Wednesday, January 25, 2012


  Miscellaneous 

 -- I forgot to wish us all a Happy Year of the Dragon on Monday. Happy Burns Night, at least.

 -- Dawn found the link to the New Yorker piece about President Romney at the G8. Tamara and Sally (comments yesterday), I have read the New Yorker for most of my life and now give subscriptions to my four children as well. Thomas-the-Elder reads it on his iPad, somehow floating on his mother’s subscription. I could do that, but prefer paper.

Alexander made me an alphabet book for my 70th birthday, now well in the past. N was for “New Yorker”. He reproduced the two covers nearest the date of my birth in 193x and 200x – they were remarkably similar in palette and tone.

I’ll have to have a look at the jigsaw puzzles, Sally. That’s a time-waster I particularly enjoy.

 -- The Historic Knitting Group produced a link yesterday to the Richard Rutt collection at Southampton University. The 19th century British knitting books have been digitised and are available free to download. An amazing resource. There is a tantalising note at the beginning saying that Msgr. Rutt’s interest in Korean knitting is reflected in his collection – alas, for that, apparently, one has to go to Southampton.

 -- The branch of Waitrose I patronise doesn’t have any craft magazines, so my search for Knit Now continues.

Knitting

You may deduce from this preamble that I have little to say today. I have turned the heel of the 1st outré sock. Gretchen, it’s the “Moor” colorway from the new “Random Stripes” set. There are six. “Anthracite” and “Moor” are the darkish ones – the rest are more spectacular. I’m having such fun that I want more.  If one were to venture on knitting a necktie -- not me, thanks -- "Moor" would be a rather good choice.   

5 comments:

  1. This is the first time I have heard of a Korean knitting tradition. I had no idea. Have you downloaded any of the books in the collection?

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  2. Jean, the English-speaking retailers I can find online who list Regia's Kaffe Fassett "Random Stripes" sock yarn don't include the poetical names for the colors, just the numbers. But I found a Finnish (?) site that gave the correlation. So here's a cheat-sheet:
    2900: "Snappy"
    2901: "Sizzle"
    2902: "Heather"
    2903: "Anthracite"
    2904: "Delphinium"
    2905: "Moor"
    This information is probably available on Ravelry, but for instant-gratification folks like me who want to see the colors NOW, this could help.
    I vote for renaming "Moor" "Outre." (I wish I could generate an acute accent in "Outre" in this comment, but you will just have to take it on faith that it is in my mind as I type.)

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  3. P.S. I learned on the radio this morning that it's not only Burns' birthday today, but also Virginia Woolf's and Somerset Maugham's. Who knew?! (Garrison Keillor knew, that's who.)

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  4. I forgot to wish you a Happy Burns Night! Enjoy your haggis (if such a thing is possible!).

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  5. Anonymous10:03 PM

    Thanks so much for posting about the Richard Rutt collection. It's fascinating. I doubt I would come upon it on my own.

    Jeanne in Rochester

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