L (and K) are for...

Loches

(château of)

Loches differs in many aspects from the other French chateaux I've featured for the Ravelry abc-along in that it is made up of several buildings over quite a large area of the town.  The picture above is of the Royal Lodge which was  either designed, built and occupied by Henry II of England and his son Richard the Lionheart in the 12th century, or captured and occupied, or inherited and occupied... I haven't been able to find many agreeing sources as yet...  It was (re-)captured by the French in the early 13th century and turned into quite the military fortress.  Whatever the real story is, it was certainly built on the remains of a much earlier fortress or castle of some sort.

the lodge from the other side and yes, on a different day.  how can you tell?

Running up to the Royal Lodge you find the Chapel of St Ours. (which confusingly translates as Saint Bear... maybe I should leave it in French...)  A chapel has been on the site since the 5th century, but the current chapel was built between the 10th and 12th centuries.  And it has pretty stained-glass windows, too!  (Oo - shiny moment!)

rather small and unasuming from the outside...

...but more than enough room to swing a cat on the inside

oooo - shiny

The Romanesque portal is pretty stunning, too, even though most of the paint  on the fabulous monsters depicted there has since faded.

owls, gryphons, monkeys, acrobats...

But that's not all, no indeed not.  There is also the imposing Keep and dungeon...  (And this is where I cunningly add my 'K' abc-along mini-postette...) 

the keep

There are rather a lot of buildings that encorporate the Keep - including the Barbican, the Governor's residence, the Louis XI tower, medieval gardens etc, but it is the dungeon that is the most thought-provoking and, to be honest, sinister...  The cylindrical dungeon of Cardinal Balue, the torture chamber, and other dungeons that had wall carving and general medieval graffiti.  I have to admit that the whole place gave me the willies...

The Keep, on the other hand, give me the willies for altogether different reasons... It is possible, by means of very old stone stairs and wire mesh landing stages, to climb up to the top of the enormous structure.  There are no floors nor a roof left, so climbing up the inside, next to the wall, is not for the faint of heart. 

that black blob lower left is me,
too scared to go any higher

I got up a few floors, but my intrepid sister climbed all the way to the top and took some great photos.  One of which I'll nick and show here:

 the royal lodge and the four towers of st ours in the distance

Yes, she is mad.  It was quite windy that day too, if I remember rightly...

Aye, Loches isn't a bad wee hunting lodge as hunting lodges go...

Remember me?

Do you?  I'm surprised because, shame on me, I haven't blogged in yonks.  No excuses. 

Well, actually, I have plenty: I was working in Dijon; I have been designing and knitting up more socks; I have been playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook.  The first excuse was excellent fun!  A concert of mostly Purcell in Dijon with some lovely friends.  I have photos and everything!

The second excuse is something I'm really enjoying, but the only downside is that I can't blog about it until a) it's written-up properly, b) I've finished knitting-up all socks concerned, and c) I've had some intrepid test-knitters check it all out. 

The last excuse, considering it's a one-minute timed game on a social networking site, has been taking up an unconscionable amount of my time.  Addictive?  Only very.

But now I shall try and distract you from my lame time-losing rationalisations by showing you some pretty pictures.  Look - ooh - shiny...

eglise sainte-chantal in dijon

Actually, maybe not quite so oo-shiny, really...  I'll add some colour...

oo-shiny enough now?

Built in the late 1800's, for a catholic church, I  found it surprisingly unadorned.  Of course, this may just be my ignorance of 19th century French catholic architecture showing, but there were, thankfully, some very interesting stained-glass windows to admire instead.

ste gertrude, not sure, not sure again and ste jeanne-françoise de chantal

I was rather taken with the centre-piece behind the altar which not only showed lovely representations of Dijon Catherdral and other well-known Dijonnaise buildings but also some modern architecture.  I've never seen factories shown in stained-glass before, and there's also a nice nod in the direction of Mr Gurtav Eiffel (born in Dijon), the architect known principally outside France for building the Eiffel Tower in Paris.  You can see one of the bridges he built, shown in the main panel. (I've added close-ups, for your ocular delectation!)

I have to admit that I was also taken with a lovely scene with folk in Renaissance clothing - complete with slashed sleeves and elaborate ruffs.

do my arms look big in this?

But back to the seekrit socks...  Hopefully some news on that soooooon...

J is for...

Juicy

gin and tonic socks by yours truly
in zitron trekking (xxl) 175 (greens) and
beyond basic knits superwash sock in just call me happy

Oh yeah, baby, here's another free pattern for your delectation!  You can download it here, should you feel so inclined!

After another afternoon or three with my nose in my stitch dictionaries, I came up with the idea for these babies...  Here's the blurb:

There’s nothing quite like a gin and tonic on a warm Summer’s evening.  With a slice of lime, or lemon, according to preference!  This stitch pattern reminds me just of that – slices of something citrusy in a tall glass of iced Blue Sapphire gin and Schweppes tonic!  (Sponsorship/endorsements deals welcomed with open arms!)

Basically, it's a eyelet/lace pattern with a two-cable-needle cable occurring twice in the repeat.

 ice and a slice

Instead of my usual eye-of-partridge heel, I kept the ribbing idea going down the slip-stitch ribbed heel-flap and also on the toe, as it worked well with the outlines of the lemon slices:

ribbed for your pleasure

The pattern looks great all closed-up, but it's when the socks are worn, that the true lemon (or lime, or orange or... can't think of any more suitable citrus fruits...) slice shape really catches the eye:

hmm - more watermelon on the right, really...

The yellow socks were made using size 3mm dpns for the body of the socks, and the green with 2.75mm dpns for the same and you can see the subtle difference it made to the patten repeat! Sizing suggestions are on the pdf file...

arty-farty shot!  oh yes!

I'm just about to add these to the Ravelry database!  Please feel free to check it out!

Enjoy!  ;D

You win some, you lose some...

Indeed, the orphanage (a big old-fashioned red-ridinghood-esque wicker basket) was one sock up, but soon after was one sock down again.  We had to say goodbye to our Traffic Island Sock in the Red Fraggle colourway this morning, as its sibling arrived to whisk it away.  Our little brightly-coloured stripey bebeh will be sorely missed.  Not having to wear sunglasses indoors all the time will be a blessing, however...

traffic island socks by yours truly
yarning yenta sock yarn in red fraggle colourway

Well, the pattern seems to work.  If I can successfully make two pairs of socks from it without wanting to curl into a whimpering ball of ineptitude, anyone can!

interesting shot showing off differences in stripey gauge...
meh - perfection is boring

I can still gaze for long periods of time at the eye of partridge heel stitch.  It's just so, well, mesmerising, I guess...

look into my eyes, not around my eyes, look into my eyes...

Anyway, before we could get all teary-eyed at our loss, along came a Frondes Naissantes Sock (budding leaves in French! - pretentious?  Moi?!) to keep us occupied...

'zokni socks' by mintyfresh
noro kureyon sock in colourway S188

This is a darling pattern.  I say this also because in fact the sock is knit from the pattern I worked out from a stitch dictionary and was thinking of publishing when I discovered the zokni sock was (give or take a couple of stitches) as near as dammit.  So, there may be some differences to note, but it was too close to make a totally new pattern...  Them's the breaks!  It is lovely, though, and this particular colourway of the Noro sock yarn is incredibly beautiful!

Talking of patterns - there might be something to announce in the next post...

I is for...

Irony

domenicuskerk, amsterdam

Well, colour me gobsmacked.  I have to admit that I wasn't expecting this...  My concerts with the New Mannheim Orchestra in Holland were in churches after all, but in modern ones.  This usually means some strange-shaped, plain-bricked monstrosities with weird-acoustics, and I wasn't let down in my assumption for our first concert near The Hague (a pentagonal strangeosity). But oh!  The church in Amsterdam blew me away.

holy graffiti, batman

Modern (well, neo-Gothic, late 19th century, so yes, modern!) yet architecturally breath-taking!  (Hey, I'm an appreciator of old-fashioned buildings... what can I say?) The Domenicuskerk in Amsterdam was designed by the same man who created some of the most gorgeous train stations in the Netherlands.  And churches, castles and museums.  Okay - that sounds rather bizarre, but really - check them out here.

The colourful nave was painted in the 1920's and is heavily influenced by the art movements of the time - mostly (to my eyes) art deco...  There is colour everywhere!

rainbow saints and angels

modern frescoes aplenty

And the ceiling...  The ceiling...

a thousand gold stars for effort

And I was not let down in the stained-glass department, either...

nom nom nom

A great church, a fabulous band, scrummy music and getting to make music with some old friends.  I'd say this project was full of win!  More please!

It's TWINS!

Announcement of Birth

traffic island socks by yours truly
a&e bfl sock in berries

RedScot would like to announce the arrival of two little bundles of joy.  Twins Traffic and Island came into the world on April the 19th, 2009, much to the delight and relief of their mother.  Babies and proud parent are doing very well indeed and would like to thank everyone for all their good wishes.

And their downloads!  Heh!

I'm pleased with these little mites.  Well, hardly little, considering they fit my clodhoppers, but as an example of my first foray into producing a pattern, I have to say I am pleased!

who's mummy's little angels, then?

I know, I know... my own pattern, and I haven't finished an actual matching pair until now...  But I was adamant I wanted to test the pattern with different yarns and needle sizes before I let it loose in the world, therefore I had more Traffic Island orphans than I could shake a dpn at.  (Many thanks, also, to my kind test-knitters - you know who you are, and I LOVES you, I do!) Still, one pair down, another to go. The sibling for the TI sock in the Red Fraggle colourway will probably be started (and finished) on the train journeys up to the Netherlands next week.  Well, they are a quick knit after all, and perfect for travelling!  (Notice the subtle use of own horn tooting there...)

i love angels&elephant's yarn

The Netherlands again?  Well, yep - HUZZAH!  I'm going up to sing in a couple of concerts conducted by my BFF and the music includes the very first solos I ever sang.  Way, WAY back when I was 22 and was studying piano in England... Singing was my second study - it was a choice of that, or violin, and I thought singing would be easier!  Then I changed to first-study singing and discovered The Truth...

(Ugh.  I don't like the way, WAY back thing then the 22...)

Anyway, Vivaldi's 'Gloria' - alto solos!  OH YES!  Little Miss Zwischenfach (in-between voice types) I am!  Then Handel's 'Dixit Dominus' alto solo, too!  Oh, and 2nd soprano solos, because they don't have that much money for soloists, and they know I can do it!

(Or, at least they hope I can do it!  Heh!)  Tune in next time to find out...

H is for...

Holy

mmm - i loves me some stained glass

Now, you and I both know that I'm not the most religious person on the planet, but when it come to singing concerts in churches, I'm there and a-clicking with holy abandon.  Well, between rehearsals and the concert, at any rate.  I haven't yet mastered the art of kinnearing folks mid-concert, but it's not, I have to admit, through lack of trying.  I may have to invest in a smaller camera...

The past few weeks have seen me wearing out my camera batteries in four churches - three local and one in Burgundy: Eglise Saint-Denis in Amboise; Eglise Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois; Eglise Saint-Aignan sur Cher and the final one was in the Eglise Saint-Martin in Chapaize.  Beautiful churches, all .

eglise saint denis in the background                     eglise saint-martin

eglise saint-aignan sur cher

And I don't seem to have an exterior piccie of Sainte-Catherine... It was lovely, but you'll just have to take my word on the matter!

Then, of course, we have the interiors... so much GORGEOUS stained glass that I was in a frenzy to take photos in the breaks before the sun went down.  And incredible interiors with beautiful stone-work, too...

saint-aignan

saint-denis

But it will come as no surprise that it was the stained glass that caught my lens the most:

I do loves me some stained glass!  I felt I had to stock up on the prettiness, as the next few concerts will be in halls, rather than churches...  Still, one lives in hope...  Maybe I should use my love of stained glass to design some socks!  Oh YES!  Well, designing that would certainly keep me busy between rehearsals!  Heh!

p.s. new (non-stained-glass) sock pattern coming soon!  Well, soonish, anyway...