Embrace the inner nerd
Sunday 9th October 2011
Hello, my name is Alison and I’m a nerd.
Well, I feel better already! Nerds. Come on, if you’re a nerd or you think you might be, or you live with one, let’s get together and embrace our nerdiness. I have always been on the nerdy end of the cool spectrum. At school, a plump, eager, keen-bean. I remember – and this makes even me with my fairly high levels of cringe tolerance feel my toes curl – I remember petitioning the Head of Music because pupils weren’t allowed to be in the Gilbert and Sullivan Society until the Third Year, and I was in the First Year. (This by the way, for the benefit of less-fossilised readers was the way we used to attend secondary school, your first year being the originally titled First Year and the last being known as the Upper Sixth). Once admitted to the G&S Club, I was a very enthusiastic sister, cousin or aunt, a fairy, a pirate’s lass, a bridesmaid…I painted sets too, and sold tickets, attended every single rehearsal and went into a theatrical decline after the shows were over.
I auditioned for every school play and threw myself into the roles of middle aged wife (When We Were Married) or spoiled daughter (Hobson’s Choice) and so on. I sang in the choirs, played hockey even when it wasn’t compulsory, formed clubs where one was needed, along with my other nerdy pals, such as The Tramping Club. Oh lol, as The Young say nowadays. Lol indeed. The Tramping Club was a club dedicated to walking, or ‘going for a tramp’ as our founder called it, a girl who was in the year above me and whose name I now forget but who made me look apathetic, so vibrant was her enthusiasm for
simply everything!
I attended Barn Dances, along with a friend of mine who may be reading, and I loved those too, despite there being no or few boys to dance with. I wore long dresses that my mother made. When I tell my daughters this, they roar, because you see it makes it sound like a Jane Austin novel, but really, it was just great fun. I could no more make them a long dress than they’d consent to wear it and I can see they pity me for this past of cringing nerdiness. I also went to ‘discos’, I wasn’t a
complete loser and in my rebellious phase, I even started going to the Rock Street Youth Club and fell in love with soul music (even this archaic reference makes Florence and Lily roll their eyes and sigh). I was so nerdy, I just collected whatever genre of fashion, music, activity and so on attracted me at that time but I never dropped any of my old ones.
I loved school, I just loved everything about it. Until the A levels. But I’m going to gloss over that though because by then the school was different and yes, I know geoggers was a mistake as my third choice, OK?
Happily, my youngest daughter has inherited my nerdiness. Her school blazer is so festooned with badges (Prefect, Head’s Team Leader, Ambassador, House Captain, SoS Team, Hockey, Netball…), all worn on the right lapel, she
lists…I’m very proud.
Current examples of my nerdiness abound, here are a few. First – and now I am typing this to you, fair and reasonable reader – I feel foolish, but here it is anyway: it’s recycling. Oh dear, nerdy and mad, I hear you sigh as you switch to the Facebook screen and leave me. But the things is, recycling has assumed disproportionate -um – proportions in my routine. Each week, we have to sort, sift, rinse, separate, scrutinise, co-ordinate, schedule-check, schlep and generally interact more with our rubbish than seems quite healthy. We’ve always composted, done cardboard, paper, glass and so on. But now,
now we have the neo-Fascistic recycling system of a petty tin-pot (you have separated that tin from the pot, right?) business, for a business is what it is, with us as its unpaid recycling fools. While I resent having to spend so long with my packaging, peering at microscopic writing or worse, symbols, to perceive if the Waste Partnership chaps will consent to take it away, once I have washed, dried and polished it, I also recognised this new regime as a nerding opportunity.
Yes, the recycling offers some great opportunities for my inner nerd to break out. There are the boxes to be labelled: Brown for cooked food waste, which is clearly gross but anyway…, black box for plastic, tins and card, green box for glass, paper and tin foil, and the large black bin with wheels for anything that is not the above or garden waste. Then there is the timetable to be tackled, which weeks do they take it all, which only some of it? Clearly what we needed was a series of training sessions, with notes, for the family. I’m not joking. It went quite well although we have had to re-visit the ‘what is tin and what is foil?’ area with 2 remedial sessions.
I’m also a swatch nerd. I think I probably knit at least 2 swatches most days, days when I don’t being workshop days or days when I do my other jobs. Here is my latest batch:
Texture is usually my favourite area of exploration. Texture, yarn-blending and colour. Not colour in the intarsia or Fair-isle sense because I don’t enjoy that sort of knitting and so I don’t design any. I like to mix and oppose colours. Above, from L to R is the large cream sample which is a swatch knitted in Kidsilk Haze and Cocoon, 2 very different yarns. I have used the puff-ball stitch from Bubble Pop Electric and then sections of lightly beaded KSH, all knitted on the large (7mm) needles that Cocoon is knitted with.
Top left is a small section of Kidsilk Haze knitted with Fine lace and embellished with droplets of bronze beads at the cast-on edge. Here is further detail:
This is knitted on a bigger gauge than I think I will eventually use but anyway, the interesting section of this larger swatch is the tweedy section where the 2 yarns – KSH and Fine Lace – are mixed. This is achieved by swapping yarns and wrapping, which in practice just means moving the working yarn to the front or the back. It’s easy and rather fun. I have also changed this stitch to convert it to be knitted in the round and this works really well apart from the ‘jog’ at the beginning and end of the rounds. Because of the yarn-switching and wrapping, the ‘jog’ is really obvious. A solution may be to make a feature of it, with an eyelet worked on each side, or I could introduce 2 or 3 plain panels in one shade, like vertically running stripes, I suppose. I wish to make mittens with a fully fitted thumb. Any advice welcome.
In the far LH bottom corner you can also see a curved swatch. This is a section of the Cloud stitch that I have designed for a little pair of mitts, only I wanted to see if I could make it work in the round. I can! I know! This of course opens up a whole new world of applications.
Here are some tiny swatches I knitted prior to this weekend’s workshop here. This was yesterday and it was lovely. The knitters got to choose one gift-knit pattern, and the day was based on knitting a detailed swatch – a snap-shot of the design, with all its featured packed into what amounts to about half a day of knitting per swatch. Mastered, they then choose their real yarns and cast on the project for real, or, they can elect to knit another swatch so they master 2 designs in 1 day. You can see tiny fragments of Le Marais cuffs and Cloud Mitts.
And finally my new obsession, a puffed stitch (the brown KSH) framed in this piece by creamy Fine Lace. Unusually for me I neglected to write the whole thing down so later, I’ll be swatching it again. I’d like a scarf or comforter along these lines.
All my swatches are noted in my book, and I often knit 2 or 3 of the same one only varying the yarns, gauge, shades and so on. If a swatch is ‘bad’ I know at once and I throw it away but I keep the notes. The rest are all stapled into one of my note books and the notes kept. I am now on Book 5 by the way and the rate of book usage has jumped markedly since last October when the previous occupants of the
linen cupboard moved out and I moved in all by myself. I then type the notes and file them on my computer, but I reckon only about 25% of the designs in the books make it that far. Still, they’re all there, waiting, should I need them.
Nerdy? Yes, and proud!
Texture is usually my favourite area of exploration. Texture, yarn-blending and colour. Not colour in the intarsia or Fair-isle sense because I don’t enjoy that sort of knitting and so I don’t design any. I like to mix and oppose colours. Above, from L to R is the large cream sample which is a swatch knitted in Kidsilk Haze and Cocoon, 2 very different yarns. I have used the puff-ball stitch from Bubble Pop Electric and then sections of lightly beaded KSH, all knitted on the large (7mm) needles that Cocoon is knitted with.
Top left is a small section of Kidsilk Haze knitted with Fine lace and embellished with droplets of bronze beads at the cast-on edge. Here is further detail:
This is knitted on a bigger gauge than I think I will eventually use but anyway, the interesting section of this larger swatch is the tweedy section where the 2 yarns – KSH and Fine Lace – are mixed. This is achieved by swapping yarns and wrapping, which in practice just means moving the working yarn to the front or the back. It’s easy and rather fun. I have also changed this stitch to convert it to be knitted in the round and this works really well apart from the ‘jog’ at the beginning and end of the rounds. Because of the yarn-switching and wrapping, the ‘jog’ is really obvious. A solution may be to make a feature of it, with an eyelet worked on each side, or I could introduce 2 or 3 plain panels in one shade, like vertically running stripes, I suppose. I wish to make mittens with a fully fitted thumb. Any advice welcome.
In the far LH bottom corner you can also see a curved swatch. This is a section of the Cloud stitch that I have designed for a little pair of mitts, only I wanted to see if I could make it work in the round. I can! I know! This of course opens up a whole new world of applications.
Here are some tiny swatches I knitted prior to this weekend’s workshop here. This was yesterday and it was lovely. The knitters got to choose one gift-knit pattern, and the day was based on knitting a detailed swatch – a snap-shot of the design, with all its featured packed into what amounts to about half a day of knitting per swatch. Mastered, they then choose their real yarns and cast on the project for real, or, they can elect to knit another swatch so they master 2 designs in 1 day. You can see tiny fragments of Le Marais cuffs and Cloud Mitts.
And finally my new obsession, a puffed stitch (the brown KSH) framed in this piece by creamy Fine Lace. Unusually for me I neglected to write the whole thing down so later, I’ll be swatching it again. I’d like a scarf or comforter along these lines.
All my swatches are noted in my book, and I often knit 2 or 3 of the same one only varying the yarns, gauge, shades and so on. If a swatch is ‘bad’ I know at once and I throw it away but I keep the notes. The rest are all stapled into one of my note books and the notes kept. I am now on Book 5 by the way and the rate of book usage has jumped markedly since last October when the previous occupants of the linen cupboard moved out and I moved in all by myself. I then type the notes and file them on my computer, but I reckon only about 25% of the designs in the books make it that far. Still, they’re all there, waiting, should I need them.
Nerdy? Yes, and proud!
I do like your tweedy linen stitch swatch, so pretty!
Love those swatches, so pretty and great textures, lots of opportunities. No we were normal, not nerdy – I say current;y obsessing with the Archers and walking canals. Kx
Glad you like, Fiona, for lo, soon some will on its way to you! X
Kay, you are right, we’re the normal ones. I miss barn dances! I’m on one of my periodic Archers breaks, as Ruth and Daaayyyvvyyyd are so annoying, but canal walking I can quite see X
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