Thursday, January 10, 2008

Theo's “what happened” essay is interesting, and I mean to follow some, at least, of his links.

Mel, we didn’t get the “iron my shirt” episode (and coverage has been pretty extensive over here), but what you say fits with Theo’s remark about press coverage of Hillary’s tears. Here, that episode was presented as the humanizing touch which may have won NH for her. To me, it looked like an overtired child who has landed on the wrong square in Monopoly. Not quite Commander-in-Chief-ly.

I knit onwards. The gansey will reach the gusset stage soon, and I’ll go for Meg’s brilliant idea of doing it in reversed st st so that it is unobtrusive, but available, as she puts it, when you want to flail about. Since width remains a bit of a worry, and since I wonder if cashmere might not stretch a bit like alpaca, I’ll be slightly economical with the up-and-down measurements.

I get emails all the time from Knitter’s Review. I don’t know how that happens, and mostly I disregard them, but today I read one and arrived at this. Neither Knitter’s Review nor the website exactly mentions what I think might be the exciting thing here, namely colour. My big discovery for ’07, made the day I got my cashmere Koigu, is that cashmere doesn’t take dye as wool does. It comes out rather flat and distinctly un-glowing.

Which explains all those windows-ful of dull cashmeres we hurtle past in the Burlington Arcade on our way from the Royal Academy to Bond Street.

But silk, of course, takes dye like nobody’s business. So maybe the Swiss Mountain people have created a blend that preserves the best features of both yarns, a very exciting thought. I’ll wait until they have their full compliment of shades, and then maybe venture on a scarf’s-worth of yarn.

Here’s the picture of the new Yarn Yard yarn. Even outdoors in the sunshine, my photography doesn’t begin to do it justice. “Hats On” by Charlene Schurch has turned up from Amazon, and it’s terrific – I’m afraid I’ve forgotten which of you recommended it, but thank you. I think I have decided that as soon as I dare lay the gansey aside for a day, it’ll be the watchcap next.

2 comments:

  1. oh yes the book is indeed lovely, isn't it. i love it. made the fez myself. unfortunately it turned out too small but it was a great knit.
    it is hard, and has always been, to figure out what is inside ms. clinton. and maybe that is what politics is all about.

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  2. I need to look up that hat book. I've only have Charlene Schurch's sock books. That yarn - what a lovely burst of color for these dull winter days.

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