Bidding has started on the ur-VKB – it has spiralled up to a dizzying £2.19. But there are 118 hits on the counter, and I think we’ll see more action before the story is told. My impression is that British bidders are more inclined than American ones to keep their powder dry. I check nervously every few minutes to make sure I’ve got the time right – it closes at 19:14:48 and I have been known to confuse “17” and “19” when trying to think in 24-hour-clock.

The history of Vogue Knitting Books has taken another interesting lurch. Interesting to me. The story of the American edition is not as I had supposed.

I went through the American eBay list this morning, ought to do it more often, and found someone selling the “fourth edition, copyright 1939” (120178708642). My British number four was published in the spring of 1934 and is definitely not the same. Someone else (160173660127) is selling the 5th American edition, 1944. The illustrations of these two items are each completely consistent with the dates claimed.

There was always a considerable, perhaps total, overlap of patterns between the opposite shores of the Atlantic. Maybe when the war broke out over here, editorial cooperation became too difficult for a while? No email, no fax, telephone contact very difficult, think of it.

Knitting

I did another three inches or so of Earth Stripes. The current plan is to keep doggedly on, but to allow myself a day or two a week – including perhaps today – of gansey-knitting. Rather than the other way around, which would rapidly lead to the total abandonment of earth stripes.

That and that

Kaffe’s new book isn’t very interesting, but I didn’t expect much of it so that’s all right. Anyway, these days, the whole point of buying a new book is to enter it in LibraryThing. I have two others out there in orbit. I’ll report as they arrive.

Amongst the detritus on the hall floor as we fought our way in on Tuesday evening was, to my surprise, the fall Knitter’s. Surprise, because I’m really pretty sure I never got Spring or Summer this year, and had just about decided to forget the whole thing. What is it about Knitter’s? There’s nothing I want to knit, despite a mild flutter of interest in the Sowerby fichu. I don’t care about Perri Klass’s cruise. (I’m normally a big fan of hers.) I couldn’t get through the article about younger generations taking over yarn-spinners and XRX. But it remains the magazine, of them all, that makes me feel I’m In Touch. Why?