I am very grateful to all who took the trouble to help with my question about the African knitting book. I followed the link to the IK website and was really rather seriously tempted, but other remarks and blog reviews cooled me down again, especially what you said about mistakes, Lene, and rudeness. That last shouldn’t weigh all that heavily, but does.

It must be very difficult to produce a knitting book without mistakes (or with insignificantly few), but it can be done. Gladys Amedro and Sharon Miller come to mind. And it was routinely done in the Old Days. I’ve got that Bestway “Traditional Shetland Shawls and Scarves” booklet, very 50’s-looking, which Jamieson & Smith used to sell and maybe still does.

The patterns are elaborate, and there are no charts. Line after grey line of “K. 1, * k. 2, m. 1, sl. 1, k. 2 tog., p.s.s.o., m. 1, k. 2, m. 1, k. 2 tog., m. 1, sl. 1, k. 2 tog., p.s.s.o….” – and so forth, you get the idea. In typing just that much, I made a mistake (left out a “sl. 1”) but there are no mistakes in the booklet. I’ve knit one of the patterns, had to chart it to make any sense of it, and it was faultless.

I wonder how Sowerby is for errors. XRX doesn’t have a terribly good track record.

The big news on the book front is that Sharon's new book about Hap Shawls is ready. I ordered it from the website yesterday in great excitement, and got an error message, please-try-again-later, from WorldPay at the end. So I tried again later, and the same thing happened. When I went back to my inbox, I found I had ordered two copies.

But I think Mike Miller has straightened it out.

Tricia, thank you for the help with surina needles. We’re going to London on Wednesday for some hard work on the art front. I’ll visit Stash in Putney if I have half a chance. I’ve heard good things about it.

Knitting

The Therapy Scarf has outstripped the tape measure, and it’s getting on for time to bring it to a close. I had a look just now at the work I’ve already done on Alexander’s Fair Isle pattern, and I think the gauge is wrong. I’m going to start again.

Non-knit

Here is a picture of James (behind) and Thomas Miles of London, on Bonfire Night. Thomas was two last week.