The Earth Stripe is 55” long – how did that happen? Another couple of evenings should see it done. See Phase One done.

I added some more links to the Linked Rib yesterday, too. I am now much less sanguine about the question of whether I have enough yarn – I think that initial odd-ball must have been almost intact, and the length it contributed won’t do at all as 1/3rd of the total. However, I also don’t think dye-lot is going to matter in a project like this: as long as I can match the color-way. It continues to be enormous fun.

The designer was trying to copy in knitting the 90 degree twist of the famous Infinity Tower in Dubai. The scarf in which she claims to have succeeded, the Tricorner, has been badly served by the photographer – it looks like plain old st st with some garter stitch bands, and I’m sure there’s more to it than that. Maybe I’ll try it next.

And there is also Twisted, a failed Infinity Tower attempt, she says. I’m not sure whether Linked Rib is another failure, or an extension of the idea once she’d got it right.

(This is “Knitting New Scarves” by Lynne Barr I’m still talking about. Get it, if you have any interest in scarves at all.)

Maureen in Tacoma Park, you asked about hot-water bottles covers a few days ago. I think I started from something in a magazine. But I also think I remember that the end-product was mostly mine.

I found this one and that one (free patterns) through Ravelry, of which I much prefer the latter, especially for that neat row of buttonholes at the bottom.

Politics

Inexperience doesn’t worry me in Obama (although Hillary is trying to instil such anxiety). Kennedy was a junior senator. And Clinton – remember him? – made an absolute hash of his first months. He was going to “hit the ground running” and all he did was hit the ground. Important government posts were unfilled for months. He got the hang of it eventually.

I am much more concerned about what you said yesterday, Mel. It doesn’t fit with Obama as he has been presented to me, a man who asks questions and listens to the answers and thinks about them. I’ll do a bit of clicking on the subject, but it sounds bad.

It is possible (although not easy) for me to cast an absentee vote from here. I did it last time. I'm not going to bother if Hillary is the candidate.