Not Meant for Me

Once upon a time, many years ago
(Oh, no. It's going to be one of those posts.
Yes, it is. Sorry about that)
I lived in a student residence with four Spanish girls: Rocio, Mai, Conchi and Monica. Monica had a beautiful designer cardigan, a crocheted cardigan made of colourful granny squares in thin cotton.
"I can make that!" I said and borrowed her cardigan to have a look at it. I bought myself some thin yarn in black, a deep pink and a luscious purple, and started to crochet a stack of squares. It became a bit of a community effort: the other girls in the halls of residence kept tabs on my progress, and there was great excitement when I sewed the squares together and single-crocheted along the edges.

Finally, after a month of crocheting, it was finished.
"Try it on!" someone said. And I went out into the hall next to the common room and tried it on in front of the full-length mirror there.
"Ooooh!" said the little crowd of onlookers. I preened a little; it was very nice.
"Can I try it on?" Conchi begged.
"Sure," I said and handed it over. She slipped it on and turned to look at herself in the mirror.
"Aaaaah!" the onlookers said - realising, as I did, that the cardigan was ...
Not Meant For Me.
It was not meant for me. That's all that needs to be said on the subject: it looked infinitely better on small, dark-haired Conchi instead of big, red-haired me. In fact, it looked as though I had actually made the cardigan for her. On purpose. Rather than by accident.
"Keep it," I said, a tad sulkily.
Essentially, I had no choice. How could I wear it, knowing it was actually ... destined to be hers?

That's one of the things I have learned about making things: sometimes they are Not Meant For You. This is an example of this phenomenon:
I crocheted beautiful (I thought) African flowers from sock yarn.
 

I crocheted about a hundred of them, wanting to make myself - that's right, me - a set of cushions for my couch. I bought the cushions. I sewed the little flowers together. I devised ways to make half-flowers and quarter flowers to create corners and edges. I edged the top, I sewed on buttons, I put the cover on the cushions and I realised that they were
Not Meant For Me.
Oh, they were very nice - but not right. Just not right. I don't know what the problem was, but I just wasn't happy. So I wrapped them up and attached a label (which my little sister made for me - gingerbread ladies ahoy!)

 

and added them to the cushions I donated to the Christmas bazaar.
Sigh.
What else could I do? If the Crafting Fates decide that what you make is Not Meant for You, you have no choice but to give in.

Bizarre Bazaar Parting Pangs

How the Gingerbread Lady beat her inner scrooge

One of my colleagues has held a bazaar on the main square of our little city every December for the last twelve years. They're a bunch of chirpy but determined little ladies: they set up a stall in the centre of town every Advent Saturday and spend the day in the freezing cold, stomping their feet to keep warm, selling homemade jams and hand-knitted scarves. They have an arrangement with the local children's clinic: the clinic donates the time and resources to operate on children from war-torn countries if these ladies can raise the money to pay for the flights and accommodation for the kids and their parents. So every summer they start making jams, chutneys, hats, scarves, lavender sachets, dolls, teddy bears and Christmas decorations. When the first Saturday in Advent comes around, a little army of volunteers gathers on the main square to sell their wares.

I donate a couple of boxes of crocheted items every year. Every year my colleague and I have a fight about my donations: she feels she has to pay me for the cost of the yarn. Every year I explain that the point of donating is that I give her the stuff for free: I choose not to make a donation to a big charity, I prefer to support a small one in my local town. Besides, whatever I donate to her is sold at twice or three times the price of the yarn, so my donation increases in value. In any case, the act of donating is good for my soul. Last Thursday I emptied my box of crocheted hats and scarves and sorted them out. I had pangs parting from a few of the things, pieces that I was especially proud of. But what's the point of keeping them, neatly wrapped and pristine in their plastic bags? Away they go. My little stack of  blankets, scarves and hats grew, till I'd filled a laundry basket (yes, that's only about a third of the stuff I produce in a year. I'm a one-woman factory, I'm telling you.)

Then I came across the cushions I had made in the summer: neatly wrapped in cellophane, stacked at the bottom of the wardrobe.
 

"They're too pretty to give away to charity," I thought. "I might give them to someone as a present."
So I quickly closed the wardrobe door and carried my box of donatables downstairs. I sat admiring my box o'goodies, feeling smug and virtuous ... and then I decided I needed to get over my smugness and virtuousness and part with something that really needed to be parted with, so I went back upstairs and fetched the cushions from the wardrobe. Before I could change my mind, I stacked them under a pile of baby blankets so I couldn't see them any more.

I handed my crocheted goods over the next day: Mr Gingerbread had to help me carry the boxes in the end. The army of chirpy ladies ooh-ed and aah-ed over my bits and pieces, and the cushions were passed around.
"They'll look so pretty and colourful on the stall!" said my colleague. "You'll have to come by and see them!"
And I did. The next morning, on the way to the bakery, I dropped by to look at my cushions. One had already been sold, something which - strangely - made my heart twang. (We didn't even get to say goodbye, cushion!) When I passed the stall again after lunch, the others had been sold to different people. My colleague was beaming.
"We were able to sell them for a great price!" she said, "And everyone who bought them really admired the amount of work that went into them!"
Which made me feel a lot better, of course. Though I'm still sad we didn't get to say goodbye.
Get over yourself, Ginger, I thought. You'll just have to make some more!
Oooh, I might even have to buy more yarn!

Bye, bye, cushions. You were a lot of fun to make. I hope your new owners love you as much as I did.

Advent in Bavaria

 

In my part of the English-speaking world, Advent kind of slips by without much of a fuss. No, that's not true: but it's a different kind of fuss, a fuss that - more often than not - is centred around shops and shopping and buying stuff. A Bavarian Christmas is different: slightly more traditional and slightly less commercial. The Thursday before the first Advent Sunday (last Thursday it happens), the Christmas markets open for the first time in the late afternoon. Within an hour, people have gathered around the braziers, drinking mead and mulled wine in the crispy darkness of a winter evening:

And everything smells so good - stalls with toffee apples and roast nuts, boiled sweets, mulled wine and loads of gingerbread:

Last year Mr Gingerbread and I didn't decorate our house and we celebrated Christmas at our respective families, but not together. It was a hard year and by the time Christmas rolled around, we were exhausted. This year, 2010, has been a tough one but we've just handled it better. So this Christmas, we (well, I - Mr Gingerbread just agrees to keep the peace) are going to celebrate with a vengeance.

First, I bought a traditional Advent wreath. I didn't make it myself, but bought it at our Christmas bazaar:

And we decorated a tree. It's not actually a fir tree but an oleander bush that my mother-in-law gave us (she called it a 'plant' but it's clearly a tree) but the addition of shiny baubles and crocheted snowflakes give it a festive air:

The snowflakes aren't mine, they were a present last Christmas and I've been looking forward to hanging them up all year. My husband is a bit bemused by the (un)timely decorating but plays along in good spirit. So I don't know about you, but I'm ready for the season!

In which the Gingerbread Lady makes Christmas cards ...

This mightn't mean much to you -

but it means a lot to us. This is our mediaeval Advent Market - or what will be the mediaeval Advent Market. At the moment it's just a crowd of chain-smoking chappies in blue overalls, hammering the little wooden houses together, but in a matter of days, it'll be a little village full of hairy locals in hemp robes, selling hot chestnuts and wooden swords.

The pre-Christmas period is always jolly nice, but nowhere nicer than in Bavaria. This part of Germany is known for its Christmas gingerbread - yes, really, that's why I chose this name (I've ginger hair, too. A happy coincidence) and its Christmas markets. Nuremberg's Christkindlsmarkt (Christchild's Market) is world famous and almost eye-poppingly picturesque. You could happily guzzle your way from one end of the market to the other: slurping candy-floss, sucking candied ginger, munching toffee apples and swilling mulled wine. And rest assured, dear readers, we do this once a year as a matter of tradition.

Anyway, before I get carried away with a rhapsody of Christmas treats, let me tell you about this week's trauma:
I turned (whisper it) thirty-six. Thirty-SIX. I've spent the last five years recovering from the shock of turning thirty, so it came as quite a surprise when I realised that I was rapidly sliding towards the big four-oh (whisper it) - yes, forty. My pain was eased slightly by the arrival of pretty cards (look at the cards my little sisters made me. Aren't they purdy?)

 

and the appearance of presents. Obviously, I'd like to think that I'm the kind of person who eschews presents in favour of good deeds (e.g. a donkey donated in my name to a Third World village), but I cannot tell a lie: donkey, yes, and a skein of yarn for me.

No, actually, my attitude towards presents has changed. I've become a rabid re-gifter: despite being surrounded by stuff, I hate it. I don't like all these things. I have very little sentimentality, I don't attach great meaning to very much.  Use it or lose it has become my motto. I don't keep fancy glasses for A Special Occasion, I don't save handmade soap for Sometime in the Future, I don't put expensive wine aside to gather dust. Essentially, my possessions are either Mine (I use them and love them) or On Their Way To Someone Else - and that's good, too. In my peculiar view of the universe, everything has a home and everything has an owner, and the things that are currently resting in my possession might really be destined for someone else who will love them more.

In this spirit, I've tried to re-examine what I gift. For example, I spent yesterday afternoon making my Christmas cards.

I started making my own Christmas cards years ago. I thought it was going to be a one-time thing but it's become a kind of Christmas tradition as well ... along with a growing Christmas card list. A couple of years ago, I ran out of steam after a long afternoon chopping and sticking tiny pieces of paper and affixing intricate little shiny stars, so I gave up and and bought a few Christmas cards for colleagues. They hated them. Well, no, they didn't, but they each made a point of remarking that they really missed my handmade cards - and I realised then that actually the handmadedness was really the gift, not the card. They actually appreciated the effort, the uniqueness and the slight wonkiness of my handmade offerings. So back to the drawing board (desk) I went, armed with my glitter glue and wooden reindeer. They each got two cards that year and a crisis was avoided.

This year, I've even made little parcels with a half-dozen handmade Christmas cards for my favourite friends and colleagues - an Advent present, not a Christmas present. Fingers crossed that they'll like them.

 

And they call it Zuppy love...

Christmas has become a complicated event. We have to tread carefully, so as not to insult any family members - and inevitably we fail. Neither my mother nor my mother-in-law is willing or able to understand why we cannot (will not) spend Christmas at their respective homes. In the interests of fairness, we divide our Christmasses up between countries. This year, we're going home to Ireland for Christmas. One of the reasons for this is the encroaching seniority of Zuppy, my parents' dog.
"He's twelve, you know," says the husband. "He mightn't be around for much longer."
And a tear glistens in his eye.
Okay, maybe not, but I cannot emphasise enough the special bond that Mr Gingerbread and Zuppy share. It's astonishing that Zuppy even recognises me - after all, he only sees me two or three times a year for a week or two at a go, but he knows who I am and knows that I'm a soft touch for treats. And although he's pleased to see me, this is nothing compared to the near-orgasmic joy when he's reunited with my husband, whom he sees even less frequently. And the joy is mutual. As the car pulls down my parents' driveway, Mr G's nose is pressed up against the windowpane, waiting for the sight of the dog.
"Zuppy!" he hollers.
Zuppy freezes, then - bang!
Off he goes, bounding down my parents' yard with ears flapping, tongue lolling out and teeth bared in a joyful grin. And that's just my husband. The dog looks just as happy.

It's been like this from the start. Back then, when dog and man were younger, fitter and more energetic, they liked to play together in the yard. It was quite an extraordinary sight: Very Big German Man and Very Small Jack Russell. Their favourite game was 'That's My Stick!': my husband threw the stick, the dog caught the stick, then they spent twenty minutes playing tug-o'-war with aforementioned stick.
"That's my stick!" my husband would yell, waving the stick (and the dog attached to it) in the air.
"That's going to end badly," said Gingerbread Daddy one day, looking out the kitchen window. Husband and dog were nose to nose, husband on all fours on the grass.
Gingerbread Daddy looked over at me. "That's going to end badly," he repeated in A Significant Tone.
"Don't worry about husband," I said, "He won't let the dog hurt him."
Daddy rolled his eyes. "Yerra, I'm not worried about that eejit," he said, "It's the dog. He might lose a tooth hanging out of that stick."
"I'll talk to him," I said. To the dog or the man? Probably both, I thought. I looked at the window: at that point, dog and man had become a tangle of limbs and I just didn't have the heart to break them up.

Which is a pity, because seconds later my husband ran into the house, his hand aloft. He was bleeding heavily from a gash in his hand.
"It wasn't his fault!" he said, "I swear, it wasn't his fault. I put my hand in his mouth. He was expecting the stick - he was just over-excited."
I cleaned the wound (it wasn't deep) and affixed an appropriate plaster. Obviously, I gave him a telling off for playing rough: husband hung his head in shame. That done, I went outside to give the dog a telling off - but Zuppy had gone underground, hiding in the woodpile with only the stick for company.

They were not allowed to play together for a while till they'd both clamed down and learned to play nicely. Then they skipped off down the yard, waving the contentious stick, and within minutes they were rolling around the grass again.
Oh, the joy. Mr Gingerbread just can't wait.

I Scrub Up Well

My little sisters and I decided to start compiling ideas for crafty Christmas (or general) gifts.We set up a blog called The Christmas Craft Collective, which is still rather empty (get your skates on, girls.) Anyway, I've always been a bit sceptical about the value of handmade washcloths. I mean - really? Why not buy a flannel facecloth like everyone else?

I'll tell you why: because a handmade one is fabulous. Sturdy and soft, thick and squidgy. And I designed mine with puff stitches/clusters to maximise the scrubbing. So excited was I that I promptly made another set (these work up fast.) Now all I have to do is write up the (very simple) pattern!

 

All Creatures Great and Small

Growing up in Ireland, choir lessons with one of the good Sisters of the local convent were an inevitability. Sr Rosarii had the dubious pleasure of teaching me and sixty other uniformed wee ones to chirp out a selection of hymns in English and in Gaelic for all manner of liturgical events.
"All things bright and beautiful!" we'd yodel enthusiastically.
"All creatures great and small!
All things bright and beautiful,
The Lord God made them all!"
Which I always felt was kind of unfair, because anteaters, blobfish and komodo dragons are neither bright nor beautiful (and, certainly in the case of the blobfish, you wouldn't want to be stuck next to them at a dinner party as far as scintillating conversation is concerned) but they never got a mention in any of the hymns we sang. But that's another post.

Anyway, the mental picture of Wee Gingerbread swaying in time to Sr Rosarii's baton unexpectedly popped into my head at 3:48 a.m. this morning.
Oh my goodness, you say. How did you know that it was 3:48 a.m precisely?
I'll tell you how, readers. Because I pulled a muscle in my back* and simply couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned (in a very careful fashion of course), listening to Mr G's nocturnal symphony. Drifting off to sleep, only to wake suddenly when I turned the wrong way. Fretful, horrible, half-sleep. I was exhausted. Too exhausted to sleep. Too exhausted to get up. I looked at my watch. Quarter past three.
Right, I thought, one concerted effort to relax. Switch off. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.
I closed my eyes and ... finally ... dosed off ...

Weeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh Weeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh
Wide awake, every muscle in my body tense.
Not really. Not seriously. Oh, puh-lease: I was being attacked by a flipping mosquito in the night of the first of November. I banged on the light - 3:48 a.m.

So yes, a vision of Little Me in her bottle-green school uniform briefly entered my head as I whacked the mosquito to Kingdom Come to meet his maker, the same one who made all the other things bright and beautiful, all those creatures great and small. Sorry, Almighty Being, but you can keep your mosquitos. If you really must, send me an anteater at 4 a.m. instead.


Edited to add:
Sensing a lack in the canon of hymns, I've penned another verse for the one above. Feel free to add it, if you wish:
All things strange and interesting,
Including blobfish and anteaters,
Komodos and pesky mosquitos,
Are also the Lord God's creatures.
You might have to play about with the melody, but I'm sure no one will notice.

* Yes, Mammy Gingerbread, arnica has been applied.

Domestic Bliss

Let me preface this by saying that I love my husband. I really, really do. He's big, friendly chap who laughs a lot and is generally both a gentleman and a scholar. That notwithstanding, he occasionally careens close to death without even knowing it.

Take last Friday, for example: I was heading to Munich straight after work. I didn't have much time between getting home and leaving the house again, so I was twirling like a dervish, gathering up papers and folders and memory sticks and pyjamas and toothbrush. Seeing my distress, Mr Gingerbread decided to "help" by making me a cup of tea - but his idea of helping is to direct my attention to his solicitiousness by engaging me in a no-win game of Twenty Questions:

"Would you like a cup of tea, my little gingerbread sweetheart?" he says, as I rush by, trailing a pair of tights and an armful of books.
"No thanks, honeybunch," I reply.
"Are you sure? I can make you one if you like."
"No, no thanks, really."
"Are you sure? Really? Because it's no trouble."
"No, honestly, I don't have time for a cup of tea."
"I could make you one and just put it down beside you."
"No, seriously, no, I don't have time. I have to leave in five minutes."
"In five minutes? When does your train leave?"
(note that I've told him about four times in the past 24 hours when my train leaves. Seriously.)
"At 12:15. It's ten to twelve now. I don't have time, thanks."
"No time for tea, then?"
"No - look, I'm too stressed for tea."
"Right. That's a 'no' to tea?"
"Yes!"
"What? So you do want tea?"
"No!" I snap.
Miffed, he withdraws. Then sticks his head back through the door:
"How about a coffee? A quick cup of coffee?"
"NOOOOOO!"
"Okay. No tea. No coffee ... Juice?"
White-knuckled, I turn to him and hiss, "I! Don't! Have! Time! For! Beverages!"
And he turns his huge, bright blue eyes on me and looks hurt. I instantly feel like a piece of poo. So I apologise profusely for being an Evil Gingerbread Lady. He gives me a hug, then holds me at arm's length, looks me deep in the eyes and says, completely earnestly:
"So you really don't want a cup of tea, then?"

Grrrrrr.

But here's something I learned the hard way:
Mr Gingerbread snores like a tractor. It's a deep, vibrating snore that makes the entire bed shake. I've developed a way of turning his not-inconsiderable bulk over in bed so that I don't even wake him: first a poke in the ribs, then a swift roll over on to his side. I often used to lie in bed in the middle of the night, listening to his nasal trumpeting, wondering whether marriage vows prohibit pushing a snoring spouse out of bed at 4:13 a.m. Then last Christmas he ended up in hospital with a pulmonary embolism and a nasty bout of pneumonia. I lay in a silent bed in a silent bedroom - and guess what? I really missed his array of nocturnal grunts and snores, the cacophonous build-up to the final snort before starting again with a contented little wheeze. And as I lay there in the deep darkness, I realised that I loved his snoring. All things considered, I really did. So if he decides that the most appropriate way to demonstrate his love for me in situations of high stress is to follow me around with a teapot, I really should appreciate it, because a day might come when I'll regret all the cups that went undrunk.

PS: When I returned from Munich on Sunday night, he met me at the door with open arms.
And a cup of tea.

Using what I have

Since I started to show my true colours, i.e. as a crafter, I've got a lot of yarny presents. Most are odd skeins found by the gifter when tidying up, some even come attached to a half-knitted sleeve or with needles or hook still attached. More often than not, they're fun fur or other novelty yarns:

 

So I've decided to use them up. Just destash and use them up for Christmas presents or charity donations. Take, for example, the lavender mohair yarn: this was passed from knitter to knitter before it ended up with me. The yarn is very nice, but incredibly fine - a nightmare to knit or crochet with.

 

Teamed up with a soft acrylic of the same shade, it produces a soft scarf that's slightly furry to the touch:

Are you dyeing to know ....?

Clara asked me about my adventures in dyeing.
The whole process is rather time-consuming: you have to unwind the yarn and re-wind it into hanks. It has to dry for a day or two afterwards, and then comes the most time-consuming part: re-winding it into balls or skeins. See, the strands of yarn have been through a lot together - the winding, the dyeing, the drying - so they form a very close bond and don't want to be separated and rewound into a boring ol' ball. The actual dyeing, the part that's most fun, takes only minutes.

But it is fun. Great fun! It's very exciting to see what colour the Kool Aid will turn out to be. And although I don't have a source of Kool Aid (Gracey, in answer to your question: Yes! And thank you! Will drop by and say hello on your blog), I do have access to nice creamy-white sock yarn (thank you, 99c store) and I'm inexplicably excited by pseudo-scientific experimentation (albeit, the kind done with jam jars and the saucepan I cook my spaghetti bolognese in. Watch out, Marie Curie.)

At any rate, I'm not quite this good yet:

This was my anniversary present from Mr Gingerbread. I think you will agree that he loves me. Very much.

Photos - Just because

Just before winter set in, I took a few photos in our Botanical Garden:

I'm a Konvert

I tried dyeing again - this time with German food colouring. Because food colouring doesn't contain citric acid, like Kool Aid does, I had to replace it with vinegar. Lots of vinegar. Lots and lots and lots of vinegar. The whole house smelled like a pickling plant, and it smelled of pickles for days.

But the initial results were pleasing:

Unfortunately, having these hanks of wool about made our house smell like a Fish'n'Chip shop (and at this point I would like to note that the Kool Aid yarn now smells faintly fruity and entirely pleasing), so I had to wash them before I wound them into skeins. And then disaster struck: the colours - already muted - washed out. Now the yarn looks tired and faded, and I'll have to re-dye it. With Kool Aid.

See? I'm a convert. Or a Konvert, more like.

The Bee's Knees are PDFs

I just discovered a glaringly obvious mistake in a blanket I'm making - glaringly obvious when the ends have been woven in and the blanket edged. It's enough to make me weep - but thankfully my ill-temper has been mollified by the discovery of just the niftiest little tool ever.

Basically, it's a website that transforms other websites into PDFs. That's right - you know all of those patterns you've bookmarked to keep? Well, copy and paste the page link of the pattern into the little text box on this site - and Bob's your uncle. You can print all your patterns out and hold them in your little fingers. Isn't that just the bee's knees?

Edited to add:
I'd barely hit Publish on this post when I received this message from Gingerbread Brother Johnny via Facebook:
We're all weeping because you've only discovered PDFs now. Daughter of a designer/printer. Shame on you.
Shut up, Johnny. I know what PDFs are - this is just so superduper easy, that's why I love it.

(Honestly, back in Ye Olden Days you'd have to send a letter or a pigeon with a message if you wanted to insult a sibling living abroad. Now you can do it instantly via text message, Twitter, Facebook or blog comment. Never before have there been so many possibilities to insult the intelligence of a brother or sister instantaneously - distance is no longer an object. Technology has catapulted sibling squabbles into the 21st century.)

Jane-Austenesque

I write letters. Not as many as I used to, but still more than the average person does nowadays. The thing is, with only a couple of exceptions, most of my correspondents are ... well, let's just say people of mature status. This was made clear to me today in a letter from a former teacher: she told me to come and visit the next time I was in Ireland, but to make it snappy because she mightn't be around for much longer - she'll be 90 at the end of the month.

So while other 30-somethings are out enjoying a Sex and the City-style life, shopping for Manolo Blahnik shoes and sipping racy cocktails in the afternoon at chic city bistros, I am sitting at home at the living room table, with my recycled notepaper and leaky fountain pen, writing to nonagenarians. I'm telling you, readers, if you want to walk on the wild side, stick with me.


A couple of years ago, my two main correspondents died. I know, I know - it was very sad, but one was in her late eighties and the other was in her mid-nineties, so I have to admit that I'd suspected it was coming at some point. At the funeral of one of these ladies, I realised how many people knew me through my letters to her: my letters were given to every visitor to read. They all knew about my scrapes and japes, they knew about the weather in Bavaria and the Gingerbread Husband's job and the fall off my bicycle and my run-in with my crazy neighbour. It was heart-warming and alarming at the same time. And it was at that funeral that I "inherited" two more correspondents: a young 'un in her late sixties and my friend's best friend, a sprightly gentleman in his late eighties. So I keep writing. Not as often as I should (sadly, guilt is an inherent part of the letter-writing process: I should write more often, I know) but I do go through a reasonable number of stamps a month.

And when I'm sitting at my table, my notepaper and envelopes neatly lined up, a selection of pens and my little cards of stamps, I feel ever-so-ladylike. I feel so ... civilised. Sitting down to write a letter in a world of text messages and blog posts and emails and tweets. In fact, I feel positively Jane-Austenesque, (that is, if Jane wrote her letters with a pot of strong black tea and a piece of chocolate cake.)

The Aunties (II)

My auntie from England is visiting her sisters in Ireland at the moment and, sadly, I'm not there to take part in the fun. As you know from this post, my mother had eight sisters but one of them has since gone off to the Great Big Bridge Club in the sky, leaving the remaining eight to band together to fight crime and right wrongs. They're a formidable bunch of biddies, and as they tend to travel in packs, it can be difficult for outsiders to figure out who's who. There's an awful lot of stylish outfits, tasteful jewellery and elegant coiffeurs: all very ladylike and genteel, till someone plays ABBA at a wedding reception, then they'll descend upon the dancefloor, bottoms twitching in unison to Take a Chance on Me.


My mother and her sisters are the Jedi masters of family warfare: they have The Eye, a kind of psychological lightsaber. Imagine, if you will, a family occasion where dozens of vaguely (or remarkably) similar-looking people have gathered to celebrate a birthday. Or a wedding. Perhaps a christening, or even a funeral. Picture an uncle telling (God forbid) an off-colour joke, or a cousin (perish the thought) engaged in a particularly flamboyant version of the chicken dance. In other words, family members Making A Holy Show Of Themselves. The offender could be mid-entendre or working up to a spectacular high-kick, when he might suddenly feel an icicle in the small of his neck. Whipping around, he'd immediately be pinned down by the gimlet stare of one or more Aunties who are Not Amused. Nothing would be said, the offender would be simply lasered into shame. Tssssssssssss! (that was The Eye burning a hole in your forehead.) That's justice, Aunties-style.

The problem is, of course, that The Eye is a highly dangerous and instable weapon. Negotiating a room full of Aunties giving you The Eye is a bit like trying to wriggle your way through the temple in the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark: one false move and you'll be cut to pieces by a pygmy's poison dart or you'll have your head chopped off by a swinging blade. Occasionally, an Auntie might even get caught in the crossfire herself : she might be the recipient of The Eye that was meant for an errant bystander. She might have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, she might have bent down to tie the shoelace on her Ecco shoe or push a stray hair out of place and then -
Tssssssssssssssss!
from a sister who'd been working up to a Mega Stinky Eye for particularly naughty or disrespectful offspring (the offspring had, of course, flung themselves under the nearest table to escape being hit).
"Whaaaaat?" the stricken Auntie will think, indignant. "How dare she give me The Eye!"
An Auntie that gets The Eye from another Auntie immediately ups the ante (sorry, couldn't resist) and returns with the ultimate weapon: The Nose. She'll sniff - oh, it's not just a sniff, it's A Sniff - and retreat in frosty silence. Once The Nose is up, the warring Aunties will withdraw, feathers ruffled and hackles raised, and anyone who happens to stumble into the middle of it will be dragged over to one side or the other. Either that, or you make a run for it and try to escape being slashed by The Eye or frozen by The Nose.

This will continue for an undefined length of time, generally till the Aunties in question have forgotten whatever slight it was in the first place - or till the next Auntie has inadvertently received a lash of The Eye from one of the other sisters, and the original Aunties are distracted from their squabble by the next one. It's like a soap opera: there's drama and intrigue. There are spies and double-agents and plots and coups. It's terribly exciting. Mind you, I find it all the more exciting 2000 kms away in Germany: the chances of getting whiplash from avoiding The Eye are so much slimmer over here.
Having said that, if I don't post within the next week, it's because they've read this post and ganged up to laser me with The Eye via Skype. Mr Gingerbread will find my corpse slumped over the laptop, riddled with smoking holes, and a bunch of neatly-groomed women nodding righteously at me through the webcam.

Postscript: Please, please, Aunties: I love you all dearly. Go easy on me. xxx

PATTERN: Ribbon Afghan

This afghan was something I came up with because I wanted a very quick and very easy pattern that could be done by touch - it's repetitive and simple, the perfect afghan to work on in front of the TV. And it's an excellent scrapbuster! It starts with a smidgen of maths, I'm afraid. It also involves a bit of gauge. (I know, I know, but bear with me: it'll be over soon.)

This pattern is in American English terms [British English terms are in brackets]

GAUGE
Important! Don't skip this bit, no matter how tempting!
Take your chosen hook and chosen yarn, chain 12 stitches. Crochet 1 dc [tr] in the fourth chain from the hook (counts as first dc [tr]), then 1 dc [tr] in the next nine chain stitches. You now have 10 dc [tr]. Take a ruler or measuring tape and measure the length of these 10 stitches.


If I wanted to make a full-length blanket, say 2 metres long, my starting chain would be 290 chain + 2 chain to form my first "dc [tr]".
10 dc [tr] = 7 cm
290 dc [tr] = 203 cm
Chain 290 + 2 chain to form my first "dc [tr]"

I want to make a baby afghan and I'd like it to be approximately 80cm long, including a border.
10 dc [tr] = 7 cm
110 dc [tr] = 77 cm
So I need a starting chain of 110 chain (+ 2 chain to form my first "dc [tr]".)

So for my baby blanket, I chain 112
ROW 1
Crochet 1 dc [tr] in the fourth chain from the hook (counts as first dc [tr]), then 1 dc [tr] in the next nine chain stitches. *Chain 1. Then crochet 1 sc [dc] in the next ten chain stitches (don't skip a stitch). Chain 1. Crochet 1 dc [tr] in the next ten chain stitches. Repeat from * to end of chain (depending on how long your chain is, you may finish with either 10 dc [tr] or 10 sc [dc], it doesn't matter.)
Cut yarn for colour change, weave in your tail, turn your work and start with a new colour.




If you finish the row with dc [tr], you'll start the next with sc [dc]. If you finish with sc [dc], you'll start with dc [tr]. As you can see, I've finished the row with dc [tr] so when I turn my work, I'll start with sc [dc].

ROW 2
You do one row in Colour 1 to start your blanket. After that, you will do TWO rows of each colour. So join a new colour here!

*** Please note: you only crochet into the dc [tr] or sc [dc], you DON'T crochet into the chain between each group of ten stitches. The chain is only there to compensate for the difference between the height of the stitches. If it weren't there, your work would curl! ***

Crochet 2 chain to start the row (this functions as a 'fake' first sc [dc],) then 1 sc [dc] in the next 9 dc [tr] of the previous row. * Chain 1. Crochet 1 dc [tr] in each 10 sc [dc] of the previous row. Chain 1. Crochet 1 sc [dc] in each 10 dc [tr] of the previous row. Repeat from * to end of row.



ROW 3
You do 10 of the same stitches in the stitches of the previous row: in other words, 1 dc [tr] in each of the ten dc [tr] in the previous row - or 1 sc [dc] in each of the ten sc [dc] in the previous row. But don't forget to do your chain stitch between each group of ten stitches - this allows for the difference in height between the stitches. If you don't do it, your work will curl.


And so you continue: after a single row in the starting colour, two rows in each new colour. Here you can see I'm starting my fourth row in white, doing 1 dc [tr] in each of the 10 sc [dc] of the previous row.


And on it goes, up and down the blanket, till it has reached the desired width. You finish by doing just one row in your finishing colour, this gives it an even edge. You can then do a single row of dc [tr] or sc [dc] around the afghan to make it neat.

After a few rows, the pattern clearly emerges:


You may not reproduce this pattern in print or claim it as your work. You may not sell the pattern. Do not copy and paste pattern to another website, please use a link.

Update: see this post for some pictures of other people's Ribbon Afghans!

The Versatile Blogger - that's me!

In August, Seelenfein presented me with an award. I put off delivering my acceptance speech because I wanted to rearrange my blogroll and pass the award on. Alas, I'm still gathering my wits together, so I'd better step up to the pult and accept it. Which I do, herewith.


Thank you, thank you. I'm honoured!

The idea is that you should tell the world seven things about yourself and then pass it on to 15 other bloggers. I can do the former, the latter requires some organisation on my part: I'm a one-woman awards committee. I have to schedule a meeting with myself.

So, seven things about me:
1 I am incredibly clumsy.
I once gave myself a black eye when I banged my face off the rim of a toilet bowl. I was not drunk at the time. Honestly.

2 I write letters.
Real letters. I have ink pens. I own note paper. I possess stamps. In a world of Twittering and Facebooking, I belong to the primitive tribe that knows what the gum on an envelope flap tastes like.

3 I make the one of the best lasagnes you will ever eat.
I make the lasagne dough myself. The bolognese sauce simmers over low heat for at least six hours. I grate the cheese with my delicate little fingers. My lasagne is a thing of beauty and a joy for about ten minutes.
P.S. I also rock the world of fairycakes.

4 My feet are extraordinarily ugly
My husband, who loves me enough to smile lovingly when I sing (whilst others weep) and thinks it's cute when I have a pimple, refers to them as 'the feet of a mutant bald hobbit'. They really are. Like fleshy bricks, with toes attached.

5 I love naps
I don't sleep well at night, but put me in a horizontal position between the hours of ten a.m. and ten p.m. and I will instantly conk out. It's like switching a light off. I often don't even have time to settle comfortably: I become unconscious even as my limbs are flailing about, like a badly-drawn stickwoman. I wake up in a puddle of drool, with a leg folded up under my chin. Or similar.

6 I'm mathematically-challenged
Well, that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis.

7 If I'm not fed every five hours, I get cranky
This is a condition shared by all the Gingerbreads. Meal times were - are - Very, Very Important in the Gingerbread Homestead. If food is not dished up promptly, the Gingerbread children mill around the kitchen door, whimpering about how staaaaaaarving we are, while Mammy Gingerbread mashes potatoes as fast as she can. Do not stand between me and my lunch.

Guerrilla Crafting - Part II

Like most Europeans, I grew up familiar with a whole host of American cultural references that I both knew intimately and, at the same time, knew nothing about. As a result, a kind of cultural wistfulness ensues - a yearning for the 4th of July picnic you never had (= and I really don't like picnics). A longing for Twinkies and Hershey's Peanutbutter Cups (= anything with a 20-year shelf-life scares me and I hate peanuts). You end up with a mishmash knowlege of unknown and unknowable events. For example:

THE PROM
A big dance that means A Lot to American teenagers. Usually full of mean, bitchy girls who try to become Homecoming Queen (???) but this role inevitably falls to the Ugly Duckling nerdy girl who looks like the long-lost female member of The Proclaimers (for those of you who don't know The Proclaimers: Shame On You. They're the Scottish duo that brought the world the infamous ear-worm '500 Miles'. Anyway.) Girl turns up at dance transformed into a vision of beauty by kindly fairy-godmother-like friends, glasses discarded, braces dumped (orthodontists US-wide shudder at the thought) and the dumpy saddlebags we thought she sported beneath her baggy jeans turn out to be slender, race-horse-like thighs. She ends up with the most popular chap in the school, who is a Jock (no idea what that is. I think it might be good. It sounds a bit rude, though.) This is what always happens at a prom.

So there you go.
Every now and again, though, something exciting happens in the form of something mundane: you get something that you've grown up hearing about and, although it's very boring and everyday in the other culture, it's desperately exciting in your grubby paws. Hence my excitement when I first encountered - tada! -
Kool Aid!


Let me backtrack a bit:
I saw pictures on the Interwebz of other people's hand-dyed yarns. And every other dyer used Kool-Aid. Sure, I'd heard of the stuff - it aids you become kool - but wasn't sure what it was, exactly. I did some research and discovered that it's kind of a powdery stuff that you add to water to create a flavoured drink. Reading up on other people's sites, I also discovered that it is to be treated like a dangerous substance: people recommended wearing latex gloves. Latex gloves! Covering countertops with plastic! Wearing an apron or old clothes! It seemed quite exciting: I mean, the little packets look innocuous enough - they're in vibrant, primary colours and feature a little cartoon jug, full to the brim with toxically bright liquid, smiling reassuringly ("Drink me! Drink me!") but they seem to have the potential to Wreak Havoc on your kitchen. Frankly, dear readers, I was intrigued. It is not often that one can hope for an element of danger whilst crocheting, so the opportunity to dabble in what was very obviously a foolhardy and reckless undertaking with a clearly dangerous substance was just too much to resist.

So I obtained Kool-Aid. I was sent some by Nicole (hi, Nicole!), my swap partner, and found a handful of packets in a Chinese-American shop. Let me get that clear: it's run by a Chinese family who stock Asian and American food, as opposed to a Chinese-American family.
"Is this stuff nice?" I asked the two hip and happening young Asian men at the counter.
"Eeeuugggh, God, no - " said one of them. "The only one you can drink is grape. The rest are - " and he finished the sentence with a series of graphic sound effects.
Cautiously, I sniffed a packet of mango-flavoured powder. Bleeurgh. I don't know in which universe mangoes smell like this, but hey - the things I do for my readers.

Home I went.
I set up two chairs in the living room and started winding my yarn. I wound it into skanks (as Mr G insists on calling them. His English is v. v. good but he has occasional vocabulary flights of fancy - he seems to be mixing up hanks and skeins with unfortunate results).











The yarn is from the 99c store: apparently no one except me wants undyed sock yarn. (And, mind you, I not only want it, I want it all. But I just bought 4 for starters.) We watched a couple of YouTube tutorials and marched into the kitchen.

Let me just tell you that we're not usually a let's-share-our-hobbies kind of couple, but Mr G is a chemist, so I thought he'd be handy to have on hand. I thought he'd enjoy spending time with his wife, pottering about, mixing stuff, but he declined:
"It stinks," he said, "It just stinks. I can't be in the same room as this stuff" - said the man who spends the day in a lab juggling beakers of nitric acid and ammonia. I wasn't as sensitive to the smell, it was very sweet and somewhat ... chemical. Not that they're trying to hide it: the packet is clearly marked with the words ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR (but, please note, they are also caffeine free and a source of vitamin C!)

Intrepid is my middle name (actually, it's not, it's Brigid) so I proceeded to dye. And it was fabulous. Fabulous. It was messy and unpredictable (the browny skein was supposed to be more of a blue/purple combo but I threw in a packet of the stinky mango at the end and it all came out kind of ruddy-coloured) and let me add that I did not use latex gloves. I did not cover anything. No aprons were donned during the dyeing of this yarn - in fact, I actually dyed my yarn wearing one of the few white tops that I possess. I didn't have 'proper' equipment: I used Nutella jars, my spaghetti pot and an old chopstick as a pokey device. I wasn't quite sure what I was doing, so I just did what I felt was right. It was nerve-wracking from start to finish - but you know me, readers, I like to sail close to the wind. And this is the result:


Not great, eh? But I got better:


Today I am going back to the 99c shop to stock up on white yarn. I'm going to wrestle the last packets of Kool-Aid from the hip Asian boy's hands and I'm going to dye my little heart out.
Huzzah, readers! I have found a new passion!

This Shouldn't Happen to Me

One of the primary functions of this blog is to keep my mother up-to-date on the goings-on in my life. With nine children (because Gracey asked how many Gingerbreads there were - stacks, my dear, there are stacks of us), she has a hard time trying to keep tabs on our comings and goings. Bloggerdom helps her track our misdemeanors more efficiently.

Anyway - Mammy: I went to the optician and my eyes are getting better.
That is the essence of this post. My eyesight was getting progressively worse with each passing year, but this visit to the optician turned up an astonishing result: now my eyesight is suddenly improving. I was squirming in joy in the optician's chair, happy to know that I wouldn't end up with bi-focals as thick as jam-jar bottoms, when Ms Optician effectively burst my bubble by telling me that it might be the first signs of presbyopia - age-related far-sightedness. I was outraged - outraged, I tell you. Well, I was on the inside; outside I just meekly said, "Oh, really?"

I'm 35 and three-quarters. And leaving the optician's - actually, as I reeled out the door in shock - it occured to me that I have now tipped the scales on my thirties and am sliding towards forty. FORTY! I thought forty happened to other people, certainly not to me. I went home to share the sad news with my husband ("My darling, I fear it is my duty to tell you that we are aging"), who gallantly allowed me to feel better by giving me permission to count his grey hairs (eleven, of which nine were allegedly my doing.) It does not help that Mr G and I celebrated our eight-year anniversary this week. Rather than do anything celebratory, we spent the day shaking our heads at one another and saying things like, "Where did the last eight years go?" We kind of feel like people who were mugged by Father Time. He shook us up and robbed our wallets. At gunpoint. At least, that's how it feels.

P.S. when I went back to the optician today, she asked me if I'd had thyroid issues around the time I got my last glasses. Yes, actually, I had. It turns out that that may have had more to do with the spike in my vision than the fact that I am currently hurtling towards senior citizenship at breakneck speed. I feel slightly mollified, but only very slightly. I won't order the zimmerframe just yet, then.