I said. "A cheap necklace to commemorate the sinking of a ship, which resulted in the deaths of over 1,500 people?" (The Sterlington Collection, the purveyors of this fine silverplate necklace -- and if you order now, a ring, too! -- calls them "souls aboard.")

The commercial is ridiculously hilarious -- from the photocopied Titanic tickets to the watery background behind the jewelry being showcased. What is romantic about a steamship filled with passengers sinking in the middle of the night in the cold north Atlantic? I think they're thinking of Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet smooching on a soundstage. And frankly, I didn't think the movie was all that romantic. I'll take a Merchant Ivory production, thank you.

Perhaps the Sterlington Collection has a long-term plan to develop jewelry to commemorate tragic events in human history. What's next? A bracelet called Waves of Desire, which honors the people who perished in the Boxing Day tsunami? Towers of Power, a faux onyx brooch that recalls the deadly September 11 attacks? Or maybe they see the romance of Pearl Harbor? Perfect, because they don't even have to think about the right fake jewel.

So yes, I will be passing on the Deep Romance necklace, matching ring, and photocopies of the doomed Titanic's last menu and a boarding pass, thus depriving my descendants of this classic heirloom. My loss could be your gain, though.

The Gentle Art of Knitting

When I heard/read that Jane Brocket was coming out with a knitting book, I got pretty excited. The Gentle Art of Domesticity keeps a prominent place on my livingroom bookshelf and gives me that boost I need when the house needs a little TLC.

The Gentle Art of Knitting was released in England a few months ago. I considered buying it sight unseen, but then I read some negative reader reviews of it and scratched it off my list. The complaints were that the knitting projects were too basic and not very revolutionary. (Those are my words/impressions of the reviews.) I buy very few knitting books, and only buy them for reference .

Though I'd resolved not to buy the book, I was thrilled to find a copy of it at our local library on the new titles shelf.

I spent a pleasant hour or two reading through it, sipping tea, during one of the many drenching rain storms of May. Is there anything revolutionary in the book? Why, yes, there is. As the reader reviewers noted, there aren't any patterns in here that will put Brooklyn Tweed out of business anytime soon, but what Brocket's book does brilliantly is remind knitters to focus on the process, not the product. As someone who frequently gets impatient to finish a sweater or can't wait to start some complicated cabled shawl, I appreciate this message. As soon as I put the book down, I cast on 37 stitches of red cotton and knit a simple garter stitch dishcloth. Then, I knit another, this time striping at random places with blue cotton.

It's the kind of knitting book I like to have when my handwork is giving me fits and I need to be reminded why I knit ... to create beautiful objects with care, to bond with friends (who knit), and to relax and enjoy the hours rather than wasting them idly in front of the computer or television set.

I do think I'll be getting a copy for my own bookshelf. The library's version was from England. Unlike British cookbooks, I like British knitting books to be "Americanized" with our needle sizes and dimensions in inches rather than centimeters, so I'm hoping they'll come out with a Yank version soon.

While on the domestic subject, I was futzing around the Web yesterday and found this video about how to properly fold a t-shirt, hosted by none other than Anthea Turner:

When I wasn't ironing and folding my extensive t-shirt collection, I was watching the Jubilee procession on the Thames, broadcast over CNN. My goodness, the British must be thrilled to have Piers Morgan off their island. The man DOES NOT SHUT UP. He interrupted every guest, including India Hicks, who was attempting to tell the audience what it was like to be in Princess Diana's wedding party. Morgan kept butting in with his own memories of the day, none of which were as remotely exciting as being Princess Diana's bridesmaid. I wanted to throttle him. So I ended up turning the tv off, and downed a glass of lemon barley water in honor of the Queen.

And how was your Jubilee weekend?

The Duchess Effect

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I've been seeing lots of stories recently about "The Duchess Effect" or "The Kate Effect," about how the Duchess of Cambridge's clothing choices are wielding considerable influence on the fashion industry, especially over the last year since her marriage to Prince William.

While I'm not a rabid royalty watcher, I have always felt sympathetic toward Kate (I'm sorry; I can't yet bring myself to call her Catherine.) I hated how the British tabloids trashed her and her family in the years before her marriage and can't help but feeling a bit of "haa haa on you" when I see these same tabloids tripping over themselves, breathlessly covering her every move. I don't think Kate has made one misstep, which has got to be hard with potentially billions of eyes on you every time you run out for a Starbucks.

I have noticed the effect the Duchess has on fashion. Indeed, I've even fallen head-over-heels in love with a shawl she wore while shopping (I blogged about it here) and the white coat she wore to Prince William's passing-out ceremony. But model my wardrobe after Kate's? Hmmm.

First, have you really studied a picture of her? She's TINY. Not short tiny, but skinny tiny. A single thigh of mine is bigger than her torso. Okay, not really, but let's just say a lot of the stuff she wears wouldn't look good on my "curves." For example, before she was married she was frequently photographed wearing skinny jeans stuffed into boots. First, I consider "skinny jeans" to be a pair of pants I can fit my butt into after a week of dieting. Second, if I stuffed my jean bottoms into a pair of skinny boots, I'd cut off circulation to my feet. The bottom line: where Kate looks slim and chic, I'd looked like an overstuffed sausage.

Then there's the fact that you have to shop to get Kate's look. And frankly, I hate to shop, except if the shopping involves yarn ... then I'm up for the game. But people who really love Kate's look must have to spend a fortune by quickly snapping up an original the moment Kate's photographed in it (the royal blue engagement dress by Issa) or spend too much time hunting down a knockoff.

And then there's that fact that I'm 17 years older than the Duchess. I'm more in Princess Diana's generation, but NOT Prince Charles's, thankyouverymuch. It's weird because I don't think the Duchess dresses in a particularly youthful manner (a criticism she receives from a lot of print journalists who cover fashion), but maybe it's that I don't place as much emphasis on fashion as I did in my 20s and early 30s, and go more for what looks good on me and what fits the life I have today. I'm more apt to look at a pair of wellies the Queen is wearing and wondering if they'd be a good choice for summer gardening ... or should I get less sexy rubber gardening clogs? Does that make sense?

I like seeing how her fashion choices inspire others, though. The blog What Kate Wore reports on everything Kate wears and gives details on where you can buy. The green shawl that I adore has its own Ravelry group. BurdaStyle offers pattern suggestions for Kate fans who like to sew. And not Kate fashion, but an Australian pattern company developed a pattern for "The Pippa Dress." Now that's something you'll never catch me in, although Gorgeous Things did "gorgeous things" with it ... and she's even in my generation! (She looks seriously stunning in it.) Don't sew or knit? The Daily Mail frequently covers Kate and will tell you what brand she's wearing.

So what do you think about all this "Duchess/Kate Effect" business? Do you think it will wear off? Do you catch yourself admiring certain clothes Kate wears or would you rather not be bothered? Please comment below. As for me, I'm sure I'll keep watching but I don't see myself patterning a wardrobe based on another person's look. I am, however, going to cast on that shawl. Kate seriously ripped off my style.

It doesn't belong to Howard

A couple weeks ago, I was reading a New York Times' article about the appeal of Downton Abbey when my eyeballs hit the brakes:

"Granted, it’s rare that we don’t go nuts for lavishly produced Edwardian costume dramas with beautiful clothes, houses and manners; with their delicious tensions and upheavals and their tendency to squash lowly clerks under enormous bookcases after they enter into ill-advised romances with impulsive, intellectual upper-class girls. (See the tragic denouement of “Howard's [sic] End.”)

You see, I'd made the same mistake in a post I'd written about Downton Abbey just days before. Just as I hit "post," a 20-year-old memory of a paper I'd written in "The Modern British Novel" floated into my consciousness: Howard does not possess the End: It's Howards End with no possessive "s."

(The NYT has since issued a correction on the punctuation mistake.)

Here's another one, though, that took me by surprise. I'm blaming it on skipping out of Great American Novels Written by Men so I could read the likes of Woolf, Eliot, and Wollstonecraft in college. I was in Barnes and Noble this weekend, flipping through those B&N classic novel paperbacks that are priced so reasonably at $6.50, when I spotten an n-dash between Moby and Dick. For years, I've been writing that I've never read Moby Dick. Well, yes, that's because it's Moby-Dick, and I haven't read that doorstop either. Finnegans Wake is another title I see mis-punctuated with a possessive "s." I hesitate to call Finnegans Wake a novel, though. More like 600 pages of a crazy Irishman's scatological ranting.

Are there any other works of classic literature that have titles frequently mangled by either the masses or the press, as in the case of Howards End? Inquiring minds and all ...

 

 

End of the season

Last night in the States was the tw0-hour Christmas finale of Downton Abbey's second season. What did you think? I'm going to watch it again today on PBS.com since I missed chunks of it here and there; my husband decided to fix our dishwasher just as the program came on, which meant many interruptions. Harrumph!

I enjoyed the scenes with Daisy last night, esp. her role in the kitchen. (I won't say anymore in case you haven't seen it.) Then today I found this interesting piece on NPRs site about Downton Abbey's sumptuous food scenes and how they don't correspond with our perceptions of British food as being lumpy, tasteless, and bland.

I'll leave you with this to enjoy with your lunchtime soup. The only scene that's missing is the ending scene in last night's finale. :-)

Settling in

Has it been nearly a month since I posted? Unpacking has taken much longer than I suspected it would. We've moved to a house with less square footage, and although we have a large storage container on our 2 acres to hold our overflow of "stuff," we're stuck doing a lot of sorting and deciding. It seems that every day I'm dropping flattened cardboard off at the recycling center or donating household items to shelters. It never ends.

Some random photos:



My cookbook collection, about 80 percent of it. There are a couple more boxes of books out in the storage container. Sadly, this is my collection after culling -- I donated roughly 100 books before our move.



The livingroom is looking a wee bit more settled, but still there's a lot of work to do. This is the scene that greeted me this a.m. after my son's raucous playdate from yesterday and some furious knitting (mine) from last night. The sofa has been stripped of its slipcover for a washing, thus contributing to the disarray. The rattan chest a/k/a coffee table is going to be replaced shortly, and our tv stand, which is not in the photo, is awaiting a coat of paint. I can't wait to do the big reveal on this project!



Lastly, I've discovered our Victorian-style wall sconces are excellent tools for sock blocking! This sock is one half of a pair destined for my step-mother down in Connecticut, a pair of Elizabeth Zimmermann Woodsman's socks.

I've been doing a fair bit of knitting but unfortunately most of it is holiday related so no pictures. I cast on Thea Coleman's Irish Coffee a couple weeks ago, but had to put it aside to focus on gift knitting. However as a reward for knitting three four hats over the last week, I purchased Anne Hanson's Fartlek hat pattern a couple nights ago and will be knitting myself a nice warm cap for the holidays. Ok, yes, I find the name "fartlek" amusing (and so does my son), but I really like the design and have the perfect yarn for it:



It looks a bit more colorful in the photo than it really is. The lighting today is quite poor.

In other Anglophile news:

• My hopes for the coming season of Downton Abbey on PBS next month have been dashed by this review in the Telegraph. SPOILER WARNING: Read at your own peril.


• Speaking of Downton Abbey, this Daily Mail article about Julian Fellowes' decidedly unaristo ancestors is a fun read and shows us the class divide in England is still alive and well.


• Did you know that November was Wovember, a time to wear and celebrate wool? (I know I dug out my woolies!) Here's a fascinating expose of retailers who erroneously label clothing or fabric as "wool." I think this mostly happens in England; in America, wool means fabric made from the fleece of sheep or other fleecy animals or it refers to yarns spun from animal fleece. Will double-check on this!


• Lastly, I've been enjoying -- nay, loving! -- the CraftLit podcast, which I listen to when I'm slogging though stockinette hell or walking our local bike path. Why it rocks? Half the podcast is taken up with craft talk, mostly knitting, and the other half is a recorded book from the public domain ... and yes, my Anglophile friends, the books are mostly British! Host Heather Ordover has the most evocative voice and spot-on delivery. I'd listen to her read the ingredient list on a spray bottle of Roundup. And the lady knows her literature. I love that she prepares a little introduction to each chapter, offering tidbits on the social history of the time, explaining political history and etymology of words. (Who knew that Bram Stoker got off on the word "voluptuous"? I didn't.) Anyway, it's definitely worth a listen, and I heartily recommend Dracula, even if you're not a fan of horror fiction. The readers are excellent and it's truly a scary book.

Stop me if you think you've seen this before

My friend Jenna sent me the link to this film over the weekend. Being the huge Smiths fan, I'm embarrassed to admit I'd never seen this homage to Morrissey till now ... and indeed, while watching it, I had the weirdest feeling that it was a joke ("that joke isn't funny anymore") because Morrissey -- MORRISSEY -- wouldn't sanction something so self-congratulatory, would he? But it looks like he has, and despite its worshipful tone, it's a pretty good watch.

Three things I didn't know till I saw this film:

1. Morrissey has relocated to LA.

2. He's friends with Nancy Sinatra.

3. JK Rowling is a huge Smiths fan. (Hey, on that last one, you'll have to forgive ... I've yet to read a Harry Potter novel and I guess she thanks the Smiths in her acknowledgments.)

The one really bad thing about this film? Bono a/k/a the tiny windbag. I'll never forgive the New York Times for letting Bono loose in their editorial pages. The New York Times should promise never to sing Sunday Bloody Sunday, and Bono should promise never to pen editorials.

That is all. Enjoy!