crochet pattern: the lilac block

Note: This pattern would not exist without me first attempting to make this motif by Snowcatcher (which is awesome and you should check it out for many more tutorials) and it is pretty much based on it, so the rules for sharing it apply to this pattern as well.

This is the first project where I realized that I'm now familiar enough with the mechanics of crochet that I can make things without a pattern. It's always awesome when that happens and I hope that the pattern will be of use to some of you.

The motif is crocheted in the round. Gauge depends on the size of your hook and your yarn. I used scrap yarn left over from another project, so I don't know the parameters, and a 3.0 hook. Since I live and shop in the Czech Republic, the hook and yarn parameters are probably different anyway.

US crochet terminology is used for the pattern.

Several motifs sewn together with a tapestry needle.

Picot loop: ch [number of ch requested], insert hook from front into the previous st, sl st back
Picot: ch 3, proceed as above.

Pattern:

1. Form a magic ring or ch 5 and sl st into first ch to make a ring.
2. Ch 2 (counts as dc), 1 dc, ch 6 and form a picot loop, [2 dc, ch 6 picot loop] 3 times, 1 dc, sl st into the top ch of the initial chain.
3. Sl st into 1st  6-loop, ch 2 (= dc), *1 dc, 2 tr, ch 8 and form a picot loop, 2 tr, 2 dc*, dc into next loop, repeat from *.
4. Sl st between the two petals you just made, ch 2. 1 tr into the adjacent 8-loop, 1 tr, 2 dc, 2 hdc, 2 sc, form picot, 2 sc, 2 hdc, 2 dc, 2 tr. 1 dc between petals, repeat around.

You're done! 

If you spot a mistake in the pattern, please let me know in the comments.

tulips & cats in the unsecret gardens

There are places where different eras overlap. 

This is one of my favourite places in the whole city. Not because it's so beautiful but because it's disturbing in just the right way. It was once a garden colony and now it is a residential area with brick houses and playgrounds. What is weird, though, is that the shanties of the long gone garden owners are still there. They're wooden constructions with makeshift everything and with goofy mementoes from the times of their functioning. The flowerbeds are also still there, they look as though they were measured out with a ruler and they resemble untended graves. As all the seeds and bulbs stayed in the ground after the gardeners left, the backyards of the brick houses are teeming with flowers and the occasional strawberry plant. Not all the gardens are abandoned, either. Little squares of land between the blocks of flats are fenced off and cared for by really old ladies. And then there are the cats and trees with eyes. 

The current residents don't seem to mind the previous era slowly disintegrating in their backyards. I know it would bother me. I'm uneasy around unfinished business, so I'd take down the shacks and dismantle the edges of the flowerbeds. There's something half-undone about those gardens. Like the past is still lingering in there along with notions of futility and marred efforts. I wonder what happened to the gardens and why they were there in the first place, since the houses are themselves quite old and they look as though they just landed there one day, fully built, without disturbing the vegetable patches. 

Being there brings out all kinds of memories. The place does not as much attract me as makes me want to go somewhere else. To all these places the memories of which are crammed together in this sorry neighbourhood. The town where I spent my childhood and which had lots of these in-town gardens with primitive sheds just to sit in. There were huge colonies of them and most were tended to back then. The garden outside the city owned by my family. Absolutely nothing ever happened there, which allowed for the most absurd child fantasies and daydreams to develop. Other places, stuck in my head, especially those that I can never go back to because they just aren't there anymore or I have too vague an idea of where they were located. This neighbourhood frees the pieces of me lodged in these places and brings them up for further examination.

ode to joy

//text: "Ode to Joy" (1957) by Frank O'Hara; from The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara

//photos by me

//listen to the author reading the poem here

endless narratives

I have a new microblog! Yay! Well, in truth, I wanted the platform for following other tumblrs and I thought that tweaking it might be a fun way to learn some CSS. I still think that it's magic, so that's gonna take a while. To be honest, I still think that the social-network-y aspect of tumblr is mostly a bad idea, as it generates so much unoriginal and largely unsourced content, but I get now how it's tempting to reblog half of your feed.

So far the tumblr is mostly loaded with things related to my  Frank O'Hara paper (the first draft of which I finally sent in), and I intend it as a sort of multimedia notebook to store and put in context the things I find online and want to use later. So feel free to visit, right now the blog is called endless narratives. It's based on the Cavalcade theme, because it has such a lovely structure, although I'd like to add more columns to it (and I have no idea if that's even possible).

It's finally spring here, which I love. The air is so much better now and there are cherry trees in blossom, one of my very favourite things in the world. I'm taking a course in adaptation studies next week that I'm super psyched about. I'm also about to start writing another thesis (that sounds reasonable, right? the faculty thinks it's a brilliant idea, though), this time on Milan Kundera's Ignorance and the other recent novels. I'm still at the beginning of Slowness. It's an abomination of narrative prose, as is Identity. As opposed to Ignorance that is just bad. I know. The thesis is going to write itself.

I'm having trouble formatting these images. I ended up putting an entirely different set here just because the original ones were absurdly small. What the hell.

I'm guessing this is a buttercup. My knowledge of botany is on a level so close to zero it's practically the same thing.

Fields of maybe-buttercups in the garden of the psychiatric hospital where my therapist resides.

Blissful hours taking pictures of this building and its deliciously decrepit surroundings.

Fantomas was here. Eight times. Or maybe it was eight Fantomases.

There was an entire panel of Lokis, but I had to take it off because it was unformattable. Are you happy now, Blogger?

tales from urban rockeries

Here are some creepy pictures from my neighbourhood, where the weather's still shit and I am reminded by waterlogged flowers about how dumb I was as a child.

Playschool, as designed by someone who watched a bit too much of Doctor Who.

Plants, as designed by the same person.

It's not that there wasn't competition. Here's a plant from a fan of Who's Afraid of the Dark?
I wonder if they were friends.

Your ordinary benches, having a chat.

The first literary depiction of death a Czech kid might encounter is in a book about
a family of fireflies, who go underground in the winter and in the spring there's a purple daisy
for each of them. The knowledge that I took from the book was that
during the winter, fireflies transform into daisies.

Those who aren't crushed by a petanque ball beforehand, that is.

wireless for dummies

Hi! Here I am again! I don't blog much these days, but I'll gladly interrupt my hiatus to gloat, because apparently that's the kind of person I am.

It's quite usual these days that nothing much interesting happens. I'm holed up in the library with the only copy of The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara in who-knows-how-great an area and I try to write something resembling a scholarly paper on the traces of Surrealism in O'Hara's poems. I might be the only person in this city who even likes his poems. I feel so special.

So that's weekdays sorted. At the weekend I clean up the mess that I have managed (how? when?) to make during the week. I do that on Saturday while I still have the resolve, because it means stuff everywhere (I reorganize weekly), the ancient vacuum cleaner having to be taken out, and Loki in the closet, overwhelmed by the destruction possibilities opening up for her.

Today, however, I had to put a wireless adapter into my computer. I have a "new" (discarded by my brother) computer and it can't be arsed to connect to the Internet in any other way.

Since I don't have wireless adapters lying around, I had to go to a computer store to buy one. There's a proper store in the neighbourhood, with IT guys and everything. So I stroll into the store and ask for a wireless adapter and what information I need to provide to get the proper one. "Look," the shop assistant says, not really trying to keep the patronizing to a minimum, "the only thing I care about is what type of adapter you want: USB or the one that goes inside the computer." Having had enough fun with the computer's insides over the weekend, I ask for the USB one, seeing as it appears not to matter and they are cheaper than the other kind. On that, the shop assistant starts to try and sell me one with an aerial, since those are apparently better at picking up the signal from a source that is not in the same room as the computer (who would even buy the other one, then?). That's an idea I don't like, so I ask about the other type, the one that goes inside the computer. On that, the assistant tells me that these are for desktop computers, while the USB ones are for laptops. Yep, that's what I meant when I asked what he needed to know in the first place. When we've established that, I make the mistake of asking for instructions to make the thing work. "Yeah, that's what I'm gonna attempt to show you," he says, meaning "you might be too dumb to get it, though" and points to a picture of a motherboard with several slots. Since I have actually eviscerated a fair share of computers in varying states of shitness and unusability, I find his attitude to be leaning heavily to the offensive side. Not to mention that his instructions turn out to be about as helpful as the picture I find inside the package, which resemble an anatomy lesson taught on a Ken doll.

Luckily the written instructions are clear enough, though I don't really know why the manufacturers felt it necessary to pretend that there are screws on the slot covers. There have certainly never been any on those in my computer, and judging by the neighbouring slot, the devices usually come with their own. The steps towards a wireless connection turned out to be as follows:

1. Unplug the computer. If you were surprised to be told that, it's not good.
2. Open the case.
3. The motherboard is marked with minuscule letters designed to freak out the average user by almost not being even there. Some of the slots are marked PCI. There are covers beside the slots that aren't occupied, so that the inside of the computer is not exposed. These are masqueraded as part of the case and are not immediately visible. Figure out how to remove the bit beside the PCI slot. 
4. Pick up the adapter and marvel at its impeccable design which will now make it hell to fit it into the motherboard so that nothing breaks off in the process. Put the aerial through the opened space.
5. If you're lucky, you will now be able to just slide the adapter into the slot, securing the metal bit at the same time. If your computer is like mine, the motherboard will be slightly shifted to one side, making you wish you went for the USB option. 
6. If your slot cover had a screw in it, good for you. If it didn't, the adapter will be a bit shifty and rage-inducing, but it works, so whatever.
7. Close the case. 
8. Put the CD in. If your CD drive is fucked up, like mine, download the driver and run it. 
9. Raise finger in the general direction of the obnoxious shop assistant (optional).

Most things related to every-day computer use, I find, are not really that complicated when you look at them closely enough. I was talking to my mum yesterday and she told me how her printer in her office stopped working, so she called the IT guy at her work. He came by, started to lecture her on how she should organize her files, messed up her archives, did nothing about the printer and left. Seeing as he's the only admin for the network, even if anyone else wanted to make the printer work, they can't. I guess I just don't get why entrust all the administrator rights to the computers to one guy who can't even repair a printer, but maybe there's no other solution for the network. What makes me angry is the attitude of people who act as though any computer skills beyond double-clicking are magic and they're the only person able to perform the spell. That's just stupid.  As is being a condescending jerk to women buying tech stuff, gentlemen. It's not my problem that that might be the only thing that makes you feel manly.

read! the dangers of proximal alphabets by kathleen alcott

But even one letter changes a meaning entirely; no matter their proximity, different points of an alphabet refuse to be represented as the same: there’s no guarantee that someone standing at precisely the same longitude and latitude as you will remember the view the same way, no promise that one person’s memory of a moment or a month will parallel yours, retain the same value, shape the years of living that follow.

I was trying to remember where I first read about this book, but I was unsuccessful. I wanted to know what made me want to read it in the first place - and since I don't recall the article, it must have been the title. In my personal collection of book names, this one is sitting right next to Special Topics in Calamity Physics and I Was Told There'd Be Cake in terms of making me want to read the book immediately.

[possibly spoilers]

There's a quotation before the start, which is "if there is a place further from me I beg you do not go". You know how you come upon a string of words and a bit of the world clicks together like pieces of a puzzle? (Oh no, why am I attempting metaphors in a review of a book like this. Why.) Also, it is from one of my favourite poems.

This is a book which revolves around those things that are really simple enough to allow for an extended metaphor, and yet complex enough for the metaphor to not be banal. Things that seem so obvious in hindsight, with all the pieces fitting together, but gaining this perspective was really damn difficult. No matter how close you are to someone, the understanding is never 1:1. 

Also, as mentioned by Ida's father, who is old and therefore free to impart sayings like that without seeming pretentious,

"I’m an old man, and I know what I’m saying when I tell you that just because you love someone, Peaches, just because you love someone doesn’t mean they’re right. For you. At least not forever."

At the beginning, Jackson and Ida are no longer together. In on of the initial passages, Ida recalls Jackson in one of the most accomplished descriptions I have ever read, cementing the fact that she has been incredibly close to him (that, or she made him up) before you know hardly anything about either of them at all. It's so long it verges on exhausting, but at the same point it's fascinating how minuscule the details are; there is an echo of knowing someone that excessively. In other words, it's very well played.

There is a spot with a half-inch circumference below his left jaw where hair does not grow; he has bizarre theories about why.

The book operates on two time levels, one of recollection and therefore retrospective, and one contemporary to it, but going forward. The plot is being retold to the reader while the story rolls on, signifying that you are in for a jigsaw puzzle. Bits of information are imparted throughout the book, the story chopped up and quite neatly composed into a compelling discourse. The book being a giant metaphor, it should not disappoint anyone that piecing together the story itself is not really the point.

Ida's recollection reaches first for the beginning - she met Jackson and his brother James when they were all little children from broken families, living in a small town. The author invokes a child's mind and the way memories work with a resonating effect - the memories are fragmented and repetitive, some things are only implied since they were either out of the understanding of the children or out of their focus. That way, the exhaustion and sadness of the boys' mother becomes an afterthought while the fantasies the children and especially Ida build around the kidnapping of their schoolmate take up the space of several pages. The kids are sheltered and protected by their respective single parents, so their memories allude to a childhood that was tragic, but ultimately not so bad, albeit with the consequences of the family tragedies inevitably surfacing in adult life (the famous Philip Larkin poem applies here, too, although not in its bitterness).

But: it was a church, and there was a preacher, and there was a preacher’s daughter, and her name was Heather, and Heather was in the same grade as Jackson and me, and we did something bad to Heather.

Having mostly taken care of each other, the characters leave childhood still with untended to issues that eventually develop - James is prone to addiction and is eventually diagnosed with mental illness the symptoms of which sometimes cause for him to find himself in remote places, unaware of how he got there; Jackson's sleepwalking and night terrors do a similar thing to him while Ida is heavily codependent, unable to function by herself. These issues merge into the narrative, they're presented, quite refreshingly, as a selection of the wide array of things that could have fucked up the characters' life.

Starting in their childhood, the boys talk in their sleep, seemingly forming, to Ida's eager ears, whole surreal conversations.

“All night,” Jackson said. “Gold.” “Nightgold,” agreed James, his lips moving over his teeth between words. “All of it.”

In their later life together, Ida continues to be fascinated by the nightly workings of his mind. She continues trying to see sense in his night terrors, even experiments with giving Jackson art supplies while he's asleep, sessions which result in surreal, dark images. Despite their mutual intimacy, Ida refuses to let go of her fascination. However, where she imagines sense, Jackson sees chaos and terror. His paintings repulse him, he insists that they're not his because he doesn't recognize them when he wakes up. While the perceived presence of another, darker self in him damages Jackson's mental stability, Ida, unable to resist showing the accomplished pictures to other people, arranges an exhibition in an art gallery. That's a little too much for Jackson, and he leaves her, bringing us back to the starting point.

Jackson later put up a photo of [his father] in our apartment. It came not out of a sentimental place or an effort to miss someone he barely knew, but rather a black humor that most found disturbing but I, as someone who was also parentally ghosted, found hilarious.

The effect, I suppose, is in the details. There is a level of insight that is quite unique and must have required either experience or a massive amount of empathy in order to make the details ring true. As a result the novel  offers to the reader a certain shift in perspective as regards to those things - things that might not otherwise occur to you because it's a type of an experience you don't have. I like it when a book does that.

As you would probably expect from a debut, not everything is perfect. The narrator's voice seemed a bit far-out at times, with too many flourishes. There are places that seemed redundant, but maybe that's just me. Overall the book seems very thoroughly edited

In the end, it's the writing that makes the book. That "just because you love someone doesn't mean they're right for you" looks pretty obvious and reasonable from a distance, right? Or you might be standing right in it and it's not feeling obvious at all. In any case, to craft a novel around it that is this well written and offers something fresh seems like quite a difficult thing to me.

liebstering

You know what's really good? When you awaken from the exam blog hibernation and find out that someone has given you a blog award! I'd say that there are very few things blog-wise that could possibly be better. And I can't think about any right now. Let me say thank you to Suzy from Eeep I'm a Blogger, who nominated me and also is awesome, so be sure to go check out her blog. There are many reasons why you should. If you don't know that sloths are the cutest, you should. If you like good writing, you should. Feminism? Posts and guest posts! So, off you go. 

As I understand it, there are several rules for accepting the Liebster. Firstly, it works as a tag-chain-post type of thing - I get to choose a set of bloggers whom I'd like to give the award to in turn. There are no tagbacks. If you get tagged, you can play along or not, it depends on you. You should probably let your nominees know somehow. I'm going to do that via Twitter.

le projet d'amour 

Hila's blog is one of the reasons I started blogging myself - her attitude and the devotion with which she writes about her themes convinced me that it is worthwhile to share whatever you think is beautiful and that there may well be people who will think it's beautiful too. The internet is great in that you can find people on the other side of the world who you wouldn't encounter otherwise and you'd be so much poorer for that. I read my first Frank O'Hara poem on Hila's blog. I am now writing a thesis about his work. So there.

All the Live Long Day

Annika is an incredible photographer, a source of inspiration and joy and an all-around nice person. Her blog is beautiful. It makes me want to do new things.

a blog about a nova

Um, just go there and I guarantee you you'll be coming back for more. Those link posts. Most of the sites I visit now come from those link posts. Nova and her no-bullshit attitude and tattoos and all. It's an addictive blog.

Cafe Nervosa

Michelle does and knows a lot of things and I always find something cool when I visit her blog. She's a hardcore animal lover and there is a photo of her pocket with a kitten in it on her blog right now. A kitten. In a pocket.

Hello, I'm Jamie

One day I read a short story-kind-of-thing on Jamie's blog. And then I followed him on Twitter, where he once posted a photo of a bookshop located in an underground station and, more recently, lyrics from a Los Campesinos! song that I now regard as one of the finest pieces of poetry ever written. The other day I had a dream that we were flying on a plane together. 

Well and Cheaply

Sarah is great. She hosted a blog comment challenge a while ago in which I got to know some truly awesome people. Her smile will make your day. 

Sarah Rooftops

Black cats and photos that might very well make you look around yourself better. Photography instruction. The List. Loads of joy. 

a miusmie

Rooth blogs about houses, books and interesting things. And she's funny. Also, there's all the delicious food. I feel like cooking just thinking about those pictures.

The Desert Dandelion

Caitlin's most recent post is titled "10 Reasons Today is a Good Day, Dammit". She thinks like that. And it's good to read a blog by someone who thinks like that. 

Another things is, every blogger tagged posts 11 questions for the others to answer. These are Suzy's questions and my answers:

1. Who is you favourite hero/heroine?
My mother, who went on and raised us all by herself after my dad died.
2. Would you rather have the legs of a cheetah or the wings of an eagle?
Legs of a cheetah. I suppose I couldn't sleep on my back if I had wings and I like to do that sometimes.
3. You’re in the 2016 Olympics, what event are you competing in?
Do you know those guys who walk really quickly while moving their legs in a funny way? I walk like that, because I'm always late for everything.
4. Name a time when you were so embarrassed you wanted the ground to swallow you up.
After a ball I went to last week when I remembered it the next morning.
5. What is the most extravagant thing you’ve ever bought?
Every Moleskine I have ever bought was an extravagant purchase to me. Extravagant as in "costing too much money because I didn't know any better".
6. What is your favourite flower?
Violets. Especially in large quantities. I like all flowers, though. I'm doing autogenic training as a part of my therapy now. The first exercise was imagining a flower. Try doing that while someone else in the room is reciting in slow voice "Concentrate on your right leg. Your right leg is heavy." Between outbursts of laughter I decided on peony. Now I have to draw it. I have realized that I don't know what it looks like. I wonder if it's still therapeutic if I look it up on Google Images.
7. What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?
I look at the clock and swear loudly.
8. If there is one thing that would make your life better right now, what is it?
Being able to get up much sooner and make better use of every day.
9. Which band/artist is your guilty pleasure?
Damien Rice. Don't get me wrong, he's a great artist. Listening to his songs usually makes me feel horrible, though, so I probably shouldn't do it.
10. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a teacher. Then I found out that it's a huge undertaking in the best of circumstances (and your career is long enough to ensure there won't always be the best circumstances) and a severely underpaid, mostly draining job that you never really come home from. If you do it well, it's very demanding at best, if you do it wrong, you can do a bigger damage than you can possibly imagine. I can attest to the last statement, as it's not that long ago that I finished my secondary education. Several of my teachers have a certain placement in the top-ten of people who helped fuck me up the most. Granted, some of them were plain evil. Then again, some of them weren't.
11. Do you prefer a large group of friends or a small group of close friends?
Small group. I'm an introvert. Large groups don't agree with me.

Okay. Here are my questions:
1. What story do you think had the biggest influence on you as a child?
2. Do you like IKEA?
3. Do you think that social network sites like Facebook have had a positive impact on human interaction?
4. What are your thoughts about personal adornment like jewellery etc.?
5. What is usually your biggest motivation for reading novels?
6. What do you view as your best quality?
7. Is there a language you have always wanted to learn for some reason?
8. What helps you organize your thoughts?
9. Do you distinguish between reading on an e-reader and reading a paper copy of a book?
10. Which season of the year do you like the most? 
11. Do you dread people on the bus suddenly speaking to you?

The last part consists of saying 11 things about yourself. I tried it and I didn't like it, so I'm going to skip that part.

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I hope I will be back soon with more posts. Meanwhile, here's a Loki picture. She looks thoughtful I think.

a factory freak's day off

I had a day off today. Weather seemed nice in the morning. It still seemed nice around two pm. So I went for a walk. It turned cold then. Never mind that, though. Because I finally remembered that there's supposed to be an abandoned factory near to where I just was. And as I was in an extraordinarily good mood, I went searching for that factory. It's pretty big, as you can imagine, so I found it. It was beautiful. Broken glass, stuff lying around, bare walls, massive amounts of golden light. Everything you can possibly want if you happen to be an abandoned buildings freak. I only had my phone on me, so the pictures are not what I'd like them to be, but what can you do.

 I'm not a particularly good dancer, but I'd dance in these halls.

It now occurs to me that judging by the wine boxes, someone clearly got inside. The boxes were also all in yellow and red colour. Which, from now on, are the colours of "I need a better camera".

picture things

I spent the whole day writing about Anansi. As I was digging into the way the Anansi character is built in different books, I realized how much I actually love what I do. (Though of course there was Neil Gaiman's fiction involved, so I was never going to hate this assignment.) I've found that (unsurprisingly) getting my ass to the library and working there produces much more certain results. Two girls sat next to me and giggled for what felt like hours. Somehow I feel there are better places for that. 

I've been very tired lately. When I'm not in a writing trance, I just feel as though everything's shifted a bit and it's not really in place. Also, this fake spring is getting on my nerves. It snowed huge, fat snowflakes today. The guys from the maintenance department wisely chose this very weather for cutting trees and trimming shrubbery. Whatever floats your boat, I guess. 

Some recent pictures. I found out that the problem with my phone camera was that the lens was dirty. I wrote a whole post about how my camera doesn't work before I thought to clean the lens. That's how smart I am. 

Old trees along an iron fence - throughout the time the trees sort of grew around the bars. I imagine that must hurt, but it probably doesn't.

Someone took the pains to draw, cut out and spray through a stencil saying "We all have nothing." I love stencil graffiti and I like that they tend to be in Czech rather than English. This particular one, though, is completely passing me by. I have no idea what it's supposed to mean, but on that particular rainy morning, it sure seemed to be something rather gloomy.

One of the very few pictures of food I have ever taken. Come on, it was a purple cake.

Thinking of this guy every time I spot a plastic bag makes me think I saw American Beauty at the wrong time.

Spirals have the best geometry. This one is also really satisfying to make. It's the Indespiral by Aleta Ford Baker. The long white things across my hand are Loki's whiskers.

And here's Her Majesty, gazing wisely into the future. It contains treats.