A Picture for the Cyber-Fridge

If I were six years old, I'd be pushing my knitting into your lap, insisting that you praise it and hang it up on the fridge for all to admire. So this will have to be the cyber fridge: look at what I did! Look! Look! No, you're not looking properly, look at it! (but not too closely because a few stitches are still a bit wonky.)

Last night I tried to work on DPNs (double-pointed needles) but I failed utterly and miserably. It seemed that every time I concentrated on two needles, the other two would up and attack me. Really! Feeling a bit despondent, I decided to try something new to give myself a sense of accomplishment - so I started the Irish Hiking Scarf from the Ravelry database.

Guess what? I can manage simple cables! Yay, me! After a couple of inches, I went into the project gallery in the Ravelry database to look at photos of other people's scarves and was pleased to note that my first cable scarf was better than some other beginners' cable scarves, despite my unorthodox knitting method and the underlying fear that the needles would rise up against me and poke my eyes out. So I preened in front of my computer screen and stroked my luvverly cables.

But as we all know, dear readers, pride goeth before a fall and it was as I was preening and stroking that I noticed that I had dropped a stitch in one of my cables, two rows down and, after I'd picked myself off the floor, I set about fixing it with three knitting needles, a pair of crochet hooks and my teeth (don't ask). Phew. Back on track, I think.

Thank you, readers!

Thank you very much to all my comment-leavers - I won't name you here in case I'm infringing anyone's privacy - but thank you all very much for your help. I am, in fact, knitting in the combined Continental style (which seems to be commonplace in the Eastern European countries - is that right?) It certainly makes life a lot easier to know what I'm doing because I finally understand what I'm doing differently when I watch a tutorial or look at a diagram in a book. Thank you so much for all of your helpful comments and links, you really are a super bunch!

Traitor!!!

I knit a hat. It's not very good, because I'm not a good knitter. I'm getting better, but even as I knit my fingers are screaming "Noooooo! Noooooooo!" and I find it difficult to get them to settle down. As an adult, it's especially hard to relearn a mechanical process and knitting has been my Everest for many's a year. At this point, I'm still in base camp with the Sherpas but I'm sharpening my ice pick as we speak.

When I learned to knit at the tender age of six, I picked it up wrong. At least, that's what I was constantly told - but no one could fault the end result. It looked like knitting that had been done the 'right' way, except I was holding the needles oddly and inserting them into the back of the stitch. Then my knitting went through a 30-year hiatus till I moved to Germany ... and then one day, I saw a girl in my student residence knitting and realised with a shock that she was also knitting wrong. In fact, she was knitting even wronger than I did - she was doing something that looked a bit like a mishmash of knitting and crochet. I showed her the 'right' way to knit (except, of course, I was still doing it wrong) and she was astonished: did I really mean to say that millions of people in the British Isles learned to knit in what was so obviously the wrong way? Astounding.

Now, readers, that was back in the pre-Internet days so we couldn't go online and Google knitting styles to find out that there are many ways to knit - and they're all right. She was knitting Continental style and I was knitting English (or throwing) style. As a crocheter, I thought I should re-teach myself to knit in the Continental fashion because it meant I could hold the yarn in my left hand as I do with crochet. I also thought I could correct the way I knit and finally learn not to knit in the back of the stitches, as I seem to have been doing for thirty years. So I went on to YouTube and re-taught myself and after a couple of nights of cursing, managed to pick up quite a bit of speed and, although my tension is still a bit wonky, actually became relatively comfortable with it. Yay me! I thought. I was on the road to bistitchuality! One step closer to my dream: socks on dpns!

Except, I'm not. Not that I've taken a step backwards, just a kind of bizarre detour. I was reading a thread on Ravelry (a huge internet forum for knitting and crochet) about how difficult it is to purl Continental-style and I thought, "That's weird! I think it's really easy!" Back I went to YouTube and watched the videos again - and it turns out I'm still knitting wrong. For crying out loud!  So I've started another hat to see if I can re-train myself ... again.

The Disneyfication of Zuppy

Once upon a time (yes, another one of those posts) a few years ago, I saw a documentary about dolphins kept in captivity and trained to take part in dolphin shows à la SeaWorld. There was footage from a show on the Spanish holiday island of Ibiza, and as the audience left, the German film crew stopped people and asked them what they thought about the conditions in which the dolphins were being held.
"Also," said one portly German lady, "ich finde, der Delfin hat einen sehr glücklichen Eindruck gemacht!"
(Well, I think the dolphin made a very happy impression. )
At which point, I exploded into a rant, Liamo-style: How did she know? Was it the dolphin's smile? Did he wink? Did he raise his eyebrows jovially? Did he wave or make jokes? No, he did not because He! Is! A! Dolphin!

Liam is my father. He can - at the drop of a hat (or even as your trilby descends downwards) - launch into a lecture (rant) about any number of hotbutton issues. I have not only inherited his hair and freckles, I have also inherited many of these same hobbyhorses. Just as text (letters, cards, emails or advertising copy) written in the voice of a toddler by adoring adults makes my hair stand on end, I also dislike it intensely when people project human thoughts and emotions on animals.
"I went home last night really worried about my tax returns and when I got in the door, my Shih Tzu Lucy just looked at me with her big brown eyes, and I knew she was thinking, 'Don't worry about your tax returns for 2009, concentrate on 2008!'" says my colleague.
I bite my fist.
The real conversation between woman and Shih Tzu went like this:
Woman: "Oh, Lucy, my tax returns are late again! I'm going to get into trouble! I'm going to have to pay a fine!"
Dog: "Blah, blah, blah, Lucy. She looks a bit sad. I wonder if I'll get fed now? Blah, blah, blah."

Of course, this only applies to OTHER PEOPLE'S PETS as the fact that my parents' dog has already starred in several of his own blog posts will attest. My parents' dog, Zuppy, is a very intelligent and sensitive creature with excellent communication skills. In fact, my father and I recently analysed this picture over the phone:

My father went out for a walk on Christmas morning to take some photos and was dutifully followed down the avenue of their house by the Jack Russell. He'd already reached the entrance to the driveway when we realised that he was dogless and he felt Zuppy's beady eyes boring into him. When he turned around, Zuppy was performing a tableau of abject misery. He allowed my father witness his piteous state for a couple of seconds (because this dog does not like snow) before he fake-limped back to the house. My father and I established that he was Not Happy in this photo and pondered whether he was genuinely miserable or milking a bit of sympathy - or both. I think my father tends to believe in Zuppy's innocent little soul, whereas I have a sneaking suspicion that he's a bit of a drama queen.

I can't believe I've just typed this post. I'm blaming my father for this one. (And Zuppy, the manipulative cad.)

Woolgathering

 

That's what I did today. I gathered my stash from the various baskets and bags and hideyholes and nooks and crannies and dumped them all on the bed to sort them out. I tried to keep my husband out for fear of his mockery, but it didn't stop him from coming in to point fingers and laugh at his poor little yarnatic.
"Get out!" I shouted theatrically, "You cannot witness my shame!"
I shut the door behind him but I could hear him snickering on the other side.

Three hours later I have neatly stacked balls of yarn and - this is more important - I actually threw away dozens of scrappy little balls of yarn that I know I won't use. It took me a long time to come to terms with this, but I have I can finally recognise that I don't need to keep every neatly-wound half-inch ball of yarn in every obscure colour. I have also learned that it's okay to throw away yucky yarn - and there is yucky yarn. Like the ball of fuzzy acrylic in the shade 'Dead Cat' or the mucous-green fun fur (both belong firmly in the category What Was I Thinking?)  I don't particularly subscribe to New Year's Resolutions but I think I'll have to be more judicious in my yarn choices in 2011.

My Kilty Pleasure: Thrills and Swoons

This post is going to be a bit saucy, so if you are reading this next to your octogenarian mother or using The Adventures of the Gingerbread Lady to teach your preschooler how to read, I would ask you to consider finding another post to peruse. You have been warned! (Mammy and Daddy, you might like to look away now.)

My mother loves to read and loves watching films, yet she hates smut and (whisper it) s-e-x in these media. She prefers nice BBC period dramas where everyone keeps their frocks on or books that follow a family dynasty but leave the copulation behind closed doors. This year, for Christmas, she asked for a few "nice books" to read and it was with great difficulty that I located some smut-free works. This involved a bit of censorship: I skim-read one or two to make sure the smut was at a minimum. I found a couple that look relatively mother-friendly, and failed tragically on another. The Smut Fail book is one called Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, - it's been out quite a few years, apparently, and there are half-a-dozen sequels. On the surface, it seemed okay: 700 pages of historical romance. But I was wrong. The smutometre went off the charts, dear readers, off the charts!

It tells the tale of a 1940s nurse who goes for a wander around some standing stones, faints and wakes up in Scotland a couple of centuries ago. As you know, I recently had a few fainting episodes myself and I am now sorely thankful that I came to my senses among the contents of my husband's toolbox because this lady quickly finds herself scooped up by a band of be-kilted Scots, one of whom she marries for some spurious reason, e.g. in order to gain protection from someone or other. The pair of them then fornicate up and down the Scottish highlands and lowlands, whilst getting to somewhere or away from someone. Disgraceful, readers, that's what it is: absolutely disgraceful. (And, on a side note, I would like to comment on the depiction of the Celtic peoples in popular fiction. I understand that it can be difficult to recreate a Scottish or Irish accent in print, but it's amazing how much we sound like pirates when an author tries: "Aye, arrrrr me lassie! Let's hop on me horse and ride to Edinburgh, arrrrr!")  But I feel I owe it to my mother to finish this filthy tome, in order to establish for once and for all that it really is not suitable for her little eyes.

Wallowing in the pages of Outlander, I was reminded of my own short-lived foray into romantic fiction. When I was 15 or 16, my best friend at school was an avid reader of Mills & Boon books. Mills & Boon, in case you are not familiar with them, are popular romance "novels" (cough), sold at newsagents and in supermarkets, as well as bookstores and in train stations. My best friend used to read them voraciously, swinging on the back legs of her chair with her novel hidden behind her geography book. When she got to a particularly saucy bit, the chair would flop down on to all four legs again with a resounding thump, startling Sr. Frances in the middle of her explanation about how a glacier is formed.

Nowadays, Mills & Boon are far racier than they were twenty years ago. By today's standards, what we read was terribly tame. But the basic premise of many of these books has not changed. We had the formula figured out and if it were not for the odious chore that was our university-entrance exams, we might have made our fortunes writing popular romances. Witness our research:

Ingredients

• 1 chaste young woman named after a classical deity (Persephone) or foodstuff (Oregano)
• 1 lonely, misunderstood millionaire named after an item in a DIY store (Wrench) or a random selection of vowels and consonants (Kytz). If he has a title, all the better. Counts are particularly popular: there's apparently nothing quite like being ravished by minor European royalty.
• 1 implausible career for young woman (pottery designer, kite maker, full-time sweater knitter)
• 1 dramatic scenario (woman washed up on man's private island with amnesia; woman taken prisoner by man for trespassing on his massive estate; woman forced into marriage to please dying father who always wanted to see her married off before he kicks the bucket etc.)
• Add a  selection of euphemisms for body parts: members, mounds, rosebuds, cusps - all popular choices.
• Mix in a liberal smattering of obscure adjectives for afore-mentioned body parts: glistening, heaving, turgid, tumescent (which, by the way, is not to be mixed up with fluorescent. It was a sad day when I discovered - many years later - that tumescent members do not glow in the dark.)
•  Wrench and Oregano need a variety of interesting verbs to express how they communicate:
  "Come here," rasped Wrench. Oregano trembled, her bosom heaving. "No!" she murmured, "You cannot force me to marry you, Count Wrench von Tuchenstein! I will not be your wife!"
  Get the picture? Wrench will do a lot of rasping, growling, barking and snarling, whereas Oregano will probably go for murmuring, whispering, pleading and cajoling.
• Finally, you need a resolution: in other words, the reason why Wrench was being a big ol' uptight meanie was that he was actually mentally tortured by his ex-wife!!! He didn't intend to be such a rapscallion - he just wasn't in touch with his feelings!!! When he admits that he really loves Oregano, their love can truly grow and their marriage blossom and she can give birth to their twins!!!

It's very reassuring to know that if my career Educating The Youth should ever come to a halt, I have a Plan B - I'll be able to churn them out in no time. I'll have to find a pseudonym, naturally, because I could get into a lot of trouble if my parents found out that I had become An Author of Smut.

TUTORIAL: Twenties Hat

Why? Because I want to know if I can. That's the driving force behind much of my crochet designing. I wanted a very elegant, classic Twenties cloche hat and I couldn't find a pattern for one - so I made one up. Here you go:

Materials
You need a
3.50mm hook (a ‘E’ hook)
approx. 90g sock yarn (or fingering weight cotton)
Note: this pattern uses American terms, the British terms are in [brackets].


The crown:
Start by chaining 3 and join with a slip stitch to form a little circle.
OR: start with a magic loop (thanks to Carla for pointing it out!)
If you have never crocheted a hat before, have a look at the pattern for the SiSoYa hat HERE. This includes some photos to help you along.


Round 1: Chain one, then do a SC [DC] in the same stitch below (this counts as your first SC [DC] here and throughout), then do 9 SC (DC) into the circle. Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch. (10 stitches in total)
Round 2: Chain one, then do 2 SC [DC] in the same stitch. 2 SC [DC] in next nine stitches. Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch. (20 stitches in total)
Round 3: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in next nineteen stitches. Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch. (20 stitches in total)
Round 4: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch, *1 SC [DC] in next stitch, 2 SC [DC] in stitch after. Repeat from * around, ending with 2 SC [DC]. Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch. (30 stitches in total)
Round 5: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in next twenty-nine stitches. Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch. (30 stitches in total)
Round 6: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in next stitch, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch, *1 SC [DC] in next two stitches, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch. Repeat from * around, ending with 2 SC [DC]. Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch. (40 stitches in total)
Round 7: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in next thirty-nine stitches. Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch. (40 stitches in total)
Round 8: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in next stitch, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch, *1 SC [DC] in next three stitches, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch. Repeat from * around, ending with 2 SC [DC]. Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch. (50 stitches in total)

From this point on, you increase in every second round (the even-numbered rounds.) You increase by adding one more SC [DC] between every double SC [DC] in every round. In other words, in round 8, you do one SC [DC] in three stitches between each double SC [DC]; in round 10, you’ll do one SC [DC] in four stitches between your doubles. Every second round (the uneven-numbered rounds) will simply be a SC [DC] in each stitch.

You continue to increase like this until you have a slightly-curling circle (it will probably be like a woolly saucer) that has a diametre of a bit more than 18 cm / 7 inches. (Mine was 7.25 inches when I stopped.) If you have a big head or a lot of hair, make the crown a bit bigger. It's supposed to fit snugly but you don't want it to cut off the blood circulation to your brain.


The body of the hat:
Now keep crocheting in the round - no more increases, just one SC [DC] in every stitch, till the hat is approximately 18 cm / 7 inches from the crown of the hat to the brim (bottom edge). When you pop the hat on your head, the brim (bottom edge) ought to sit at eyebrow level.

The brim:
In order to achieve the gently-sloping brim of a Twenties-style hat, you have to increase very gradually. These values are approximate and are meant as a guideline:


BrimRd1: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in next 29 stitches, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch *1 SC [DC] in next thirty stitches, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch. Repeat from * around. You mightn't finish neatly with 2 SC [DC] as you did when you were crocheting the crown - don't worry. If I reach the end of the round after, say, 26 SC [DC] then I do 2 SC [DC] in the last stitch. If I reach the end of the round after 10 SC [DC] then I don't. It's all about spacing your 2 SC [DC] as evenly as you can. . Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch.
BrimRd2-6: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in each stitch all round. . Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch. (= five rows of single SC [DC] )

BrimRd7: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in next 39 stitches, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch *1 SC [DC] in next forty stitches, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch. Repeat from * around. Again, you mightn't finish neatly with a 2 SC [DC] but you can use your discretion and add a 2 SC [DC] in the last stitch if you wish. . Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch.
BrimRd8-12: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in each stitch all round. (= five rows of single SC [DC] ) Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch.

BrimRd13: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in next 34 stitches, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch *1 SC [DC] in next thirty-five stitches, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch. Repeat from * around.
BrimRd14-16: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in each stitch all round. (= three rows of single SC [DC] )

BrimRd17: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in next 34 stitches, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch *1 SC [DC] in next thirty-five stitches, 2 SC [DC] in next stitch. Repeat from * around. . Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch.
BrimRd18-20: Chain one, then do 1 SC [DC] in the same stitch, 1 SC [DC] in each stitch all round. (= three rows of single SC [DC] ) . Join the last stitch to the first stitch of the row with a slip stitch.

Your brim should now have a gentle slope like this, low enough to come down over your eyes so you can flutter your peepers beguilingly at passers-by. Try it on again and again as you crochet, so you stop at the length that suits you. Mine is very low but you might prefer yours a little shorter.

Shaping:
In order to help this hat keep its shape, it's not a bad idea to stiffen it a little. I wet mine with warm water (not hot - we don't want it to felt) using a spray bottle. I then placed it on top of my Styrofoam model's head and pulled it into shape. It didn't require much shaping, mind you, as the SC [DC] and thin yarn mean that the hat already maintains its shape reasonably well. I sprayed it with some spray starch (available in the laundry section of your local supermarket) and blow-dried it using a warm setting on the hair-drier. The hat isn't stiff (I used very little starch) but it keeps its basic shape when I put it on and take it off - which is what I wanted. More information about stiffening crochet here.

If you don't have a Styrofoam head (and I admit that this is not the kind of item knocking around most households), you could look for a simple alternative. Before I had mine, I used an upside-down breakfast bowl on a candlestick or my husband's volleyball. Essentially anything with a rounded shape to allow the hat to dry on would do the trick.

Decorating:
This is the bit I like best and it's amazing how the hat changes character depending on the ribbons and embellishments you pin on it:

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. You can make these hats for your personal use, for gifts and to sell privately (e.g. at craft fairs or markets.) I would kindly request that you give me credit for the pattern on your product tag with a link to my website - 'cause that's the decent thing to do and we crafters are decent people. And, obviously, if you make millions from making these hats, you have to give me a significant share.
 

Our Christmas Letter

Dear Friends and Family,

Inspired by the recent arrival of an ill-disguised epistolary bragfest from friends that have drifted far enough apart as to make their Christmas letters appear out of the dark waters of our subsconciousnesses like the iceberg that scuppered the Titanic, Mr Gingerbread and I would like to jump on the venerable bandwagon of overblown prose, poor punctuation, lavish emoticons and backhanded boasting in order to send you a recount of our 2010.

Well, well, well - it has been a busy year, has it not? (smileyface). January saw Mr Gingerbread recovering from a lung embolism which he no doubt picked up following a minor accident during our house renovations. I told him to hire help - after all, we have no shortage of money following our decision to copyright some of the web's most beloved acronyms as our own inventing. LOL alone garnered us millions on the stock exchange in 2010 (though sadly my favourite  - YWKWIMIYHLTMPTFTA: You Would Know What I Mean If You Had Listened To Me Properly The First Time Around - didn't enjoy as much success.) Being a veritable Man Friday, he decided to tackle it himself and ended up in hospital for his enthusiasm (sadface). 

But the ensuing spring months were successful on every level and we found ourselves savouring the delight that is Gingerbreadtown in the spring (happyface.) As you all know, Mr G. has a passing interest in quantum physics, so imagine our delight when he discovered that he could split the atom using nothing but his desk lamp, a rotating pencil and a filter from the coffee machine. Smiles all round. I achieved several of my goals by late summer, including making significant strides in the negotiation of peacekeeping agreements in the Sudan and mobilising the UN forces in Haiti. Sadly, permanent peace in Northern Ireland eludes me and there were renewed scuffles during marching season in July, despite my requests that some of the more militant ditties be replaced by non-denominational classics such as Kumbaya or Michael, Row the Boat Ashore. Oh well - 2011 is another year!

Autumn brought its usual whirl of work and social obligations, which sadly did not diminish as Christmas drew near. We turned down invitations from Brad and Angelina to spend the yuletide with their charming brood, as well requests from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Dalai Lama to speak at their respective end-of-year celebrations. Our plan was to head to Ireland but, as you know, this was thwarted by Mother Nature. Still, given the year that we have had, we were not unhappy to crack open a bottle or two of Bollinger's Blanc de Noirs Vieilles Vignes Francaises (we opted for a 1997 vintage because we were feeling frisky) and dip our Tuc crackers in a jar of caviar. We felt it was unfair to recall the household staff to do our bidding, as they had returned to their own families for the festive season. Instead, we braved the kitchen alone: imagine my surprise and delight when Mr G. managed to defrost one of Anna-the-cook's Gratinée de coquilles St. Jacques all by himself! It made a fine meal - though rough and ready, as we had to use paper napkins because I still can't locate the linen closet (mental note to self: ask butler to enter the living quarters of our house on Google maps.)

On this note, Mr Gingerbread and I take great pleasure in raising our glasses to you and wishing you the very best of years to come! (happyface, happyface, happyface)

Yours truly,

The Gingerbread Lady

Sock Yarn Hats

Thank you very much for all of your kind enquiries about poorly me and poorly Mr Gingerbread. We're enjoying our state of poorliness as much as we can, drinking lots of tea and taking naps. We're getting better - aside from my taped-together toes and attention-mongering limp - and I fear we might even be getting fond of this wonderful not-quite-well-but-not-exactly-sick state and all its fringe benefits ("Sorry, we can't leave the house to spend the afternoon looking at your holiday photos: we're poorly.")

Because neither of us has to work and not much else is happening between Christmas and New Year, I can watch films and documentaries to my heart's content - and crochet till my fingers fall off. Oh, I am so in love with sock yarn. I have nothing to do but crochet, so I'm churning out a hat per day. Oh, joys (modelled, as always, by My Lovely Assistant Gladys):

 

 


















Gladys looks kind of jaunty in the bottom right-hand photo, she's sporting this hat with a kind of lopsided insouciance. You wear it, girl! (or cool words to that effect.)

Never a Dull Moment

I woke up to a face-slapping.
I was lying on my back, with my husband kneeling over me, gently slapping my cheeks.
"I'm calling an ambulance," he said.
I looked up at the ceiling and saw the horrid faux-wood ceiling tiles of our hall. Why wasn't I in bed? Why was I lying in the hall? And why was my husband slapping my face like an 80s' soap opera diva?

All of these are good questions and can be answered with two words: stomach flu. Despite my rabid disinfecting, I picked up my husband's bug - except mine manifested itself in a series of fainting fits. On the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I fainted. I woke up briefly and found myself amidst a pile of screws, nails and rawl-plugs that I must have pulled off the shelf where we keep our DIY stuff as I fell.
"Crikey," I thought when I came to, "This must be one of those really weird interpretive dreams, where you find yourself surrounded by all kinds of strange objects that have a Freudian meaning. What's up with the nails? What do the screws mean? How do I interpret rawl plugs, for crying out loud?"
After a couple of seconds, when nothing else happened - no flying frogs in rubber boots, no guest appearances by deceased family members - I realised that it was unpleasantly real, so I called out for the Gingerbread Husband ... and the next thing I remember was being woken by a panicked husband who was threatening to call an ambulance.

"Can you feel your legs?" he kept asking, and I wriggled my toes to show I could. In fact, I was strangely proud of the fact that I was wriggling them like a pianist doing the scales - doh, ray, mi, fa, so, la, ti, doh! - but he wouldn't acknowledge my toe-wriggling prowess, he just saying, "We have to get you to the emergency room!" I convinced him not to drag me out in the snow in the middle of the night to the ER, instead I was allowed go back to bed. The next day I spent 5 hours in the ER waiting to have my toes x-rayed - in falling, I not only emptied the DIY shelf, I also scratched my neck (?) and stubbed two toes so badly that they looked broken (they're not, but the pain I am to experience is equal to a fracture, said the ER doctor with some grim satisfaction.)

Anyway, all's well that ends well - however, five hours in the emergency room with stomach flu and suspected broken toes will not count as the highlights of 2010. But we got home and made tea and had a supper of toast and honey - and all was right with the world. Then the Gingerbread Husband (who'd had a tremendous shock: he found me at the bottom of the stairs and thought by the way I was lying that I'd fallen down the stairs and broken my neck), lay down on the floor to recreate the astonishing angles at which he found my limbs akimbo
... and I promptly fainted again.
I probably need a day or two in bed.

TUTORIAL: Hot Water Bottle Cover

So you're looking at this and thinking, "Haw haw! A hot water bottle? How old is the Gingerbread Lady? Ninety?"
You laugh now, readers, but buy yourself a hot water bottle (if you don't already have one - or, like me, two) and I will have the last laugh. Oh, yessirree. You will rediscover love, a love like none you have ever known before. And because you're a crafter, you ought to wrap your new-found beloved in a warm, woolly cover. And that's what we're going to do today.

First of all, what yarn shall we use?
Well, you all know that I'm a big fan of sock yarn (despite having never knit a sock in my life) and this would be ideal for such a project - it's normally superwash wool. Perfect. Unfortunately, it'd take you forever and a day to do it in sock yarn and in the meantime, your little tootsies will be blue with the cold. So I've used acrylics (the one featured in this tutorial is Caron Simply Soft) and a wool/acrylic mix. Some people are afraid that acrylic might melt - well, this hasn't been the case with me so far and I like a HOT hot water bottle.

First, take your hot water bottle (to be hence referred to as the HWB) and chain till your starting chain is the length of the body of the HWB:

 

Now do a HDC (American = half double crochet) [HTR (British = half treble crochet)] in each chain.
Let's take a moment to extol the virtues of the HDC.

If you're a beginner, you mightn't know this stitch, it's kind of halfway between a single [Br = double] crochet and a double [Br = treble] crochet stitch. It's really fantastic for one great reason: it allows you to make a ribbed effect, like a knitted rib effect. In fact, I've done scarves in this stitch with a chunky wool and have given them to knitters - who didn't realise it was crochet! (And, being knitters, they didn't realise that I had crocheted it in about a third of the time it would take them to knit it, evil chuckle.)

This is a HDC [HTR]:
Begin as you would for a DC [TR]: yarn over, hook through stitch in the row below, yarn over, draw through.

You now have three loops on the chain.

Normally, you'd yarn over and draw through two loops, then yarn over and draw through the final two loops - but with a HDC [HTR], you yarn over and draw through all three loops at once:

 When you have done a few stitches in your first row, look closely at your stitches:

There are three loops visible, aren't there? Well, when you come to the end of your row and turn your work, you can create a ribbed effect by crocheting through the two back loops of your work. In other words, I would crochet the next row through loops 2 and 3 and ignore the loop # 1 at the front (for a very pronounced rib, you crochet only through the very back loop, loop #3, leaving loops # 1 and 2 to jut out at the front.)

Anyway, you do a HDC [HTR] in every stitch in your foundation chain, when you get to the end of the row, turn, do 1 chain a HDC [HTR] in the back two loops of the last HDC [HTR] in the previous row. You just crochet back and forth, till you have a long rectangle that covers the HWB when you fold it in two. Then grab a sewing needle and sew it in:

I remove the HWB and turn my work inside out so you can't see the sewn edges. The other nice thing about the HDC [HTR] is that it doesn't produce a 'front' and 'back' side to your work.

Now your HWB should be snugly enclosed in its ribbed cover, with an opening around the neck of the bottle. When the bottle is empty, you can fold it in the cover and wriggle it out through the neck. This will allow you to wash the cover.  Just to finish it off, I crocheted a couple of rounds of DCs [TRs] around the neck of the bottle:

And there you go!

Married to Lazarus

I've known my husband for eight years. For seven of those eight years, he has managed - with a spectacular sense of bad timing - to contract an illness by Christmas Eve. He's had a head cold, the 'flu and a lung embolism. He's spent Christmases in bed at my mother's house, his mother's house, our house and in hospital. This year, I was woken on Christmas morning by the sound of my husband worshipping the porcelain goddess - somewhere on our Odyssey to and from Frankfurt airport, he picked up a technicolour dose of stomach flu and spent the day running back and forth to the bathroom. I spent the day running after him with a bucket of disinfectant.

The thing about my husband is that he doesn't simply become ill - he collapses. He collapses into a sleeping coma and is useless for days. Nothing - no amount of conscientious nursing or annoyed poking - will remove him from his stinky bed. And it's impossible to discern the degree of seriousness of his illness: he deploys the same level of drama (whimpering, tossing, moaning, heavy breathing) for everything from the common sniffle to pneumonia. I simply can't tell how ill he is until he keels over - then I know that he's actually sick, as opposed to just looking for a bit of sympathy.

After two or three days of uninterrupted sleeping - in this case, this morning - I'll hear a stirring from the bedroom and the creaking of the floorboards. The bedroom door opens and my woolly-headed husband appears on the threshold, his jammies wrinkly and his hair standing on end. There's a triumphant grin about his chops, a kind of "Haha! I beat the plague!" He then plonks himself in front of his computer and checks that cyberspace has survived without him. In the meantime, I put on the Christmas dinner - the one that we should've had yesterday, instead of my plate of spaghetti.

Christmas Morning

In a separate post, I'll tell you all about Christmas Day in the Gingerbread House. But let me show you a few pictures of a silent, snowy Christmas morning. I got up to clear the snow with the rest of the neighbours ("Merry Christmas!" "Happy Christmas to you, too!") and then took a little walk through a silent city. You'll notice that there are no people in the pictures: there was only me.

What was your best present ever?

My father's photo of the driveway to my parents' Gingerbread House

When we were small, Christmas was the highlight of the entire year. We always had an Advent calendar and our names were pulled from a hat to decide who got to open a little door on which day. Letters were written to Santa Claus – no, sorry, that doesn’t convey the care and thought associated with a letter to Santa Claus. Letters were composed to Santa Claus, after long and careful perusal of toy catalogues and diligent study of TV advertisements. My brother Michael, indecisive and fickle, wrote and re-wrote his letters and even after they’d been sent to Santy, there was no guarantee that his decision was final.

Unlike here in Germany where Christmas Eve is the highlight of the festival, Christmas Eve in our house is the day to go visiting and drop off your presents, the day you spend cleaning your house and preparing Christmas dinner for the following day. You had to be extra, extra good on Christmas Eve because Santy was already on his way down from the North Pole and he’d hate to have to skip your house because of a last-minute bout of naughtiness. Vegetables were chopped and peeled, the (obscenely large) turkey was stuffed, the Christmas cake and a glass of whiskey set out for Santa Claus and a plate of carrots prepared for Rudolf. Then the sparkly-clean kiddies were sent off to their freshly-made beds, jittery and giddy in their new Christmas Pyjamas. 

The next day at dawn we stormed our parents’ bedroom and forced them to get up and come downstairs with us. We weren’t allowed into the sitting room where the tree and presents were, till Gingerbread Mother had checked that Santa Claus had visited –

“He’s been!” she’d shout gleefully (a plate with crumbs and an empty glass in the kitchen were the evidence.) There were a few seconds of stomach-wrenching tension and then one or other of the parents would open the door and let us in, squeaking and squealing and screaming as we fell on our Christmas loot.

As we grew older, Santa Claus continued to come. He was never allowed not to come. As we grew up, the older kiddies were roped into the conspiracy to make it more real for the Little Ones. We painted hoof-prints in soot on the kitchen floor. We found presents for Santa Claus to give to the Little Ones and schlepped them home in secret so they could disappear till Christmas Eve: my sister Eithne transported a full-sized sword across rush-hour Dublin, I came home one Christmas with little more in my suitcase than a Lego train set for my youngest brother. And we didn’t always have a perfect Christmas – we had our fair share of dramas. The Christmas my parents got their first dishwasher was also the Christmas when stormy weather knocked out the electricity for days. You have no idea what a fabulous gift a dishwasher is until you’ve washed up after a dozen people on Christmas Day, dear readers. On Christmas Eve, electricity was restored and we were spared the agony of a two-hour yuletide pot-scrubbing session. Another year my father nearly burst an artery when he discovered a snail in his Brussels’ sprouts (no, we weren’t aiming at a French-themed Christmas). Yet another year several kiddies got food poisoning and spent Christmas Eve night throwing up all over the place.

So what’s my best present ever? Actually, I think it’s less than tangible: it’s fabulously intangible and durable, unlike the Lego sets and Barbie dolls and Play People houses that have long since disappeared. Despite the fact that my parents often didn’t have a lot of money, and more than once didn’t have anywhere near enough, they always give us a lovely, magical Christmas. Every Christmas – despite dramas and upsets – was wonderful. I don’t know how they managed it: as an adult I can only begin to understand the work and the stress and the sheer effort that went into making our Christmas special.

I remember standing in the back garden of my parents’ first house on Christmas Eve – I must have been six or seven, I think.

“Look, Daddy,” I said to my father, who was filling the coal bucket. “Is that the Christmas star? Is that the one the Three Wise Men followed?” 

And I pointed at what might have been the North Star or Venus or a passing satellite.

“It is,” he said, without hesitation.

And that’s my best present ever: my parents’ dedicated and loving effort to make Christmas magic, a conspiracy of absolute love. It was – is – appreciated immensely by all of your children, to an extent that you probably can't imagine. 

Thank you very much, Mammy and Daddy. xxx

An Unexpected Christmas

 

Hello everyone - and a very merry Christmas to all who celebrate it!
Our Christmas has been very adventurous and unexpected so far. We had a horrid week - just horrible. Heavy snow meant that we had to get up at dawn to clear snow, then I had to trudge-slash-slip-slash-slither to work in snow and ice, teach in wet clothes, turn around and trudge-slash-slip-slash-slither home in the early darkness of midwinter. Our washing machine broke down. My keyring - with all of my keys - was lost-slash-stolen, and I spent all of Wednesday walking from shop to shop in sleet and rain, trying to retrace my steps from the previous day, hoping that some kind soul had handed them in. On Thursday morning, yesterday, I got up early, worked, came home, threw my (actually, our) stuff into two suitcases and we flew out the door to the train, on our way to Ireland for Christmas, leaving behind a filthy house and a dishwasher stacked full of dirty dishes. Oh, the stress. The sickening stress.

None of this was made any easier by the fact that Ireland is under cover of snow. Dublin airport had been closed for days due to heavy snow but reopened yesterday. However, shortly after we arrived in Frankfurt, Ireland's airport authorities closed the airport again due to unexpectedly heavy snow. Our flight to Dublin was cancelled and thus we found ourselves stranded at Frankfurt airport at 11 p.m.

I'll spare you the gory details of being herded through Frankfurt's vast terminal with two or three hundred other frazzled strandees, the endless queuing, or the confusion, just let me tell you that the nice people at Lufthansa put us up for the night and offered to put on a special flight this morning, Christmas Eve, to Dublin. I mean, they offered it, but due to a forecasted blizzard, they couldn't actually guarantee that it was going to take off. The chances were 50-50 that we'd actually get to Dublin. And if we didn't, the chances of getting back to Gingerbreadtown were almost null - nothing much happens after lunchtime on Christmas Eve in Germany, so we had the choice of chancing it and hoping we wouldn't end up spending Christmas snowed into Frankfurt airport's Sheraton Hotel, or just giving up and going home. And at that point, exhausted, sweaty and defeated, we just wanted to go home. Home, home, home. So we got up early this morning and took a train home to the Gingerbread House.

Under normal circumstances, I would have been devastated. And, truth be told, I am disappointed not to be at home in the bosom of my family. But the reports online about travelling conditions in Ireland make scary reading - I'm glad that the Gingerbread Brother and his Lady Wife didn't have to make the hair-raising journey to Dublin to pick us up. I'm glad we didn't end up on a flight that was diverted, like the Lufthansa flight to Dublin before ours (it was diverted to Manchester. Can you imagine being nearly home - very nearly - but stuck far away enough to know you've no chance of making it for Christmas?) And I'm very glad that we had time to get to a supermarket to re-stock the fridge that we'd so diligently emptied (the horrors of this week were compounded by my husband's insistence that we eat all the leftovers in the fridge before we leave. It's hard to cope with stress on a diet of scrambled eggs and pickles.) So now we're in the Gingerbread House, sitting in the reflected light of candles and Christmas oleander, listening to Christmas music and watching the snow drift past the window. It's our first Christmas in our house. And, all things considered, we're very lucky.

In Ireland there's a tradition of lighting a candle and placing it in the window on Christmas Eve. As a nod to the Holy Family who found no room at the inn, it's supposed to show travellers that they'd be welcome to find shelter in your home on Christmas Eve. When you drive through the pitch-dark Irish countryside on Christmas Eve, you can pick out the light of the candles in people's front windows - a beautiful tradition, a lovely symbol.  This evening I lit four candles and put them in our window, thinking of all the people who travelled across rough seas, snowy skies and icy roads to get to their loved ones. And a small token gesture for all the people stranded at airports and ferry docks, spending a Christmas of sorts on a camp-bed or in a hotel room.

Snow Day

 

Hello there, readers,
Sorry for being so schreibfaul (writing-lazy) recently, but I have been so busy. It's nice to be needed, it's true, but I'm needed by too many people at the minute and I wish they would need me just a little less.

That's why I was happy to be woken on Friday by a colleague,who wanted to know if we were going to get a snow day. She'd heard on the radio that schools were closing for the day because the roads were blocked due to the heavy snow. A snow day? In all my years of teaching I'd never had a day off due to snow. She said she'd check and call me back.

I yanked open the curtain and pulled up the blinds. I could see my bike. Just about. The phone rang; it was official - we had a day off school. Whoopee!

 

"There's been a big fall of snow!" I shouted over to the slumbering Mr Gingerbread. "It's beautiful out! The sky's gorgeous and everything's bright and shiny! And I think I'm getting a day off school!"

No answer. So I pulled my jeans on over my pyjamas, put on a jumper, my winter coat, hat, scarf and gloves and skipped - yea, verily, skipped - downstairs to clear the snow.

In Germany you have to have snow cleared off the footpath in front of your house before 7 a.m. Despite the fact that I loathe - yea, verily, loathe  - getting up early, I love being up alone early in the morning in the clear white freshness of new snow.

 

Strangely, most of the people who pass me by are inordinately interested in my snow clearing efforts, especially senior citizens. They praise me ("Good work! Keep it up!") or give me sympathy ("Ooooh! Clearing the snow! Don't you just hate it!") and sometimes I even get little weather tips ("I hate to tell you this, young lady, but it's going to snow again later.") 

Most interested of all are small children, who watch my clumsy shovelling with great interest.

"Whatcha doing?" said one little fellow, maybe about three years old. He was wearing one of those all-in-one snowsuits, topped off by a massive woolly hat and a big scarf. He stood watching me, wiping his nose on his mittens, while his mother struggled with his baby sister at the end of the street.

"Shovelling snow," I said. "I have to clear the path."

He looked around and pointed a moist mitten at a patch of snow.

"You gonna clear over there?"

"Yes, I am," I said.

"And over there?"

"Yes."

"And over there?"

"Yes, over there, too."

"And over there?"

"No, that belongs to the neighbours."

"But over there?"

"Yes, over there."

"What about over there?"

Etc.

(And I might add, we have no garden, just a footpath in front of our house. Who knew there was so much to point at?)

The child had virtually marked the borders of our property by the time his mother caught up. She whipped out a tissue and scrubbed his little face, then pulled him away, giving me that Grimly Apologetic Mother Smile (also known as the I-Know He's-a-Pest-But-You-Only-Had-To-Endure-the-Interrogation-for Five Minutes,-He-Does-This-To-Me-All -Day-Long smile.)

I admired my luvverly work and went off to pick up some croissants from the bakery.

 

Do I love snow days? Yea, verily, I do!

Mr and Mrs Caveman

I know I mention my husband a lot on this blog. He's vaguely aware that he features prominently, but has no interest in reading what I write. In the nicest possible way - he laughs when he sees my blogpage and tells me to behave myself. He trusts me to provide an unbiased and fair portrait of our marriage. Which I think I do.

See, he's a very smart man in many respects. Today he lectured me all the way home from the bakery on the intricacies of distilling pure alcohol. My legs were pumping like pistons in an effort to get home sooner, but he held me back, explaining in detail - oh so great detail - how one would distill pure alcohol, if one wanted (one does not). Anything of a science-y nature excites him immensely; he is uncannily like my own father in that respect. And, similar to my father, this passion is combined with a didactic bent and a burning desire to fill the gaps in my patchy scientific knowledge. To fill the gaps in great detail, readers. Oh so great detail.

My husband also has a glib explanation for many of his idiosyncrasies. He blinds me with science and tries to convince me that his total lack of visual memory is the biological advantage of the male. According to him, Mother Nature bestowed the male species with the ability to espy things from afar, whereas women are able to see and remember detail in their direct environment. According to Mr Gingerbread, our ancestors in the caves would have had the following conversation on a regular basis:

Caveman: Oh, look. There's a woolly mammoth. Due north, with a prevailing wind coming in from the southeast.
Cavewoman: North? Which way is north? Is north over there, where that big tree is?
Caveman: Quiet, woman. Look, it's a whole herd of woolly mammoths.
Cavewoman: Where? I can't see anything. Do you mean those little specks in the distance?
Caveman: Of course I do! Look, I have no time for this. Where's my spear?
Cavewoman: Your spear? It's where you left it. On the large outcrop to the left of the sleeping mats, beside the pot your sister gave us for the last harvest festival.
Caveman: An out-what? Where? Which pot?
Cavewoman:  The outcrop. The ruddy big bit of rock sticking out of the wall.
Caveman: Sticking out of the wall? Is there something sticking out of the wall?
Cavewoman:  Near where we sleep. The huge big flat slab of rock - oh, forget it. I'll just go get it for you.
Caveman: And while you're at it, can you bring me my slingshot as well, please?

Millions of years later nothing has changed. Nothing. Nada. Nichts. Not a thing.
Yesterday my husband wanted a rug to put under his desk chair to stop the wheels from damaging the laminate floor.
Him: Do we have an old rug somewhere? I want to put it under my chair.
Me: Yes, we do. Go out into the hall and in front of the wooden shelves you'll see a box on the floor. On top of the things in the box there's the red rug we used to have under our coffee table in the old apartment.

Husband stares at me brazenly. We are both aware that I lost him after the first conjunction. He would prefer it if I followed him and gave him step-by-step instructions ("Open the door to the hall. Walk towards the loo. Turn left. Look at the bookshelves. Now cast your gaze downwards." Etc.) He doesn't like anything more complex than that. But I return his brazen gaze. The hall is only about 12 square metres big. There is only one set of wooden shelves. There is only one box on the floor. He sighs and leaves the room.

After five minutes of dramatic opening and closing of cupboards, despairing sighs and what sounds like a mini-avalanche, I go out into the hall and - this is not a lie - find him looking for the rug in his toolbox under the stairs. Wordlessly, I point at the bright red rug folded on top of the box on the floor in front of the wooden shelves.
"Well," he says, "I couldn't visualise it so I couldn't see it. I only notice these things when I know what I'm looking for."
"Spare me the story of the cavemen," I warn. "I've heard it all before."
"But it's true," he mutters. "It's biology."
Biology, my foot.

In the interest of fairness, I have to add that he later came in with a packet of butter.
"Why did you put this in the cupboard with the biscuits?" he asked.
Apparently I have the occasional bout of absentminded tidying, during which time I'm apt to distribute foodstuffs in creative places around the kitchen. Mr Gingerbread hasn't come up with a scientific explanation for it yet but I have no doubt that at some point I'm going to get a lecture about how it somehow pertains to our Stone Age ancestors. I can't wait.
In the meantime, I have to try to remember where I put the teabags.

The Hatmaker's Husband has a Chilly Head

"The shoemaker's children run barefoot," my friend May used to say. Whenever she or one of her siblings felt unwell, their father would tell them to drink a glass of water and take an aspirin. Sound advice, except that their father was a doctor and while he doled out premium healthcare to all his patients, he cured most of his family's ills with off-the-shelf painkillers and a great big glass of still water. My parents sell - among other things - office supplies and paper, yet ours is perhaps the only telephone in the country that has no message pad or pen beside it.

So it shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone that Mr G and I found ourselves scuttling home in the snow and ice on Saturday afternoon, unable to withstand the freezing temperatures after only twenty minutes outside. Neither of us had a hat (yes, I know, you lose 90% of your body heat through your head. We felt it escaping with every passing minute.) Not having a hat would have been bad enough, except that I had made half-a-dozen hats between Wednesday and Saturday for our charity bazaar - the irony was not lost on either of us. We slipped and slithered home to a hot tea and I dug out my Red Heart Super Saver (yes, this calls for Big Tough American Yarn) and made us both hats. And I'll have to make us a couple more as well, I think. I've already lost one (sniff) and have had one stolen (sigh) this winter.

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.