That’s splendid news, that one person’s LibraryThing list can be useful to another.

I’ve finished the bookcase I showed you the other day, and that leaves only a longish shelf in the bedroom. It contains the real dogs; the real treasures – my few 19th century knitting books; the sock books; the history books – Rutt and a couple of others; and the peripheral books on such topics as natural dyes, quilting, and mosaics.

LibraryThing is such fun and so quick! I embarked on this project a couple of years ago, on my own, in Excel, and got bogged down after 50 books or so. But LibraryThing can usually guess what I mean from a title or an author – the trick is powered by Amazon, somehow or other, although a lot of the books in question aren’t in print. And I speed along.

I am sure that one day soon, Ravelry and LibraryThing will be seamlessly joined. But for the time being, I really don’t think there’s any point in trying to list a serious knitting library like mine (hem hem) in Ravelry, when their database is so incomplete.

Meanwhile, I haven’t actually visited Ravelry for days. I’ll go today, happily to add you as a friend, Manic knitter, and to look for hat patterns for Koigu. I think I may have as much as a full skein left over when I finish the Shapely Shawlette. We shall see.

knititch, I love your green-on-green pics. I am a Dickenson fan too, but I didn’t know that one.

Actual knitting

I did a swatch for Theo’s gansey yesterday. Here it is. I like it:

It’s terribly simple, compared to Ketki’s elaborate gansey. But the K.I.S.S. principal works as well in knitting as in other areas of life, and I think I’ll press ahead. Brown-Reinsel expects one to chart every single stitch. That I won’t do, but even so a certain amount of thought cannot be avoided. This pattern should be easier than Ketki’s to fit into whatever space turns out to be required.

The yarn, Mongolian cashmere 4-ply from handknitting.com, is sheer heaven to knit – much more so than cashmere Koigu, for whatever reason. Crede expertae.