December!

I always feel much better when we actually get to December. Sure, it's still getting darker -- but not for much longer. I have something of the opposite feeling on the 1st of June every year. This is wonderful, but it'll soon be over.

As you see, Mungo's first sleeve progresses, and may well be finished today. I'm not greatly enamoured of the two-circular method, but I'm making it work. I suspect I will leave this sleeve behind on one of the circulars and switch to dp's for the other sleeve.

The new "Knitter's"

However, today's great excitement has nothing to do with either of those matters. I had a look at my favourite Blog last night (www.queerjoe.blogspot.com). Queer Joe was giving his opinion of the new Knitter's Magazine. Better than many issues recently, was his conclusion.

But the excitement stems from his reference to one of the patterns he liked -- a hat by Janis Witkins! She's my friend! (Not to be confused with the other Janis, my cyber-friend.)

I have met several designers at Stitches events, and I rank Candace Eisner Strick as a friend, too. (www.strickwear.com) But she was already an established designer when I met her, at Camp Stitckes in 1999. Indeed I already owned her first book.

But Janis W. is different -- she's what might be called a private friend. In 2000, I went to Camp Stitches again. It was on beautiful Lake George in those days. After Camp, I wanted to go visit my sister and mother at the mouth of the Connecticut River. I consulted timetables on-line, and the conclusion I reached was that America was simply not set up to transport people from the Hudson Valley to the Connecticut Valley. You had to go to New York and back out. So I appealed to the Knitlist, and Janis responded. She was at Camp, too. She lives in Old Lyme (famous for Lyme Disease) and it would be perfectly possible, if a bit strenuous, to walk from her house to my sister's, on the other side of the river.

We had a grand day driving down, including a stop at Webs. Later, on a subsequent visit of mine, Janis and her husband came to supper at my sister's house. I cooked, and didn't make the chilli hot enough. Since then, we've kept in touch by Christmas card. And now she's in Knitter's!

That magazine is the slowest of my subscriptions to make the journey across the Atlantic. It will probably be January before I see it.