Here we are: Fat Tuesday. I don’t anticipate much sleep tonight. My friend in Brookline says “Don't worry! My vote will be properly cast.” Is she being evasive?

Don’t miss Franklin today. (I trust you never do.) I’m not tempted by Dolores’ ingenious campaign package, but Joe and Mar will want to stock up. I spent awhile wandering around the Obama pages at Cafepress, after looking at Dolores’ work. There are some good tee-shirts by now. Maybe I’ll order one tomorrow if I’m feeling at all cheerful.

And speaking of ordering – I spent a few minutes at the Yarnyard yesterday, after posting my blog entry, as an alternative to standing up and facing the day, and found this among the sock yarns. Natalie describes it as “a beautiful clear blue”. What I am aiming at, as I have said, is “a swallowtail coat of a beautiful blue”. Since Natalie uses the actual word “beautiful” I take it as a sign, and shall proceed to order.

This is a sock yarn, and has almost twice as much metre-age to the gram as the alpaca specified for the Poet’s Coat. But since I have to do a big swatch and some substantial re-designing, that shouldn’t entirely matter. Maybe alpaca is heavier. Maybe I could use Natalie’s yarn double.

The Winter VK turned up yesterday, with some useful things in it. Lily Chin’s articles about fit have been consistently interesting.(Sleeves, this time.) I like Vladimir Teriokhin’s cropped cardi in Noro Silk Garden, no. 15. Shirley Paden is a top favourite designer of mine – she’s writing about designing with lace (which she does brilliantly) but this first article doesn’t get much beyond stating the obvious.