The wonderful anthracite sock fits beautifully. I am now halfway through the ribbing of the second sock and hope to finish that aspect of it today during the tedium of hospital waiting. After that, pure pleasure.

I have stuck to the sizing stumbled upon for the previous pair – leg on 72 stitches, foot on 64. I go round the heel on 72 and then slip in some extra decreases with the gusset shaping. Knitting is forgiving stuff, as EZ memorably said.

And I ordered those six skeins of madelinetosh DK in “Georgia O’Keefe” from Jimmy Bean. Artist-wise, my husband doesn’t think any more of her than he does of Van Gogh or Hundertwasser but this time he’ll just have to make the best of it.

An exciting day on the Sky Scarf front: there was some pink in the sky when I stood on the doorstep at 8:15. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that it is being knit with two strands held together, compounding the problem of ends but increasing the chances of echoing the sky.

Miscellaneous

…and speaking of socks: The Socklady has been making herself socks with left-over Kaffe Fassett bits. The results are simply stunning.

Judith sent me this link to a batch of choice post-war Vogue Knitting Books being sold this very day by the Knitting and Crochet Guild. Duplicates, I hope.

The history of the Vogue Knitting Book is roughly this (I hope somewhere in the organisation the true story is recoverable): The first issue was published in the fall of 1932, simultaneously in the US and GB. The US then fell by the wayside, but GB went on, twice a year without interruption, right through the war and up until the mid 60’s. The Americans joined in again in the late war years. From then until the ultimate demise, issues were very similar but not identical. The British ones had patterns for British yarn, and exclusively British ads.

(Jean Shrimpton’s first big break was an advertising spread in the VKB, over several pages. I don’t know whether Bailey was the photographer; it seems very likely. In subsequent years, she appeared regularly as a model for the magazine itself. We are about to have a television series about her and Bailey, or is it a movie? My guess is that the VKB will have been airbrushed out, but I may watch long enough to find out.)

After the demise, a spin-off British-only magazine called “Vogue Knitting” was published for four more years.

My own collection of the Vogue Knitting Book, acquired expensively from eBay, is now complete. But I think the last time I looked, I found that one of my “Vogue Knitting”’s is missing. I can’t imagine why – I have never failed to buy an issue, nor thrown one away, in my whole life. The KCG is selling five of the eight issues from that series, and so I had better check this very morning to see whether my missing one is on offer.


Here's a little gem from Youtube for you.