Loving Ravelry and finding a new knitting home

The knitting group I have been going to since moving back to Edinburgh has had to find a new home – sadly, the Tea Tree Cafe on Bread Street shut down this week.

I first starting going to the TT when I found the group on Ravelry in about April 2010 (http://www.ravelry.com/groups/tea-tree-tea-knitters). I can’t recommend Ravelry enough for just beign awesome. It’s free to join, has a database of around 192,674 knitting patterns, and around 67,845 yarns. as well as a huge international community of knitters of all ages and abilities. It’s like Facebook for knitters but a hell of a lot better. You can add projects to your profile, link it to the pattern apge, link it to the yarn page and see who else has made the item. and how they did it and what they used. Properly inspirational and easy to use.

The technology behind the site is pretty impressive too, geeks and anyone else interested can find a summary here: http://codemonkey.ravelry.com/2011/02/12/ravelry-in-bullet-points/. Impressive in that the whole thing is run by a team of around 3 people. I like that. It’s homey and cosy and I like the spirit of it. If only we could make a Ravelry for archaeologists…. :p

But back to the group – I think of them as my sort of extended knitting family. All lovely people, who come together for something they love and it doesn’t matter what else you do, where you work, age or experience. You only have to share as much as you want, and the escape from everyday life is lovely. The TT knitters have knowingly and unknowingly helped me through some really difficult/upsetting/stressful events without even knowing. Sometimes, knitting group gives strengh to get on with life when you can’t find it anywhere else. On call help for projects is nice too!

Finding a new cafe that will be willing to take up to 25 people at a time, who can quite easily take over the place with yarn and cake is hopefully not going to be too much of a challenge. We are trying out some places on a trial basis this month but any ideas would be welcomed.

Needs to be: in Edinburgh city centre (ish), space for up to 25 folk and their knitting, buggy accessible and have yummy tea, coffee and cake. Optional: wifi, comfy chairs!

Any ideas?

Access to archaeological journals, or, how to spend £350 quite quickly.

I read a news article the other day which pondered why Harry Potter didn’t just use Google.

The book was published in 1997, so presumably written a few years before that. The article asks why, when faced with a search for some information, Harry had to struggle through the library to find a book. Now, I’ve never read the Potter books so i have no idea how arduous a task this was but I get the impression death and disaster were imminent. The author of the article suggests that younger Potter readers, brought up in the information age, would google what Harry needed rather than have to go through the library trauma in the first place. The point is that Hogwarts wouldn’t have had internet access in that day and age and that Google didn’t really take off until the year after the book came out.

What does this have to do with archaeology journals? Well, I miss my equivalent of Hogwarts library. Yes, I have a very good ‘local’ library (National library of Scotland) and am also a member of the National Museums Research Library and can borrow books and journals from both. I also have excellent broadband at home so the world of archaeological research should be mine for the taking.

But it isn’t. Without the backup of institutional subscriptions many journals are out of my reach. I’m not the first person to realise this but work at the day job has recently made me more aware than ever of what I could be missing out on.

Spending the last few weeks reviewing bibliographies, checking for misplaced commas and references for thousands of entries, I have had my eyes opened to the many and varied sources used for discussing archaeology in Scotland today. There are the usual suspects one might expect (Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Antiquity etc) as well as more specialised reading and some rare gems – mostly local history society transactions and self published monographs.

Most of them are subscription only, not as many are open access. Although this situation might be changing for some (find a very good list here) it is unrealistic to expect that verything will become free to view, nor should it – journals cost money to produce and will always need people to work on them. Obviously, there is a difference here between leviathans of publishing such as Elsevier making millions and smaller more independant publications who are still peer reviewed and of excellent quality but who barely make a profit. Arguably, if it wasn’t for the whole impact factor issue more journals could afford to be open and reach more people, I could go on.

My point is, that in order to subscribe to all the journals I want to for the next year say, I will need to spend at least £350 (but that includes my New Scientists! :p). As I said, I don’t mind and actually is really isn’t that much when you consider everything. However, this is only for a few core publications (Internet Archaeology, Proc Soc Antiq Scot, JRS, Britannia and some others). I’d like the opportunity to read more, but when individual articles can be up to $20 it does sort of put you off. I’m lucky, given that my interests are databases, publication of archives and Romans – if I was into science it’d be much much more costly (see this post for example.)

I guess if i didn’t want to broaden my mind, keep up to date with archaeological goings on and think about future jobs and maybe post docs I could just not subscribe at all, but where would the fun be in that?

Homemade Pasties are the best!

This Christmas brought a lot of excellent presents, one of the best (and I can say this as I bought it – ha!) was the new book from the Hairy Bikers, or the Dirty Bikers as Andy insists on calling them. It is called “The Hairy Bikers’ Perfect Pies: The Ultimate Pie Bible from the Kings of Pies” and is very very awesome.

Not content with just the average pie recipe, they have savoury pies, sweet pies, potato topped pies, canapies (!) but the best category is that of hand held pie. This week, we had a go at making the humble pasty; shortcrust with a lamb and beef filling. These aren’t the best photos but the tasty goodness didn’t last long enough to take any nice ones!

So far, I can’t recomend the bikers pie book enough and so this weekend I’m planning another pie baking session, but maybe also a kinect fitness hour to balance things out

Gingerbread and Guinness

I love Gingerbread. I also love Guinness. So it seems natural that highlights of the festive season should have included Guinness Gingerbread (a la Nigella Kitchen) and a gingerbread bath melt from Lush. Shame the edible one didn’t last long enough for a photo, so have the Gingerbread house we made instead.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,100 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 35 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Three Things: that made me smile today.

1. The first part of my Christmas shopping is done and was pain and hassle free, even (dare I say) fun. Boots had an awesome points offer on today, so not only did I save money on the fabulous 3 for 2 gifts, but got money back in points as well! Most importantly, though, some people will now be receiving excellent christmas gifts that I didn’t even have to queue for.
2. I discovered that I have a new favourite smell – Philosophy Cherry Christmas Bath. If anybody is stuck on what to get me for Christmas and is reading this then you have your answer. The philosphy range is amazing, and includes gingerbread, marshmallow and eggnog scented goodies – highly reccomended.
3. I finished some knitting I’ve been meaning to do for a while. It’s a bit secret so I can’t put pictures up yet but a couple of the ladies at knitting group are expecting bambinos so I’ve been making blanket squares. I love the feeling of knitting something and knowing that a cute wee sproggle will get all nice and comfy. I also love that the patchwork blanket will be truly unique, since all of us contributing are only limited by the size of a square and the need for it to be machine washable, otherwise the pattern possibilities are endless. The stitch dictionary I bought last year has been very helpful!

Woo! I’ve reached over 100 projects on Ravelry!

*do a happy dance*

I realised I have 102 projects on Ravelry, so here, for you knitting folk, is a run-down. End here if you aren’t interested in knitting!

Works in progress

• 1 of these is a long term blanket and unlikely to be finished anytime soon.
• 1 just needs ends sewn in and blocked.
• 1 just needs some embroidery.
• 1 just needs a photo but the yarn isn’t playing nice with the camera.
• only 2 need more knitting done!

Most favourited by others
Most of my projects aresn’t favourited by more than 1 person, if at all, so special mention to the following:

• Cat Pyramid: Made just for the house out of acrylic yarn and from a mochimochiland pattern. Quick to knit and very cute.
• Sheepy Handwarmers: Made for my friend Roz for Christmas 2010, to a pattern of my own.

Personal achievements this year include a few lace shawls (for my sister and for a friend), some socks and my first felted project.

I’ve a few big plans for knitting for the rest of this year, and I feel like I’ll need to sign up to a few challenges on Ravelry before the year is out – any ideas?

A wee foray into the Fringe

We had some friends visiting last week and we saw a few bits at the Edinburgh Festival so I thought I’d share. With over 46,000 performances to potentially take in this month any advice might be welcome.

First up was Rich Hall’s Hoedown (http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/rich-hall-s-hoedown) at the Pleasance. We were at the preview night (cheap tickets for less than £10 and a lot of locals) but even so, the music was amazing. The back up band were superb and apparently we can go and see the individuals involved in their own shows at the fringe, which I will. Nick Pynn, the fiddle player was particularly astounding – at moments it seemed as if flames really would shoot out of the fiddle being played at breakneck speed. The songs were lyrical genius, the cover of a rap song and the placename song particular highlights. Or maybe ‘She left me for Jesus’ – that was so funny I thought I’d lose the ability to breathe. The only downside about the show wasn’t anything to do with the players but the venue – the seats were too restrictive for any hoedown dancing.

Next night was the Best of the Scottish Comedian of the Year (http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/best-of-scottish-comedian-of-the-year) at the Underbelly in the Cowgate. With three comedians and a compere for your few pounds (our night was £6 each), it was a good value night. One was awesome, one was good and one was okay – granted I was entirely sober that night so maybe add on a few stars if you’ve had a bevvy. The compere, Alan Anderson, was hilarious and all you’d want from a compere and more. He really knew how to rev up the crowd as well as get rid of the awful hecklers we had on our night. He also has his own show (http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/alan-anderson-whisky-fir-dummies) which I’ll need to see too if his compere-ing is anything to go by.

For some good tips on the Fringe in general, please stop by http://mrskemmer.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/edfringe-tips-from-a-local/

Anyone else seen anything worth taking a look at?

Puffle Cake Pops

Puffle Cake Pops, a photo by squeejay on Flickr.

One of my nephews is currently obsessed with Club Penguin. If you have no idea what I’m talking about it’s a Disney thing and all you need to know is that there are some Penguins who have helpers/magic assistants called Puffles. In essence, and in the Disney merchandise mobile, Puffles are bean bags with hair.

I have long been a fan of Bakearellas Cake Pops, and made some a few years ago. I’ve got better at it though, and these are chocolate cake on the inside and chocolate coated on the outsife. The eyes are made of fondant and writing icing. The hair was done by ‘glueing’ chocolate cake decorations to the head with chocolate and then quickly dipping the pop in and out of some Wiltons Candy Melt coating, and twirling it around upside down to make spikes. They went down a treat!

Pretty things to look at instead of the Pouring Rain

Today is the Solstice, but that hasn’t meant it is pouring down outside. The endless grey doesn’t make for much cheer, so I’ve put together a few links to pretty things to help spread the cheer!

Firstly, fancy some armchair shopping? Need a new bag? Why not have a look at this Folksy shop here: Little M Bags – it makes great use of recycled ribbon, sequins, buttons etc to add some sparkle to your study or shopping.

Do you need a wee creature to help make mischief? These wee guys are so cute and also available from Folksy

If all that crafty stuff has made you want to get out the sewing machine, then how cute are these! SO, they just do childrens patterns but there must be at least one wee person you know who needs something made – Oliver and S patterns

If knitting is more your thing than sewing, then The Yarn Yard is where you can buy handdyed wool from near Edinburgh. I’ve used some to make a secret surprise shawl and baby socks so far, but have plans to use it much more.