Plodding On

Plodding on seems an apt title for my life at the moment. I'm trying to walk a little each day which adds to my general fatigue and the struggle to balance the little I am able to do without being ill and the things I would like to do. My current fun symptom is feeling sick. I have to do everything in half hour chunks or I start feeling sick and, if I ignore it, it just gets worse. Ah well ...

I find that the knitting I want to do at the moment involves lots of mindless repetition which means that I'm doing a lot of playing around with my basic Ten Stitch technique. 

This round cushion started life as a hat but was too big so it morphed into a cushion. I found a 30 cm diameter cushion pad in a charity shop that turned out to be just the right size. It's nearly but not quite knitted in one piece. The final circle is knitted separately and then sewn in place but the last round or so before that is worked with the pad in place which was rather strange. I ended up turning the cushion rather than the needles at the end of rows.

I thought how much easier it would be to knit a square ten stitch cushion cover so I've started one of those too.

The, of course, I had to have another go at the hat ...

Only time - and a lot of knitting and re-knitting - will tell if this one is going to work. I'm also plodding away at a ten stitch rug which is going to be one of the samples for my upcoming Ten Stitch Rectangle pattern.

I think I'm on the last round now. The idea is to show three different projects, each with different proportions to illustrate the formula for working any size rectangle. I've already knitted a long thin table runner.

Once the rug is finished I'll knit a table mat which will be much nearer a square and I think that'll be enough. Then I've just got to work out how to explain it all.

Once I've got the rectangle pattern done I want to get on with my Ten Stitch Oval. So far, I've only worked out the basic technique (which is fairly complicated) and knitted a sample.

I want to approach this in the same way as the rectangle, working a couple of different projects to illustrate the basic principle.

I've also been writing up a crochet shawl that I made last summer which, again, is a variation on a technique I've used before.

My Lazy Vee Shawl is worked  in a v stitch pattern from the top down using two colours, one plain and one variegated. The colours change every row but you don't need to cut the yarns which is why it's a 'lazy' technique. This is another good use for using King Cole Bramble which is my favourite variegated DK yarn.

My first project with this technique was my Lazy Vee Blanket which I crocheted again last year for a new baby, using Bramble as my coloured yarn.

I've also designed a Lazy Vee Scarf which turned out to be a very good way of toning down a somewhat bright variegated yarn.

I may have exhausted the possibilities of this particular technique now but who knows? The only other thing I've knitted lately is a pair of  Baby Boots for my new Great-Niece, Elsie Louise who was born at the end of January.

Another old pattern that I need to re-write and update.

I have been enjoying working slowly on some small cross stitch projects too. The first finish of the year was this lovely snowstorm beaded decoration kit which was in  my Christmas stocking.

It's one of a series of snowstorm kits by Mill Hill. It's worked on perforated paper; you do the cross stitch first and then add the beads with either half or full cross stitch depending on the size of the beads. I added a beaded chain to hang it by and then backed it with felt to hide all the messy ends.

Then, this week, I finished the first of the ornaments I'm making from this magazine which was also in my stocking at Christmas. Father Christmas did particularly well on the cross stitch front I think.

It took me ages to finish this one. The cross stitch was straightforward but putting it together was a pain. The only other stitching I've done is a little bit of Hardanger for a birthday card; I love Hardanger and plan to do more this year.

Oh yes, and I've started another one of my 3D beaded projects. Can you guess what it's going to be?

Obviously, it's going to be a little toadstool house, another pattern from ThreadABead. For anyone in Wales, ThreadABead are opening an actual, physical shop in Conwy this year. Can you imagine seeing those wonderful designs in real life? Which reminds me, Petite Properties, the designers of beautiful miniature dolls houses, are starting their own digital magazine this year, something I am eagerly awaiting. I wrote about my tiny house project here a few years ago. This year I'm determined to finish furnishing my little house and perhaps start another one.

One of the many things that I miss being able to do now is going to the theatre at Stratford with my son. We were gradually seeing all of Shakepeare's plays at the RSC but then Covid hit and I can no longer drive or cope with watching a long play in person. I can watch the plays on DVD because I can always stop them if I feel sick.

Anyway, I worked out the other week how many of the plays I didn't see and was surprised that, out of nearly 40 plays, I only missed eleven. My plan is to watch those on DVD when the RSC film those productions. I may have to wait a while for Henry VIII though which is rarely performed. My son has started going again on his own and, last week, I gave him a list of old programmes and books that I would like. He came back with four of the programmes I wanted and also got us each a copy of this book.

It's a very heavy book that the RSC published about ten years ago and which I thought was out of print. The RSC shop had a few copies reduced to £25 so we got a bargain. It has ten Elizabethan plays, most of which Shakespeare didn't have a hand in but it gives a good idea of what else was on the stage at the time. There are very good introductions to each play, extra essays and a really interesting section where actors or directors who have been involved in past productions talk about the plays.

Anyway, Jack and I were looking through our books together when we had the idea of reading them together. We're going to take one play a month, starting in March and read the play and all the essays about them and then talk about them together. The first one is Arden of Faversham which was inspired by a real life murder in Kent in 1551. If we stick to this, we should be ready to start reading through all the Shakespeare plays in 2025.

One more thing I've finished which may not look much but is a huge achievement for me is this 1,000 piece puzzle which I started over Christmas. For the past two months I've struggled with this. I've lost pieces (several times) and re-done the edge of the sky more times than I care to count but yesterday I put in the last piece.

It's an Otter House jigsaw; they have some lovely ones and they also come in smaller boxes than most puzzles, making them easier to store. Next I'm going to start on what will become my daughter's advent puzzle next Christmas. Let's hope it doesn't take me the rest of the year to finish it!

Badges and Brooches

When I was taking photos of my Round Nesting Boxes recently, I rooted out some of my old badges and brooches to put in them.

Before putting them away again, I took some photos as I thought you might like to see some of them. In the smallest box there's what you could call my magpie brooches - shiny ones!

I love the pretty costume jewellery you find with a coloured stone surrounded by metalwork.

The ones on the right are useful for keeping shawls in check; I've had all three of them for many years. The rest of the metal brooches are a mixture of fun ones and those associated with particular places / organisations / groups - I can't think of a word that covers them all.

The yellow oval is from the Children's Liver Disease Foundation, the charity I support through my work and the blue one next to it is from the Ring of Tatters. The three crests below represent the Universities my children and I went to. The one in the middle is Birmingham where I read English in the early 1980s. The red birds are Queen's where Jack read Maths and the last one is Lincoln where Rose read History.

In the next box are a selection of homemade brooches.

There are felt ones, beaded ones and a few based on Dorset Buttons, all made by me ...

I recently got a wonderful new book on Dorset Buttons from Gina-B Silkworks (their website is a great place to lose yourself) and am looking forward to working through it. When I do, I'll share my progress with you. In the meantime, here's a little brooch I made recently for a friend's birthday/

The other handmade brooches are much older, dating from the 1950s and 60s.

Patterns for these embroidered brooches would have been found in magazines of the time. Several of these were embroidered by my Mum as a young woman, others have been bought by me in antique shops.

What's next? More pretty old brooches.

My collection of china posy brooches, mostly dating from the mid twentieth century. These were made by various Staffordshire potteries and I just love them.

Most of mine were picked up in charity shops and the like but I have one given to me by a friend that belonged to her late mother and that dark red one was my Great-Grandmother's. One day I'm going to make a little fabric cushion to display them on.

The last two boxes have more humdrum contents. First, there's my collection of Shakespeare badges.

Before being struck down by Covid (and the never-ending Long Covid) Jack and I were regulars at the RSC which is only half an hours drive from here. As well as the programmes, I was building up a good collection of quotes badges too.

'

'Though she be but little, she is fierce' (Midsummer Night's Dream) struck a chord with so many that you can now find it used on all sorts of merchandise. Also shown are quotes from 'Love's Labour's Lost', 'Much Ado About Nothing', King Lear', 'As You Like It' and many more.

The contents of the final box might best be described as 'all the rest'.

There are book badges ...

... lots of puffins as I'm a collector of Puffin books. The Elmer badge was one of several I made for a  session at the Puffin shop in Covent Garden in 1991 when David McKee was signing his books.

The little boy at the front of the picture is my son, Jack, then aged three and yes, I knitted his Elmer jumper.

A few political badges next - that 'Don't blame me, I voted Labour' badge has been useful far too many times since I got it in 1983.

'For the many, not the few' was the slogan of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party - says it all.

These next ones are a mixed bunch. I particularly like my 'Santa's Little Helper' badge and the one about turning into your mother - happened years ago here! Quite a few of these were bought at News From Nowhere, a wonderful bookshop in Liverpool.

I also bought this card at News From Nowhere which is part of my Christmas display every year ...

The last collection are my knitting badges. And, before you ask, no, I can't remember where I got them but I think it was online so you could probably find them.

Aren't these great? Which ones do you like best? Perhaps the fact that I like 'Knitting for the Resistance' and 'Armed with pointy sticks' says something about my less than placid nature!

A Tale of Two Plays

In the last month I've been to see two plays at the RSC: Vice Versa at the Swan and Titus Andronicus at the main theatre.

As you can see from the programmes, they were a bit different. 'Vice Versa' is a new play, written by Phil Porter and described as a 'side-splitting comedy romp', inspired by the Roman playwright Plautus. On the other hand, 'Titus Andronicus' is famously the Shakespeare play with the highest body count (which is saying something). I leave you to guess which one I was looking forward to most ...

... which just goes to show how wrong you can be. 'Vice Versa' has had good reviews and most of the audience seemed to love it but it left both me and my son cold. There was no plot, no character development and the jokes were tediously predictable. For those of you of a certain age, think of a combination of 'Up Pompeii' and a 1970s panto. The production was excellent as were the actors but oh dear, what a play! We were still glad we'd gone as it gave us hours of conversation, trying to work out why it was so bad.

Now for 'Titus Andronicus'. This is one of the plays I don't know so I read it before going to see the play. Well ... there are three hands and one tongue cut off, a double rape and so many murders I lost count. By the time I finished reading I was feeling slightly sick. I knew that the play would be better though; for anyone who thinks Shakespeare is difficult, do go and see it live - it will all make sense in the theatre.

It's always interesting to see how each play is staged. Having seen 'Julius Caesar' and 'Antony and Cleopatra' this year which were both in Roman dress, I had assumed that this one would be too. Instead, Rome's Capitol was distinctly reminiscent of the White House, complete with podium, microphone and Secret Service men talking into their radios. The microphone itself almost stood in for the Emperor's crown (or should that be laurel wreath?) and the Emperor Saturninus himself was brilliantly played by Martin Hutson as an immature and needy politician.

Yes, there was a lot of blood, but what was most chilling was the build up to the various murders with the actors becoming increasingly frightened as their fate became apparent. Hannah Morrish's performance as Lavinia crawling on to the stage after her brutal rape was incredibly moving. There was complete silence from the audience as she flinched away from her uncle and brother.

And, as is always the case with Shakespeare, there was humour, often involving members of the audience as the actors broke the tenison by speaking to them directly (word of advice - if audience participation isn't your thing, don't sit in the front row of the stalls at the RSC). We were also amused by the man in the front row who, each time he was handed the 'baby' by the actor playing Lucius, hurriedly passed it on to the woman sitting next to him! It was quite a realistic baby but even so ...

All in all, it was a fantastic play and gave us lots to think about. As my son pointed out, with all those deaths there wasn't a single suicide which was interesting given that it was a Roman play. There was lots of pleading for mercy which, in many other Shakespeare plays, would have had some effect but which never did here. And that led to more murders as each one served as revenge for the last.

So, that's the two most recent plays I've seen. We've booked our tickets for the Winter season now and will be going to see Coriolanus and Twelfth Night, as well as Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage and Kingdom Come which is a new play set in the English Civil War. Next month we're going to see Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare's poem, performed with the help of puppets. Lot's of interesting stuff there.

I don't get out much ...

... but when I do, I go to the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) at Stratford-upon-Avon. It's only about half an hour's drive from here and my son and I go to all the Shakespeare plays.

Absolutely every play they put on is brilliant. The acting is wonderful, as is the music, the lighting ... you get the idea. I've particularly enjoyed Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet and Michelle Terry as Beatrice  but there are so many outstanding performances it's hard to choose. 

Last week we went to see Antony and Cleopatra and then we're going to Julius Caesar in a few weeks' time (wrong order, I know). The first Shakespeare play I ever saw was 'Antony and Cleopatra'. I was studying it for A Level and came on a trip up from Hampshire to Stratford to see it. It was 1978 and Glenda Jackson was playing Cleopatra - not a bad introduction to Shakespeare on stage!

If anyone is thinking that Shakespeare sounds like hard work, I recommend going to see one of the plays; they're easy to follow when acted. If you can't get to the theatre, the RSC is bringing out DVDs of their productions. I would recommend the two DVDs of Love's Labour's Lost and Love's Labour's Won as an excellent starting point. They're dramatic, funny and full of brilliant songs.

The Shakespeare films made by Kenneth Branagh are also really good. There's an excellent Much Ado About Nothing (my favourite play) or how about Love's Labour's Lost staged as a Thirties Musical? A couple of year's ago I was lucky enough to see Kenneth Branagh in The Winter's Tale at The Garrick.  It was wonderful.

I shall leave you with one of my favourite speechs from Much Ado - not Benedick or Beatrice but Don John, railing against his brother whom he is forced to follow after an unsuccessful rebellion.

'I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.'

Act I, Scene III.