Odds and Ends

I did a bit of work on the website yesterday, and got the Amedro biography up. I’ve completely forgotten the password for my new space, but fortunately my FTP program seems to have retained it.

So, Monday morning. I finished the body of the Wallaby up to the armpits yesterday, cast on the first sleeve, and finished the wretched ribbing. Now I’m so keen to see what the yarn will do in this new situation that it’s going to be hard to lay it aside (according to my new schedule) and re-attach myself to the Princess.

Normally, I let the colours of variegated yarns behave as they please (and positively enjoy “pooling”) but this time I went to the trouble of winding a second skein so that I could leave the first one attached to the body. And I plan to start the second sleeve, when I get there, at the same point in the colour sequence as I did the first.

Beadslut, I don’t think I had ever heard of veil stitch. Wow! I am tremendously impressed with your progress. I started with the link you gave in yesterday’s comment, and got completely bogged down in what was meant to be the new, easy way of doing it. That’s what you’re doing, right? But at bedtime I had a look at Mary Thomas and I wondered if it might not be too bad the old way once (as you say) one had got into the rhythm of it. Whichever way, I love the stitch, and your socks are breathtaking.

Kristie, I had never done a sock club, either, before I signed up with The Yarn Yard that rainy day in January. The only problem now, is keeping up with it. I have the April yarn still lying around where I can see it. I ache to knit it – but when?

Why do I collect VKBs? Dunno, really. They were a most important influence on my Early Knitting Life. Way back then in the 50’s, there was nothing much else. No internet, no other serious magazines that I knew of, very few books, most of them called “Knitting for the Family”. The twice-yearly appearance of the VKB was a big event. I saved ‘em all, and read and re-read them. They were the first to publish a KF pattern. I remember it vividly, the seeing of it for the first time.

When it finally went down, in the late ‘60’s, I wrote to the then editor, Judy Brittain, and asked if I could buy any back copies. She replied kindly, but said no. I could buy expensive photocopies of particular patterns, that was all. Photocopying was cutting-edge technology in those days. But that’s not what I wanted.

The desire to get the old ones was born then, but the following years were lean. The Knitting and Crochet Guild had a clean-out of the library once: I got quite a few tatty old copies then. But it was only when I discovered eBay last year that serious collecting became possible.

I mean at least to study the early ones and make some notes about trends, when I’ve got a few more from the 30’s. When did Vogue first sanction knitwear for the evening, for example? And when was the last bathing suit pattern?

Somehow, yesterday, I stumbled on this blog and am fired with curiosity about Lucy Neatby’s magic buttonhole. Like many, I can’t make a buttonhole for beans. I gather from the Neatby website that it’s not in the public domain: you have to buy a pattern. Might be worth it.