Sunday, October 07, 2007

Who’d have thought it? Finished!



That neckband proved to be perfect rugby-knitting during yesterday’s thrilling match between Australia and England, and lo! and behold the result.

There is a difference between the sleeves – as reason had suggested, one has more stitches than the other. I’ll leave it for the moment.

The sweater is dense and heavy. Unless Ketki gives up banking and goes to sea, she’ll only be able to wear it a couple of times a year. It’ll be just the thing for a long walk on Boxing Day.

Here’s a neck gusset.

Now I can start swatching and sketching (very grown-up, sketching) for Theo’s cashmere gansey. I think I know what Brown-Reinsel pattern I want to use, but having all these books off the shelf in the last few days, in order to catalogue them, makes me feel I should at least leaf through the traditional-British-sweater ones.

Fishwife, (comment yesterday) did you manage to make yesterday’s widget in the sidebar work? I couldn’t get any sense out of it, and have just replaced it with a simple little thing that goes straight to my catalogue in LibraryThing. I’m sure you’ll have as many books as I do when you reach my great age.

Joe's current post raises an interesting question about what it means to be rich. Maybe I’ll write an essay on it one day. But for now – I remember when I wasn’t rich, admiring Gladys Thompson’s book in a shop in Birmingham again and again but not being able to justify the expense to myself. That must have been in the early 70’s.

Whereas when “Glorious Knitting” came out in ‘85, and I plucked it from the shelf in that same shop, I said to myself, “I’m going to buy this one eventually, so I might as well have it today.”

KF came and gave a talk in a department store in Birmingham in ’93. I took it along like any schoolgirl and asked him to sign it for me. So, a signed first edition. For Mrs Thompson, I wound up with the Dover reprint.

Don’t miss The Panopticon’s account of his day-long workshop with Kaffe and Brandon Mably. Oh, happy man!

7 comments:

  1. Nope, I tried the sidebar thingie then went in direct to LibraryThing, registered then looked for you. Eventually found you under your Ravelry name. (Great detective work, no?)

    Your new link is a lot easier!

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  2. I have the Gladys Thompson Dover that I bought ages ago when I would walk rather than take the subway to save money. But the question of what is rich reminded me of when I was a child and believed that being grown up meant having enough money that any time I wanted a candy bar I could just go in the store and buy one. And often, now, I do. So very grown up!

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  3. Anonymous7:59 PM

    Jean,
    I have been able to get into your catalogue in Librarything when I click your button, right from the start, so it works for some.

    My reaction - wow, you have a lot of knitting books ;-)

    All the best,
    Dawn

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  4. Ketki's Gansey is fine looking! Some of us younger knitters depend on older knitters to find out which of the older books are worth having. I've filled out my knitting shelf from books you and other knitters have mentioned on your blogs. Some of my most used books are books I wouldn't have known about if it weren't for other bloggers.

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  5. it is beautiful jean. i love the classics and this is different because of the colour and gorgeous knitting. i want to do one too as part of my knit the classics and teach yourself at least one new technique project, i have going on with myself. and i read somewhere that they original ganseys actually were rose/pink sometimes.
    oh and kaffe. i wish i had had money for his books then but i remember i went to a talk he made here in denmark and at that time in the late 80'es his pics of his knittings were certainly something else. the knitting combined with faenza, dewy flowers and even dry flowers. wow.

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  6. Ironically, I had the experience of standing in front of the yarn store window gazing longingly at Glorious Knits when I was a a very poor college student/newlywed. One memorable evening I even ventured into the shop and paged through the book. I kept expecting I would be shown up as the pretend customer I was and thrown out onto the sidewalk.

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  7. Anonymous2:22 PM

    Congratulations on the completion of the gansey! All that calculating worked out beautifully.

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