The infamous – I hesitate to use that word, so often and so deliciously misused in the Knitlist when I used to read it, but it’s pretty well essential here – the infamous New Yorker arrived here yesterday. I was wrong: the cover doesn’t illustrate an article called “The Politics of Fear”. It’s just that that is its own title, as one can discover from a careful reading of the contents page.

So I’m back in full-scale disapproval mood, but meanwhile events and Barack Obama himself sweep on.

The summer Knitter’s arrived in the same post. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear for bad design and worse colours. Come back, You Knit What? – the world needs you.

Let us try to be positive. Cat Bordhi’s “Spring Thaw Socks” are positively nice – but I don’t knit socks like that. I just go round and round, with wonderful yarn. Jane Sowerby’s little article about substituting lace patterns in the panels of a fichu is perfectly sound – but I’ve been there and done that.

I knit Gladys Amedro’s “Cobweb Lace Wrap” as written for Rachel’s 40th birthday. Her daughter Hellie paid me the ultimate compliment of asking for one for herself. She wanted black yarn, but there was nothing to stop me substituting lace patterns from “Heirloom Knitting” for the original Amedro ones, so I did. Then my sister, another Helen, asked for a shawl for her 70th birthday. She wanted colour, thank goodness, and again I went back to “Heirloom Knitting” for more patterns.

Perri Klass is good, as always, perhaps better than usual. Has anyone seen her book, “Two Sweaters for my Father”? Do I want it?

Liesl

Thanks for comments and encouragement. Woolywoman, I note your concern about the shape. I thought maybe it would be OK for the spreading figure – my trouble with cardigans is the embarrassing tendency they have to gape when buttoned up. I thought maybe the Liesl approach would get around this problem. The shape turns up in a couple of Knitter’s offerings, and in a couple of ads. Maybe it's Flavour of the Moment?

Judith, thanks for the link to the February-Lady-Sweater in Ravelry. It would take longer, but maybe it would look neater in the end. I’ve knit the EZ prototype for a baby or two, and it’s fun.

…and knitting

I got those dinosaur legs polished off, and am now in mid-body of the second tier.