“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

This is in response to Weekly Geeks 2009-04!

#1. What are you passionate about besides reading and blogging?

It’s not really a passion, but I like patchwork projects! When I feel like making something, I definitely go into it with a lot of enthusiasm, but once I pack things back into my box they can stay in there for months.

I like sewing but I’m not very good at it. The seamstress in my family is my aunt — she makes traditional baju kurungs (not the best-written article in the world, I suppose, but it will do. I am surprised there’s no Wikipedia entry!). She taught me how to make the baju kurung, but I never quite got the hang of it, but I had always liked playing with the scraps left over when she was done. Noticing this, she introduced me to the art of patchwork.

Of all things in the world, she started with teaching me how to make a patchwork using hexagons! I don’t know what she was thinking — I know I was a quick little girl (I was maybe ten or eleven at the time), but starting things by having me trying to calculate how many hexagons I needed to complete a pattern was quite evil, don’t you think? Anyway, hexagon patterns almost always end up as a variation of this, and mine was a skewed variation of that — my hexagons weren’t quite the same size, creating havoc all around.

I haven’t used a hexagon since in my patchworks.

Hexagon asides, I like patchwork projects, since I can use anything and they’re easy to complete. It also appeals to the organised part of me — structured, but not too rigid. I usually choose very small projects, like making 16″ x 16″ cushion covers or small bags or pouches, often for my own use. I don’t quilt, though. Too much hassle to find the material for batting and then quilting those delicate, intricate designs. So non-quilted cushion covers it is!

Here’s a cushion cover I’m using right now. It’s actually one big square in the middle bordered with blue cloth, but I like it:

Also seen with the cushion: a copy of Nicolò Rising by Dorothy Dunnett that I keep thinking of starting but I still haven’t yet, and the one set face down is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick (very short recap here), which I had just finished a few days back. Hmm, I should’ve arranged things more artistically before I snapped that photo!

Most people probably think that patchwork, especially using geometric shapes, isn’t really that difficult. Just cutting scraps of fabric into squares and rectangles and perhaps the occasional hexagon and you’re done, right? Not really — it needs planning and precision, otherwise your end product won’t end being the shape you want it to be! (This is the voice of personal experience speaking — heed it.) You need to know how large the final product will be, and plan out how your pattern repeats (or doesn’t) and what colours to use. And the measurements need to be right — or you might end up with a pillowcase that doesn’t fit the pillow because you forgot to take into account the seam allowance . . . (guess who forgot to do that).

There are software out there that helps you with the designs, but I prefer the old fashioned way using pencil and grid paper. This is where I find my engineering drawings classes of yore to be useful. XD Here’s how my floor looks like when I have my fabrics and patterns laid out:

The seven squares laid out are for another cushion cover. The hearts on the two corner squares were appliquéd on, but that’s the extent my appliqué skill. Anything more fancy, I’d probably poke my finger with the needle instead. The other side of the cover will use the rail fence pattern — that’s what the three strips are for.

There’s also an almost finished bag there. The “handles” aren’t sewn in yet. Here, have a look at it the right way up:

Also in the photo: books! From the top: Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World, due for a re-read; also re-reading Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising after the movie left a sour taste in my mouth; The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, which I haven’t started; and Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny, which I stopped after a few chapters and have yet to continue because I was wondering whether everyone in it was high on something (they were not — they were just from another world). Also in the photo: a mug of tea on the table and a part of my notice board. (You might wonder where I sit as I type this. The answer: on the bed.)

I also like gardening. Not really a passion, either: it’s just something I like doing on weekend mornings. I don’t even know the names of half of the plants. Photos of some of them:

Uh. This has ended up being a photography session, it looks like. Photography isn’t one of my hobbies, though.

#2. Get us involved.

For patchwork, I like going to The Quilter’s Cache, especially the Quilt Blocks Galore section. I like looking at the patterns even though I always end up picking the easy ones.

If you’re just getting started, try making the Rail Fence Block! The instructions there are easy to follow — I’m pretty sure that’s the easiest block ever to make.

For gardening, I sometimes flip through my mother’s Laman (literally: “Lawn”) magazines. Sometimes I call my mother up for advice, but that’s about it.

Aside from that, I don’t really have much reference for either patchwork or gardening. I just do the best I can in both and sometimes end with disastrous results (gardening, especially, is not really my thing with my schedule) but I carry on!

#3. Visit other Weekly Geeks.

I’m looking forward to reading what the other Weekly Geeks are passionate about! I’ll update this section as I visit.

Here’s my last quote for WG #17, still from the book Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett (and omitting names and a few phrases for the sake of avoiding spoilers). Lymond is saying he’s already pledged to someone, something his companion doesn’t expect:

She saw that, looking ahead in the fog, his profile contained a curious and suspended calm, the smiling mask of a state far from peaceful. “Not her,” he said. “But for my lifetime.” And walking still he offered her, smiling again, four lines of verse, lightly spoken.

“Tant que je vive, mon cueur ne changera
Pour nulle vivante, tant sout elle bonne ou sage
Forte et puissante riche de hault lignaige
Mon chois est fait, aultre ne se fera.”

“I didn’t know,” she said. It was a half-truth. Subconsciously, she had always known. She said, “It’s my turn to beg your pardon. I only wanted to assure you that I have nothing to tender but friendship. But if you want it, there is a great deal of that, going cheaply.”

That verse has to be the most famous one in the series. Or infamous. I don’t know any more. It makes an appearance again (among other places) in an incident that involves an oboe in a flowerbed, but of course you have to go read that yourself.

It’s also one of those rare verses where the author actually gives a translation. (I can read fluently only in two languages. French is not one of them.) Pages later, but still a translation:

Long as I live, my heart will never vary
For no one else, however fair and good
Brave, resolute or rich, of gentle blood.
My choice is made, and I will have no other.

The last line is emphasised in bold in my copy, and I found that both touching and a teeny bit ridiculous at the same time. The original source (which contains more than this one verse) is unknown, but they appear in the poetry album of Margaret of Austria.

And this is the end of WG #17 for me! Just in case anyone wants to go through the previous quotes, a summary:

1. gems of lapis lazuli
2. strange birds cry Today! Today!
3. horns of unicorns
4. snails within the shell
5. free of all shadow
6. perfume of cedars
7. tant que je vive

Hopefully I’ll get more inspired to post after doing this for seven straight days! All posts for WG #17 are tagged as misc: weekly geeks #17. Yes, I’m a bit anal like that.

I didn’t actually mean to do this at the start, but I ended up quoting passages with quotes in them, either in the narrative itself or where the characters (notably Lymond, since he has a barrage of quotes stored in his head) are quoting something. Also ended up with quite a few verses of poetry and a lot of links.

All quotes are from Dorothy Dunnett’s Checkmate, the sixth and last book in her Lymond Chronicles. The first book in the series is titled The Game of Kings — if you like historical fiction, you might want to give the books a go. Even if you’re not much of a fan of historical fiction, you might still want to give it a try; nothing beats good storytelling, people!

Extra information appended to the quotes I either found through Google or Wikipedia or through the Yahoo Groups Game of Kings and Marzipan, though I didn’t take anything directly from the groups. (It’s just hard to attribute stuff when groups aren’t public. You should join if you have any interest in discussion — some of the stuff there is just fascinating. A warning, though: GoK especially is a minefield when it comes to spoilers, so you might want to tread carefully.)

Maybe I just like lapis lazuli? As Joanne observed on the first quote, it is a gorgeous gem.

Anyway. This is still from Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett. Some names were omitted from the quote to protect the uninitiated etc. XD

The scent of the small room was pleasing. Moonlight limned in grey in the story of Psyche on the finely arched window, and alighting within, touched upon nymphs and garlands and roses, and upon lines of silver, glittering by the chimney-piece:

I will harness thee a chariot of lapis-lazuli and gold
Come into our dwelling, in the perfume of the cedars . . .

Where are the links of the chain, glimmering there: joining us to the past? The perfume was pleasing because it was familiar to him. The other presences, in the silence, were older.

The two lines looks like they came from the Epic of Gilgamesh, particularly from Tablet VI. It’s what Ishtar, the goddess of love, is offering to Gilgamesh, but he rejects her. I think I am slightly agog at what’s implied behind these quotes.

Also, I like the line about the glimmering chains, joining us to the past. I think it’s fitting that “Where are the links of the chain . . . joining us to the past?” is what is written on Dorothy Dunnett’s memorial stone.

Somehow I accidentally got onto the poetry train. Ah well. As before, this is from Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett.

This one I love because of its resonance in the story. And the importance it plays in the relationship between the characters, whom I shall not name because I was so clever to choose the last volume to quote from and I am still hanging by my fingertips to my “no spoiler” policy. And it’s beautiful on its own.

Aşk Olsun sang the plaintive, sweet voices to the undulating airs one had heard inside Zante, through Thessalonika, within the gates of Topkapi itself. Aşkin Cemal Olsun . . . Let there be love. May thy love be beautiful. May thy beauty be light.

The truth is that thy body is free of all shadow.
To soul and brain from thy abode comes the perfume of Paradise.
O thy beauty!
The brightness of the day and the night!
Are made timid by thy hair . . .

The words used by the Bektashi in the ceremony of the tekke: how could a group of student singers know these?

Notes (to self): I took some liberties with the formatting. Zante, Thessalonika and Topkapi are places (right?) we stopped at or passed through in Pawn in Frankincense (Book 4).

Aşk Olsun is a song in Turkish. The Bektashi is a Sufi order; the tekke is a building the Sufi gather in for ceremonies now I am not sure what a tekke is because I just reread the quoted sentence and realised that I was being redundant. I probably should reread Pawn in Frankincense, but reading that will probably cause me to burst into incoherent tears at parts, so I’ll refrain doing so for the the time being. XD

You know, I’ll just stick with this one book this week: Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett (surely you would not have expected anything less from me?). I chose this is one simply because I found the verse curious. Francis Crawford (aka Lymond) is throwing down barrels rather systematically down rooftops as he’s trying to dissuade what looks like the whole of Lyon from coming after him and his companion (”No one could say we hadn’t brought ourselves now to the attention of this majestic metropolis,” says Lymond later).

Towards the end he found some boules and bounced them down as well: they hailed upon barrels and footpads and trilled, with ringing reproach, on the rising helmets of the pikemen beyond them.

“As Snailes do wast within the shel
And unto slime do run
As one before his tyme that fel
And never saw the sunne . . .

“Whoops! That was Adam,” said Francis Crawford, watching open-eyed the progress of his latest invention. “Serve him bloody well right.”

Poor Adam, to be caught in that — I am rather fond of Adam and I didn’t really relish the image of him being crushed like a snail in its shell. (Nothing bad happens to him here, though I must say no one suffers Lymond’s company unscathed.) I found the whole scene hilarious.

This one is from Psalm 58 in English metre. I was quite surprised to learn that! I was wondering why Lymond would have verses about snails handy. Then again, he has quotes about everything in his head, I suppose.