Ambridge

Warning! this post may seem both tedious and incomprehensible to anyone who is not an Archers fan . . .

I arrived home from work yesterday to find that a thrilling package had turned up in the post. On opening the envelope, the mere words “Ambridge DK and chunky,” were enough to send me into hysteric raptures. Tom could get no sense out of me for quite some time. “Look!” I shrieked, “check out Christine Barford in her horse-themed intarsia!” Ravelry really is an amazing thing. Last week, on the lively Archers’ discussion board, Woolhemina mentioned that she had six copies of a booklet of patterns featuring the characters of everyone’s favourite long-running BBC radio soap clad in delightful ’80s knitwear. I was lucky enough to score the last one. Life may never be the same again.

(Conservative prig, Shula Hebden Lloyd, sports an appropriately hideous tyrolean / intarsia combo whilst wolfing down Granny P’s ginger snaps)

I am not ashamed to say that I am a long-time Archers listener. I became obsessed with it while completing my first University degree. I well recall preparing for exams while being gripped by Clive Horrobin’s notorious raid on the village post office and Susan Carter’s subsequent imprisonment (oh, that she might have stayed inside!). I didn’t own a TV until 1999, and till then, my sole source of frothy-narrative-pleasure came courtesy of Brookfield and Grange Farm. A decade passed by to the sounds of Mark and Caroline’s car crash, Nelson’s disappearance, the destruction of GM crops, the doings of the evil Simon Pemberton. Oh, happy days!

(Wild child, Kate Aldridge, as an infant. Nice sheep-adorned duffle – but what a discomfiting stare! The gaze of Beelzebub is clearly a sign of what’s to come.)

What’s interesting about my Archers fascination – both then and now — is that, with a very few exceptions (Ed, Fallon, Jill) I despise, or am annoyed by every single character. But perhaps being irritated (or, in the case of Kenton, perpetually embarrassed) is part of the pleasure of The Archers. I love to shout at the radio whenever whingeing, needy Emma appears (will she ever get her comeuppance?), bawl expletives at Shula (I think I hate her most of all) or berate the script writers for representing Lynda’s concerns about the preservation of ancient rights of way as unnecessarily absurd. And clearly The Archers has this effect on others as well. My Dad, who is a very mild, easy-going sort of man, professes a violent dislike for Dayvidd Archer. “Its something about his voice,” he told me, “he’s just so bloody smug.” Indeed, its in the exchanges between Dayvidd and the vile Pipsqueak (his firstborn) that my Archers affection finds its limits. If they start discussing another earthworm survey, or reinforcing their father-daughter bond over the intricacies of bovine parturition, I just have to turn the radio off.

(Dayvidd Archer: the most hated man on radio?)

For those of you who don’t know, The Archers is Britain’s longest-running soap opera: set in a small rural community in the Midlands, and developed under consultation with the Ministry of Agriculture, it was originally designed to inform as well as entertain. The first episode was broadcast in the Spring of 1950–when post-war rationing was still in force–and the narrative provided a context for the dramatisation of themes that might improve productivity and accelerate the modernisation of British farming. The rural setting still remains the occasion for much issue-led drama, and the short lapse between recording and transmisssion often allows the programme to respond to urgent and pressing events in the British farming world (such as foot and mouth, or Bovine TB). So while I despise most of the characters, and though I think the show’s script writing is often pretty poor, I do enjoy its country context. Indeed, perhaps the most pleasing thing about The Archers is its pace and rhythm. Unlike other soaps, events unfold in real time. In this sense, the choices of the show’s writers and editors are often brave and important. Compare, for example, the different ways in which Coronation Street and The Archers have dealt with dementia-related storylines: in Coronation Street, a character was diagnosed and whisked off screen within a matter of weeks, while in The Archers, the condition is unfolding, slowly and painfully, over months and years, highlighting many life-changing, distressing and difficult decisions. Things take time, on The Archers, and they are also reassuringly regular, predictable. My life is neither regular or predictable, and for me, it is sad but true that each year’s diurnal round can be measured by familiar Archers events: the village panto, the single wicket contest, the flower and produce show, the happy reappearance of the Grundy World of Christmas. “When shall I make the Christmas cake?” Tom asked me, just a few days ago. “Not sure,” I said, “just wait until Jill Archer mentions Stir-up-Sunday . . . “

(Jill Archer. Baking and beekeeping doyenne).

Now: to the patterns. The booklet makes reference to the death of Polly Perks, and Nelson’s wine bar: I reckon that dates it to 1982 or 3. As one might imagine, it is peppered with ’80s attrocities (the thing that Caroline is wearing is just too horrendous to show), but there are actually some interesting patterns in here. One in particular caught my eye. . . . I have stared at this garment sported by prejudiced Brummy landlord, Sid Perks, many times, and am still not sure whether its pint-pot-and-dart motifs are a work of design genius, or a source of knitting horror. You must decide for yourselves.

(I like to think that Sid’s gesture suggests guilt, as he finally acknowledges his own appalling homophobia.)

As you can see at the top of this post, in addition to the patterns, Argyll Wools (still listed as a going business concern in Guiseley) also issued an Ambridge yarn range. Ambridge Yarn! Amazing! The fibre-composition is very much of its time, combining “the softness of machine washable wool enhanced with the durability of nylon”, but it did come in 33 shades, of which just 5 would enable you to knit a Sid Perks pint pot sweater! I am beginning to dream of unused skeins of Ambridge yarn lurking around the nation’s charity shops. Imagine!

As well as the more outlandish ’80s designs, I actually think many of the men’s garments in the booklet are rather pleasing — in particular this pair of sweaters sported by Phil and Jethro. I felt quite moved to see this happy picture of Norman Painting, sans beard. Archers listeners will know that Painting — who is depicted on the left, and who played Phil Archer — died a couple of weeks ago at the age of 85. His voice was heard in the first episode of the programme in May 1950, and will last be heard in one to be broadcast on November 22nd. A successful script writer as well as an actor, Painting also wrote over a thousand Archers‘ episodes in the 60s, 70s and early 80s — often attempting to write Phil out of the narrative to give himself a rest. I actually own a copy of Painting’s Archers memoir, Forever Ambridge (ahem), and I’ll remember Phil most for his love of pigs (which I share). I was very pleased to see him included in my now-to-be-treasured Archers pattern booklet.

*PS Those who have not yet experienced the delights of The Archers may be interested to note that you can download each episode as a podcast. Hurrah!*

**PPS I am feeling better**

outing

It has been a very frustrating week. I’ve not been up to anything much, and have been unable to go outdoors. Tom decided to cheer me up with a non-taxing outing, and we drove to Hawick. I love to walk in the Borders, but when one cannot walk, pootling around in the car will do just fine. In a curious way, the landscape reminds me of home (Lancashire) with its hedgerows, its dry stone walls. By this, of course, I mean that what is familiar to me is the way that the land is parcelled up — the way that property and productivity are visible in it — and in this sense the steep valleys, the mill buildings, the nineteenth-century workers’ housing, are very familiar to me as well. Like Lancashire, this is textile country. What industry remains — in the brand-led processing of luxury yarns — is a mere vestige of what it once was, and yet the past inspires a tremendous amount of local pride. This is very evident in the new Borders Textile Towerhouse, which has recently opened, and is well worth a visit. The building (a restored sixteenth-century fortified tower) is truly fabulous, and the historical exhibits are thoughtfully and carefully put together. I liked the wheels, frames, and looms. . .

. . . and you can’t go wrong with a Trade Union Banner — particularly one that depicts and celebrates the stocking frame.

Tom inspected some knitwear. . .

. . . found himself a new bonnet.

and pondered the practicality of the kilt combinations.

Upstairs, there was an exhibit exploring the ‘future’ of Borders’ textiles, which largely focused on golf sweaters, and Vivienne Westwood. Now, the sweaters aren’t really my thing, but I will say (having examined them carefully) that they were beautifully designed and exceptionally well-made. However, I was so disappointed to encounter berloody Westwood, yet again. However hard one tries, one just can’t get away from her! I can think of several other exhibitions in several other Scottish institutions, all of which explore the past and future of Scottish textiles — and all of which conclude with some obligatory tartan / argyle / tweedy gubbins designed by Westwood. Whether or not one wants the ‘future’ of Scottish textiles to look like Westwood’s parodic aristocratic costumes, one certainly has to question whether Scotland really wants to celebrate a designer whose bespoke ‘Scottish’ materials are often not what they purport to be, and whose shameless appropriation of the Harris Tweed Orb has probably done more harm than good. (Yes, you can tell I talked to the weavers of Harris when I was last there). But whatever one thinks of Westwood, to have her represent the future of Borders’ textiles to me suggests a certain paucity of imagination. Over the past few years, I’ve met so many superb independent Scottish weavers, designers, artists, and makers — all of whom are graduates of the Borders’ textile college at Galashiels. Why not devote this fine, new exhibition space to some exciting, contemporary, truly forward-looking and local talent, rather than a hasbeen of metropolitan high fashion?

(spot the difference!)

Invigorated by anti-Westwood feeling, we went outside and bought some Hawick balls for my cough, and I got Tom to take a picture of my new hat.

This is the much-made Sideways Grande Cloche from Laura Irwin’s Boutique Knits. It was a quick knit, but — as I was attempting to manipulate a super-bulky yarn on 5.5 mm needles — not a particularly enjoyable one. I wanted to create a very dense, firm fabric — and it is certainly that. Following Mel and Sarah’s advice, I cast on 27 stitches (rather than the 45 recommended), and made several knitterly modifications to a suprisingly non-knitterly pattern (casting on provisionally; joining the brim with 3 needle bind off; knitting the crown in the round &c). I won’t be making another one of these in a hurry, but this is a very jolly hat, that goes well with a jolly coat, and which I can hide my non-jolly flu-ridden phiz in. It is ravelled here.

property

(Scavenging for minerals among the hazardous electronic waste at a dump in Accra. Image © Times Online)

Having recently replaced the mac I work on at home, I needed to get rid of my old one. This machine was five years old, had been repaired several times, and was becoming rather unreliable. I didn’t want to sell it, and neither did I want to give it to a charity shop to sell, since a buyer might (quite rightly) complain when it gave up the ghost. It might, however, be useful to someone who was in need of a computer. So I listed the mac on freecycle — a system I like both because of its informal grass-roots element, and because it keeps stuff out of landfill. I received over 80 responses in a couple of hours. Many of these were a plain “yes, please I’ll have it”, some were a little peculiar in their human-interest element, and some responses were a little disturbing and demanding. I ignored the last category, and out of the rest selected a recipient who lived nearby and who, when he turned up to collect the mac, was just as pleasant and straightforward as he’d sounded. Late yesterday evening I changed the freecycle listing to ‘taken’, and thanked everyone for their interest. And then the weirdness started. I began to receive a barrage of odd emails. Some of these messages were from people who told me they were kicking themselves for not noticing my ad earlier. Some emails came from individuals who were slightly peeved that I hadn’t selected them, and felt like telling me about it. I received one berating me for not noticing that they had placed a ‘wanted’ ad for a computer a few weeks ago. And then there were the others – the messages which a) told me I was stupid, or b) informed me that they were sure they were a much more worthy recipient than the person I’d selected. There were quite a few of these. Here are the ‘best’:

‘”Gone to a Good home” — unlikely — suggest you check ebay or gumtree over the next few weeks. At least I would have kept it and used it for my kids education’

‘You’ve just thrown away £300 of YOUR money. It winds me up how naive some people are.’

Now, perhaps I am naive — in the sense that I think that people are perfectly capable of participating in systems of exchange where money is not involved. I am of course also canny enough to realise that many resellers may well use freecycle for profit — but frankly, this is their business, and not mine. In getting rid of the mac I was pleased to be able to help someone out with something that they needed and I didn’t — but this pleasure was not essential to the transaction. I was simply getting rid of a thing that I didn’t need, and that I didn’t want to sell because it was an unreliable thing of uncertain value. If someone else felt able to sell that thing then that would be, as I said, their business. But what I did not want to do was to relegate a thing that still worked, and which could still be of some use, to the tip, where it would end up on one of those mountains of poisonous waste with which we are now blithely polluting Ghana and Brazil, and which are the stuff of my nightmares. So to the individuals who have sent me these peculiar, abusive, and upsetting messages, I would like to say that the worthiness of the recipient of the thing is not really an issue: the point is that the thing is being recycled and put to use, rather than being thrown away. However, if you do want to bring a moral element into such exchanges, you might like to think of the bigger picture: the one that is at the top of this post. Thankyou.

process

Needled reviews: The F-Word. Tuesdays, 9pm, Channel 4
Richard Sennett, The Craftsman (Allen Lane, 2008)

Don’t get me wrong, I do not like The F-Word, but it is worth watching it occasionally for a few cheap laughs. You know the bit I mean: when Gordon tells you how to make his pea and lettuce soup in just one minute, all in words of just one syllable. Riotous! We are somehow meant to see Gordon’s failure to use any adjectives at all as the signature of his virility, “full of balls, energy, and really great food,” as the Channel-4 tag-line puts it. (Full of balls? Sure is. . .) And the gender stereotypes peddled in Gordon’s brisk how-tos are just as strange and crass as those associated with Nigella. Man does not describe. Oh no. Describing words redundant, and unmanly. Man only know how to use imperative. Imperative style of cooking instructions works best with short, firm words. More difficult with two syllables. Very hard to make the word “mushrooms” sound manly. “Mushrooms” does not sound like manly decree. Man quickly mutters “mushrooms” then gets on with real business of shouting Real Man Words. “WHISK! TOSS! STIR!” etc. If Nigella’s mellifluous, adjectival style is supposed to be read in direct relation to her cleavage, then the F-Word’s use of the imperative might be seen as the culinary equivalent of a wanking circle, with wee Gordon in the centre, braying out commands (Shaft! Girth! Beat! Etc)

Gordon.

But I bring the F-word to your attention because of a particular moment in Tuesday’s show. The redoubtable Janet Street Porter appeared on set, fresh from her carefully stage-managed experience of rearing and slaughtering two veal calves. The viewer had already been treated to the money-shot of the poor beasts’ deaths, and what we clearly needed now was Janet to preach at us about our lamentable food-buying habits. We must never buy cheap meat again. No we mustn’t. Instead, we should feast only on luxury meat products humanely reared by media luminaries. While dispensing her new-found farming wisdom, Janet was dressed in a formless top, machine-knit in a vibrant shade of puce. It was a truly hideous garment (sorry, Janet).

“I suppose you knit that yourself?” said Gordon, inferring that Janet’s experience of slaughtering “her boys” had turned her all rustic, or something.
“No I fooking didn’t, Gordon,” retorted Janet, “this is a designer item.”

puce

Now, I know that I’m more sensitive than your average jane to anti-knitting slurs, but this was about so much more than knitting. Janet enthused about how raising the calves, and watching the process of their lives and deaths, had completely transformed her perception of meat. She now knew what was involved with what she put on her plate. And everyone should think about how the meat they eat is raised and killed. Apart from the patronising attitude, and the unavoidable questions Janet did not address about cost, class, and the ethics of raising a niche luxury product like veal, this is sort of fair enough. Yes, Janet. We should all think about process, and production. But, the problem is, that she hadn’t really engaged with process at all. She had merely played a game to camera: a game with a neatly plotted narrative arc, with contrived hooks and encounters, with a particular rhetorical language (that of reluctant maternity—quite bizarre) and with moments of typically ‘direct’ and ‘irreverant’ Street-Porter-like entertainment. “’Oh no, it’s pooing again’, moans Janet,” to quote The F-Word website. Janet had engaged about as much with the slow processes and difficult realities of farming as she had with the making of her sweater, and her quick retort about the obvious superiority of ‘designer’ to ‘hand-made’ spoke volumes.

So is it just me, or does so much of this currently popular moralising about process (particularly as it concerns food) have an incredibly hollow ring? It is just far too easy for Gordon, Janet and their like to preach to the middle classes about the importance of the means of producing edible luxuries, before nipping out to snap up, promote, or sell other commodities with little thought about the process of their making—or the livelihoods of their makers, for that matter.

But one place where such discussions of process are neither hollow or easy is in Richard Sennett’s excellent new book, The Craftsman. If you haven’t read it yet, you definitely should. In a series of radical, lyrical essays, this venerable sociologist makes the case for a reassessment of the idea of work itself. The making of things for use or beauty are never, he argues, a matter of individual brilliance, the romantic imagination, or isolated talent. Rather, for him, excellence lies somewhere between the eye and hand, in material practices and processes, and the slow engagement with them over time. Sennett’s notion of craft is something equally applicable to the design of a mobile-phone or a line of linux code, as much as a Stradivari violin , or a particular recipe for Poulet a la d’Albufera. For him, all these ‘crafts’ involve the same struggle with tools and processes, the same issues of encountering and solving problems, of developing and refining skill and focus, of learning how repetition itself can be creative, and of coming to know the singular pleasure of doing something well for its own sake. It is a book of tremendous breadth and sweep but which is also rich in details. In fact, for me, Sennett’s singularity, both as a writer and a public intellectual, is found in such details: in the bumper that really bothers him in the parking garage of a post-modern building; in his discussion of the symbolic values of bricks; in his thoughtful self-awareness of being an outsider as he watches a group of healthcare professionals transfixed by the image of a troublesome large intestine. And any man who can begin a sentence with the words “consider, for instance, an irregular tomato” and from that opening build an argument about the how an idea of virtue inheres in thing-ness, is OK by me.

Epinglier (pin making) Diderot, Encyclopedie (1762)

Lurking around the back of Sennett’s thesis is a familiar argument about the de-humanising effects of the modern and post-modern division of labour. He is quite explicit about his fondness for the all-encompassing curiosity of the mid-eighteenth century, or the undifferentiated artisanal labour of the medieval workshop. Not for him Adam Smith’s efficiently produced pins. This practical resistance to the division of labour—and the division of knowledge too, perhaps—is something he clearly applies to his own intellectual craft-work. He writes about the way children treat the spaces and equipment of playgrounds just as articulately as he does about Martin Heidegger.

Sennett’s thoughts about process have multiple and resonant contexts for me. For example, his remarks about being-in-the-thing came to my mind very strongly, when I read Mandy’s account of the pleasure of the rhythm of knitting her swallowtail shawl:

“We might think, as did Adam Smith describing industrial labour, of routine as mindless, that a person doing something over and over goes missing mentally; we might equate routine and boredom. For people who develop sophisticated hand skills, it’s nothing like this. Doing something over and over is stimulating when organised as looking ahead. The substance of the routine may change, metapmorhose, improve, but the emptional payoff is one’s experience of doing it again. There’s nothing strange about this experience. We all know it; it is rhythm. Built into the contractions of the human heart, the skilled crafsman has extended rhythm to the hand and eye.” (p. 175)

. . .and his section on mess chimes very strongly with Felix’s and Kirsty’s Messy Tuesdays posts:

“To arrive at that goal [that of being fit-for-purpose] the work process has to do something distasteful to the tidy mind, which is to dwell temporarily in mess—wrong moves, false starts, dead ends. Indeed, the probing craftsman does more than encounter mess; he or she creates it as a means of understanding working procedures.” (p.161)

And what Sennett has to say about the importance of modesty, and the awareness of one’s own inadequacies, while engaging with material processes is very moot too. Perhaps this is something for Janet and Gordon to bear in mind.

*You can hear Richard Sennett talking with Laurie Taylor and Grayson Perry about craftsmanship, and process in this episode of Thinking Allowed.

miscellany

The postie has been bringing me a right bag of treats lately. Here’s a selection.

Big thanks to Lara, Felix, Jesse, Annushka, and Philippa!

The top pic shows some absolutely delicious Oxford Kitchen Yarn’s sock yarn in the plum colourway. The colour (which is not quite true in the photo) has a precise and very evocative childhood association for me — of blackcurrant jam mixed into rice pudding (thanks so much, L!) You see here also lovely buttons, badges and ribbons, as well as the Fantastical Reality Radio Show activity booklet which has brought me untold joy over the past few days. It has also made me strangely — nay, not a little obsessively — aware of ordinary household sounds. Mr B was bemused to discover me with a dictaphone, recording the sounds of making a pot of tea. And you’ll see from the last photo that I’m already putting Philippa’s red grossgrain to good use. More of this later.

Meanwhile, miscellaneous weekend things.
A sunday lunch of bread and beer:

I made the bread (unusual, this, as I don’t bake much) but not the beer. It is a dark mild – much lighter and more refreshing than it looks in that picture – delicious.

Also, I made a keyring with a bee in it. Just because I could.

did you know you can get a bag of blank keyrings for around 3p each on ebay? well you can . . .

Finally, something to see and something to avoid from the past couple of days.

ONE TO SEE: The Writing in The Sand, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Amber Films (1991).
Having frequented the Side Gallery, cinema and cafe in Newcastle, and admiring the work of the Amber collective, I was looking forward to this DVD immensely, and it did not disappoint. Built out of of Konttinen’s fabulous photographs of the beaches and people of the North East, The Writing on the Sand is a miracle of editing: narrative-driven and highly cinematic. I am fond of British documentaries about leisure, and particularly seaside-associated leisure, but am often troubled by how treatments of this theme patronise their subjects. Lindsay Anderson’s O! Dreamland is a case in point (much as I love Lindsay Anderson). Written in the Sand, though, is a frank and affectionate, exuberant and celebratory portrait of people enjoying themselves outside. It’s really a great piece of work. And, as well as being a stunning document of the changeable and well-loved beaches and climate of the North East over the past 20 years; and providing an evocative, poetic critique of the effects of marine pollution, this short film also also conveys a very powerful message about the importance of public (and particularly recreational) space, and the threat to it from the wholescale privatisation of the British landscape — our beaches in particular. Eat that, Donald Trump (together with your plans for turning the dunes of Balmedie into golfing-hell)

I’m now very tempted to buy this book of Konttinen’s original photographs.

ONE TO AVOID:
Why, when I read the blurb (Michael Jackson connects with Marilyn Monroe on a Scottish island retreat for celebrity impersonators) did I think it might be a good idea to go and see Mister Lonely? Why, having disliked with a passion every other film I’ve seen by Harmony Korine did I still go and see it? I suspect the presence of Samantha Morton swung it for me, but that was two hours of my life I will never get back again. If I start going on about just how bad a film this was I’ll never stop . . .but it was seriously vacuous twaddle, made all the worse the worse for thinking that it actually had something to say. I soon got bored of noticing James Fox and David Blaine, or wondering what on earth Werner Herzog was doing there &c &c, and had to divert myself for the last hour and a half of the film (groan) by thinking about the design and construction of the lacy cardigan worn by the Shirley Temple impersonator. One final thing, though: by anybody’s standards, Diego Luna makes a terrible Michael Jackson.

self-referential

The best thing about this intermewebnet thingy is, for me, it’s debates and exchanges. When I posted a review of Jane Brocket’s Gentle Art of Domesticity a couple of months ago, I was bowled away by the comments I received and the lively debate that the book engendered. There were several comments from individuals who did not share my opinion. I also received a number of emails from people with a different point of view to my own. I ‘approved’ all of these comments and I also responded to the emails. Without exception, I found these messages thoughtful and articulate. These people had an argument to make and wanted to express it, share it and put their name to it. However heated the discussion, there is something both stimulating and refreshing in this kind of exchange.

I have been away for a few days because of a family crisis. When I returned I discovered in my ‘moderation queue’ a comment of such laughable stupidity I thought I’d share it with you:

Perhaps if ‘poo’ had the balls to identify her/himself, or the nounce to express her/himself in a discourse other than that of the playground, we might channel our difference of opinion into intelligent debate.

The domestic in drag

needled reviews:
Nigella Express, BBC2, Mondays, 8.30pm
Jane Brocket, The Gentle Art of Domesticity (Hodder & Stoughton, 2007)

Despite my best efforts to avoid it, last night I encountered Nigella Express. It was much more diverting than I’d assumed. Indeed, Mr B and I spent the programme in a state of near hysteria. How we roared as Nigella, taking the pornography of the edible right back in to the bedroom, oozed from her sheets resplendent in an oil-black nightie, apparently suffering a nuit blanche of donut withdrawal. In fact, the only un-funny thing in this truly ludicrous half hour was the orgy of irresponsible consumption it depicted. Nigella popped open and discarded a small planet’s worth of plastic while purring vacuously about ‘convenience.’

I was utterly transfixed by the spectacular Ms Lawson. Like a bizarre fusion of Russell Brand and Ab Fab’s Eddie she emoted and threw shapes about the kitchen. There was something reminiscent of the Spitting Image puppet of Margaret Thatcher about her too: all ruthless, insane, and glinting. Most intriguing of all, it wasn’t just Nigella’s self-consciously excessive presence that was so powerfully suggestive of transvestism, but the gorgeous interiors of her home as well. From the sensuous sanctuary of her pantry (usefully marked “pantry”) to the consolations of her tea-pot; from the tearful, cookie-munching friend on her sofa to the privately-educated child obligingly performing its homework, this was an absurd parody of privileged domesticity: This was the domestic in drag.

I was also struck by the strange allure of the drag-domestic while reading Jane Brocket’s Gentle Art of Domesticity. Now, as an enthusiastic practitioner of the ‘arts’ Brocket celebrates, and someone who has occasionally looked at Yarnstorm, I felt compelled to be sympathetic to, and even to defend, her book. The bizarrely rabid attacks in The Daily Telegraph or on last week’s Woman’s Hour have, it seems to me, largely been voiced by individuals who just don’t get how sewing, knitting, quilting, or cooking could possibly provide a stimulating form of expression for any contemporary woman. Kate Saunders and Liz Hunt seem to regard such activities as somehow antithetical to one of feminism’s key goals, viz, women’s equal participation in the modern public sphere—a perspective which is not only short sighted but, given the sheer numbers of women who have over the past decade discovered a renewed sense of themselves in the creative energy of all sorts of crafts, weirdly old fashioned. And for any crafter there are certainly things to like and admire about Brocket’s book: her passionate appreciation of buttons, her visceral and individual sense of colour and, most particularly for me, her thoughtful and moving account of the embroidered table cloths she loves and collects. After discussing five distinctive and very different examples of the same popular 1930s transfer design Brocket writes of how she finds “comfort in handling these textiles knowing that I am appreciating something that was of great value to its maker.” For me, it was worth reading the book simply for her fond account of these objects, the “art” of which is so often overlooked, or dismissed.

But however much I want to like Brocket there are things I found profoundly troubling about her book. The first thing to note is that this is not a book about crafts or domesticity in any sort of broad sense, this is a book about Jane Brocket’s version of those things. So at first I thought my wary reaction to her domesticity might well be just a matter of personal taste: I am not quite so fond of pink or pineapples; of the sentimental art of the late Victorians or (shudder) of Jane Austen adaptations as Ms Brocket. And, after a while, the relentlessly saccharine palate and sing-song tone of the book started to induce in me vauge feelings of nausea. Then I started to realise that, in a sense, this was entirely the point: the whole purpose of the book is to absorb you in the all-encompassing syrupy aesthetic that is Brocket-world: A world where there is always a clean, fresh shirt on the line and a cake on the table; where each member of the family will be perpetually wrapped cosily in its favourite quilt and the colours of your comfy shoes will always match those of your current knitting project. Like the performing home and family depicted in Nigella Express, the world of Jane Brocket is one of luscious surfaces, sensory overload and visual excess….with something (for me at least) hollow and questionable at its core. The book celebrates a sort of hyper-real—or indeed drag—early twenty-first century version of a 1950s domestic ideal. Reading The Gentle Art of Domesticity was like being in a film by Douglas Sirk (or perhaps Todd Haynes’ intelligent homage to that master of the ‘woman’s film’) but, terrifyingly, without any of the irony or critique.

(Far From Heaven’s incisive critique of the domestic-in-drag)

It is not that Brocket is incapable of thinking critically about the conventions and meanings of the domesticity she espouses. On the contrary, she reminds us several times of her graduate qualifications and, in the rather odd readings of several late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century depictions of domesticity, showcases a certain discursive intelligence. She also writes that the domestic was for her an active choice—one apparently belittled by an ‘academic’ schooling haunted by the ghosts of the Pankhursts. But then she holds up for our unquestioning admiration domestic icons and female role models so conservative it really is like feminism never happened. Can any woman seriously champion Doris Day in Young at Heart as a positive image of domesticity? I’m sure even DD herself could maintain an ironic distance from that one. The same goes for The Philadelphia Story, which Brocket regards as a Lovely Escapist Story with no sense at all of how that most patriarchal of narratives makes Kate Hepburn’s frigidity a symptom of her terribly unreasonable failure to accept Dad’s harmless philandering. And its not just these obvious and conventional images of middle-class female repression that Brocket draws into the weird idyll that is Brocket-world. How can she talk about Cary Grant and his clothes without even acknowledging an idea of camp? Is she for real?

All pink hearts and pinafores, Jane Brocket is incredibly camp too but, unlike Archibald Leach performing Cary Grant, without any of the considered self-awareness. And this is what is really so disturbing and ultimately shocking about her book. For her “gentle arts” are not gentle at all but are built on the twin pillars of privilege and inequality. This book is a shameless defence of luxury and leisure, of a world in which women are not only financially supported by wealthy men but are incredibly happy to be so; a world in which women are there not to work, not to be public or political or economically productive beings, but merely to consume vast quantities of lovely raw commodities; make lovely handmade items from those commodities; and then celebrate the virtues of those lovely handmade things as somehow ends in themselves. (Oh, and they can enjoy chocolate too. How naughty!) Brocket is so relentlessly bourgeois, so utterly self-satisfied that she is completely incapable of stepping back from her own entrenched class position and thinking critically about her own conservative version of domesticity, and its relation to her own economic advantage. Anyone who can write, as she does on page 206, about the cheering spectacle of happy servants might do well to have a chat with one intelligent knitter I know, who also supports herself and her family on her cleaner’s wage. Sorry, Jane, but I think you should have considered the realities (or indeed history) of domestic labour at greater length before you assumed to write about domesticity, and thought a little bit more carefully about the implications of “domestic art” before you elevated the materials and objects of your gaudy, expensive, and incredibly fortunate life to that status.

corners and cables

It is perhaps hard to make the case for place mats and oven mits as exciting projects, but I experienced their mild excitement this weekend. Having acquired Denyse Schmidt Quilts largely on the grounds of Ashley’s gorgeous scarves I decided it was time to attempt something small-scale involving piecing and binding. First I made a couple of these:

I refer to the mat, not the delicious plumb cake (which I did not make but helped consume). Check out the mitred corners! Cue mild excitement! I have to say that Schmidt’s instructions for binding in this way were very clear, and, indeed, better than Amy Karol’s….but this is because, frankly, part of my brain appears to be missing when reading sewing instructions. Karol did not point out that one cuts the threads and removes the thing from the machine before turning, folding and continuing to sew. Yes, I *know* I should have realised. Snicker not, o ye experienced sempstress.

Here are a couple of mats, one waiting for its binding to be finished, plus the oven mit:

Not even mildly exciting, are they? Nonetheless, they are pleasing and functional and taught me to machine quilt, albeit in a very basic fashion, as well as apply binding in two different ways.

I am certainly a fan of the Schmidt aesthetic, though perhaps rather less so of Schmidt herself. I listened to her CraftSanity interview and was somewhat perturbed by her attitude to the Amish women whose labour – and, indeed cultural reputation as crafters of exceptional skill – enable her to produce and market her “couture” quilts. Schmidt has never met these women, nor (at Jennifer Ackerman Haywood’s prompting) seemed remotely curious to do so. She was not interested in whether the women liked or respected her designs. She expressed mild irritation that she could not “save some money” by commissioning their work without an agent. For doing so involved communicating by the clearly arcane (in Schmidt’s world) medium of pen and paper: “the Amish don’t do email.” She also remarked amusedly on the added complication of “them all having the same name.”

Now, as a woman whose business is quilts Schmidt is of course going to be primarily concerned with quality of product and income generated. But I found it rather shocking to hear someone whose distinctive designs are so closely bound up with a particular medium and its history (and indeed is intelligently aware of that fact) express so little respect for the women who continue to practice that craft, and keep the skills of their foremothers alive in traditional ways….to say nothing of the added value that “the Amish ladies” (to quote Schmidt’s website) lend to her high-end products and their sales.

Please understand that I do not subscribe to some rabidly utilitarian view of quilting. Nor do I object to anyone applying contemporary business models to traditional crafts. I am simply rather surprised when people who profess to be interested in the work of women’s hands can dismiss the identities of those who labour for them in a way that is all the more troubling for being, as Schmidt appeared in the interview, entirely unselfconscious.

Rant over.

I also began a new knitting project this weekend. It is designed by yours truly, and involves the lovely new cocoon wool from Rowan, and some giant cables:

more from this soon….

domiknitrix: (not quite) eating my words

Two knitting books turned up yesterday: Jennifer Stafford’s DominKNITrix and Wendy Keele’s Poems of Color: Knitting in the Bohus Tradition. I spent a most enjoyable evening with them both (more on the Bohus book later). Now, I am suspicious, as you know, of Stafford. I really didn’t warm to her when interviewed, couldn’t see the point of the whole Dominknitrix thang, and even found some of her lengthy reminiscing mildly offensive (For her, Europe seemed a whacky ol’ themepark designed solely for expatriate American delectation. Rural Slovakia is, like, medieval! Istanbul looked like a scene from the bible! &c &c).

However, her book is actually more interesting than I imagined it would be. The real point of the book it seemed to me (and certainly what I found most engaging about it) is Stafford’s integration of techniques more commonly used in sewing to handknitted design. She avoids some common knitting shortcuts (3 needle bind off makes an inflexible seam &c &c) and goes out of her way to make her patterns flattering and appealing through careful attention to shaping, detail, and a very professional finish. Patterns feature zips and facings, pockets and edgings and are carefully constructed with body shape in mind. This is refreshing. One of the things I am often disappointed with in, say, Louisa Harding’s lovely designs is the lack of shaping. Here are these fantastically feminine-looking sweaters…then when you check out the pattern, they are made only to fit a generic sack of spuds! (I was particularly struck by the lack of shaping in her Winter’s Muse collection). I realise shaping can be a designer’s worst mare when it comes to accommodating a pattern for different sizes, but still, no woman is a rectangle, and designing rectangular sweaters really seems a bit lazy. This is not the case with the best patterns here. I spent a good while with the Lil’ Red Riding Hoodie, for example, and found it ingenious and thoughtful. Here is Stafford at her best—every element of the garment is constructed with care. The pattern shows her evident interest in what knitted fabric really does when made and worn, and reveals a generous awareness of the possibilities of knitting and the realities of the body.

The book does have some shortcomings, though. Some of these are probably just a matter of my personal taste (intarsia? aigh!….and there is a lot of intarsia) but there are other things too. One problem is that there are not really many substantial patterns in here. The best patterns (city coat, lil red riding hoodie, and the elfin bride (which is not included in the book, but can be downloaded from Stafford’s website) are clearly those Stafford designed with herself, and her own curvaceous 6 foot form in mind (enviable, eh?). She has clearly made valiant attempts with the sizing, but the difference in attention to detail between these (few) patterns and those which pad out the rest of the book, is really quite clear. Limiting the book’s appeal, too, is it’s ‘dominating’ aesthetic. I still fail to see the point. How do vague sexual innuendo and instructions rendered as ‘commands’ add anything to knitting? Please tell me, what is the connection between knitting, and a popularly rendered, nudge-nudge, wink-wink version of sado-masochism? Far from being intelligent or witty these features of the book’s packaging and contents are more often just embarrassing. The sheer emptiness of the style calls to mind the hollow populism of Athena posters, or the way that the politics of punk have been so watered down, so completely decontextualised, that they can now be a ‘funny’ or ‘ironic’ feature of a line of children’s clothing (an infant with a mohican! ho ho ho!). This aesthetic also has the unfortunate effect of suggesting that Stafford might not take herself or her designs seriously—and this clearly isn’t the case. For me, the most interesting person in this book was Jennifer Stafford, a designer whose concern with process, shape, and finish makes her (like Teva Durham) really quite distinctive. The Dominknitrix I can take or leave.

Styling Meaning

I have been struck recently by how little the recent wave of ‘ironic’ knitting or knitters really have to say. Some of these people really seem depressingly incapable of thinking about the politics of their craft, or of explaining the meaning of what they are doing in any terms other than it being, um, quite cool. This really struck me when listening to a recent interview on Jennifer Ackerman-Haywood’s wonderful CraftSanity podcast (power to you, Jennifer). The interview was with the DomiKNITrix—an ‘amusing’ play on words, and alter-ego of Jennifer Stafford, author of DominKNITrix: Whip your Knitting into Shape. Stafford was very good at talking about herself, but far less good at explaining what the mildly sado-masochistic aesthetic of her book, persona, and designs really meant. During the interview, Stafford explained her chosen aesthetic with the words ‘while I knit, I’m in control’. But does wearing a leather basque while knitting suggest power in any meaningful sense at all? Does the juxtaposition of the world of yarn and needles with that of whips and chains add very much to either? What “DominKNITrix” relies on is simply ‘witty’ juxtaposition: if you find the assumed incongruity of sado-masochism and knitting funny, then that is fine. To me, though, this is mere contiguity without any meaningful content. I would have been interested in Stafford’s work if she’d had a better explanation for it, but being cool means nothing when you have nothing to say. Granted, I’ve not seen the book yet and should at least give Stafford the benefit of the doubt: she’s  a talented designer whose patterns look interesting and innovative. She is clearly keen to encourage inventiveness and creativity, and this is all to the good.  I’ve ordered her book and perhaps I’ll find that here she does say something of consequence about the politics of her aesthetic choices. But I fear that someone who, when interviewed, described her sojourn in Prague and Istanbul in disturbingly culturally imperialist terms (this completely unselfconsciously, mind you) will not be able to persuade me.