Wednesday, February 06, 2013


Not much to report.

I’ve wound the first skein of madelinetosh sock for the tee-shirt. Two breaks: one a gently-tied knot, which I undid; the other a rather alarming frayed end which came apart in my hands. They couldn’t have m*ths at Loop? The skein had only been here a few days, and couldn’t therefore have suffered from our in-house ravenous hoard.

I’ll start winding a second skein today. Meanwhile, I’m nearly half-way round the Fleegle-Strong heel on those socks. I’ll finish that off before I do anything else, so that the sock will be in a state for emergency-mindless if need be.

Here’s the Gardening Sweater being blocked:


Miscellaneous

Zite steered me this morning to a Japanese on-line knitting magazine, Amirisu. I’m not sure I have entirely figured out how to navigate it. It is written in both Japanese and English, and features, as we say, both Japanese and Anglo-American designers. You can buy individual patterns as with the Twist Collective. One to note in EverNote? I think maybe I have succeeded in clipping and saving it there.

The first Vogue Knitting Book of them all, Autumn 1932, is on offer on eBay. I have only seen it there once before, in the years I have been pursuing this subject – and that’s the copy I’ve got. This one lacks its cover, a serious defect not shared by mine. I’ll be interested to see what it fetches. I had to pay a lot.

(Mine was bought from a charity, I’ve now forgotten which; some consolation for the price I paid. I presume somebody brought it in to a shop, and somebody there was bright enough to see that eBay was the way to go.)

Non-knit: worse, it’s rugby

Knitlass, I have never been able to work up much enthusiasm for Italy as one of the Six Nations in this annual tournament. I’m still back there in the Second Millennium with the Five Nations – the four here in the British Isles, with France for spice. Italy is too far away. Italians don’t seem to fill the streets of Edinburgh in the days before their matches, the way the other Nations do. (We are all particularly fond of the Welsh, who come here with their wives and their sisters and their cousins and their aunts and their children in push-chairs and their leeks and their daffodils and fill the city with cheerfulness. And usually win.)

If I watch any rugby this coming weekend, it probably won’t be Scotland-Italy, it’ll be Ireland-England in Dublin. With Tom Lehrer still ringing in my head: The Irish hate the English/ and the English hate the Irish/ and they’re both rather good at rugby/ and anyway I’m in love with Brian O’Driscoll. 

5 comments:

  1. Jean,
    you just brought back a happy memory. I went to Murrayfield a few times on a "schoolboy" ticket, years ago. One time something had gone wrong with the tickets and people were being turned away at the gates. The Welsh supporters, who had travelled up for the game, took it good naturedly as I remember and went off to find a pub or hotel showing it on a wide screen.

    I got in at the last moment, stewards were even standing on the stairs preventing more people coming up and we skipped up the grass banks. No memory of the actual game but the Welsh supporters singing gave me goosebumps. Lovely.

    Also - Tom Lehrer, I was introduced by my husband whose father was American, we still have his LPs! My favourite is the elements song, husband, a physics grad, can sing it off by heart still and I am still impressed.

    Dawn in NL

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2:38 PM

    Beautiful sweater.
    Ron in Mexico

    ReplyDelete
  3. Me too...I,m also in love with Brian O Driscoll!!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. You have good taste ma'am - BOD is a fine fellow, and the Ireland-England match should be a cracker. I like to watch most of the matches (or at least highlights) if I can, on account of my British heritage, by which I mean I was born in England, live in Scotland and have a Welsh mother and Irish grandfather... Scotland-Italy isn't always much to write about, but this year it could be a good one - given the matches last weekend. I'll get my knitting ready....

    ReplyDelete
  5. Somehow I came upon this pattern in Ravelry, while I was searching for something like what you had described. I like the looks of it, but would probably alter it some: back neck extension, bust darts, and I would extend the dolman portion rather than picking up stitches at the elbow. I think it breaks up the line. It a pattern from Amirisu by Ririko called Relax http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/relax-5 .

    My favorite Lehrer song was the one which ended: 'the South Africans hate the Dutch; I don't like anybody very much." Unfortunately the world hasn't change much in that regard, just the foci of hatreds. Thank heavens for humor in the face of darkness.

    ReplyDelete