I’ve had a busy morning.

I learned yesterday, perhaps in the bulletin of the Knitting and Crochet Guild, that Sharon Miller has published something new – so I’ve just ordered it: “The Lerwick Lace Shawl”. It is a deconstruction, I think, of an actual old shawl in Sharon's collection. While I had the credit card out, I went on to order “Vatid, Troid, Vamsad – Knitted Jackets from West Estonian Islands” from Meg.

Then I proceeded to the American Embassy where I am currently struggling with the absentee voting application form. This involves downloading a new, superior version of Adobe Reader. Nothing is simple. I hate Adobe Reader anyway. Yesterday I ordered a shirt from Cafepress – a golf shirt (I like to have a collar) with a simple “Cats for Obama” logo.

Yesterday in the Scotsman we had an article about the two women one of whom will be First Lady in the foreseeable future. We have a lot of such articles, and there must be a dozen in America for every one here. In this one, Cindy was pictured wearing a lapel pin in which “McKean 2008” was spelled out in what must, surely, be diamonds. I had one of those thrilling moments which I think can be termed a “frisson”: we could actually win this one.

Back to knitting...

There is an interesting article in the bulletin of the Knitting and Crochet Guild about the cataloguing and classification of knitting patterns. (Not easy: I’ve got all my books in LibraryThing, but haven’t even thought about listing the patterns.) The author seems to have worked out a system for herself, and dreams of a “national collection” to which we would each add our patterns – not parting with them, but allowing them to be catalogued and scanned and added to the master system.

It sounds to me an idea worth pursuing, requiring much time and energy. Unfortunately, the article just peters out, with no information even on how to get in touch with the author.

As for actual knitting, I have reached, indeed nearly finished, the first set of dinosaur legs on the second sleeve. Legs are the worst.