Angel, be careful of that cough.

Three bits of knitterly news today – four, if you count Nancy Marchant’s sensational brioche stitch website that Else referred us to yesterday. I’ve tucked it away in the “Knitting Ideas and Thots” section of my web favourites, for much further study. I love that kind of knitting, including fisherman’s rib. “Fruity” was the word EZ chose for it, and it is the mot juste.

Here’s my news:

1) I have thought of a different approach to current multi-tasking: I will knit one repeat of the pattern of the Mysterious Christmas Project every day, before turning to the ASJ. The pattern consists of 14 kindergarten-simple rows, followed by a 15th which could only be Lynne Barr. I think doing it this way, instead of having a dedicated day, will speed the project along.

I sort of got started on Christmas list-making yesterday. Much as I hate deadline-knitting, there’s no doubt that everybody’s got the IWOOT catalogue but not everybody can knit. Is there time for a couple of hats, when the current project is finished? Or even (sans beads) the cosy-looking Moebius cowl of which the Faculty Meeting Knitter has already made two? And, come to think of it, I’ve got a Lynne Barr scarf in the UFO category. Finish it off? Still nearly two months to go.

2) I heard from Helylle Hantverk yesterday to my surprise, after five days’ silence, and ordered Rauma Finullgarn for the Grandson Sweater. So we shall see.

I am toying with the idea of a new year’s resolution – and I don’t normally go in for them, either – not to buy any yarn in ’10. With a proviso in advance that if anybody has a baby, I’ll knit it a Dream-in-Color Tulip Jacket. I was scrambling about in the stash the other day, looking for something, and reflected that there’s some really nice stuff there. A year wouldn’t make much impression on it.

3) Constant readers from way back will remember my obsession with the old Vogue Knitting Book, which was published in Britain from autumn, 1932, right through the war, and which finally expired in the late ‘60’s. The parallel America publication shared the first issue, then disappeared, then re-emerged late in the war.

I’ve got a lot of old VKB’s that I have saved from my own youth, and since I discovered eBay I have been trying to complete the collection. And in a sense, I’ve succeeded. In the sense that I’ve got a bound volume of the issues from the 1930’s (except for Number One, which I’ve got separately). But they were bound without covers and without advertising pages. Of complete, separate issues I still lack two.

Wartime issues might still be found carefully preserved in the archives of a sprightly great-aunt finally called to her reward – there have been a couple listed on eBay quite recently – but that’s now impossible for the first 10 years of publication.

After a long, long hiatus, one of the ones I lack is currently listed on eBay. It closes on the 5th of November, when we’ll be in London. I shall have to make arrangements.