On we go. The Silly Christmas project is ready for stuffing. And it occurs to me that I haven’t sold my soul to the authors of the book – I could stiffen it with cardboard, if the acetate I bought doesn’t seem stiff enough. I think I can guarantee that this thing will never be washed.

Yesterday’s progress was clumsier even than usual – I was sewing panels into/over holes. The colours of the panel and of the material surrounding the holes were radically different and whichever colour I tried to use for the sewing, the stitches showed. Still, it’s done.

And I moved forward on both of the other projects.

The new IK turned up yesterday. I was a bit disappointed – I had high hopes of the new editor on the basis of the last issue (her first, I think) but there’s nothing in this one I want to linger over. I am mildly interested in the Ojo de Dios shawl – I like that sort of thing. But only mildly. I won’t pursue it.

If I had to specify a grumble, it would be that everything looks sort of snug and bosom-hugging whereas I’m in Relax mode these days.

However, all is forgiven. There on page 77, lower advertisement, is the answer to one of my previously unsolved Christmas problems. I ordered the kit at once, and heard back from them before the end of the day that it has been dispatched. If it turns up in reasonable time, I should have comfortable time to knit it before Christmas. We can call it the Sensible Christmas Project. The yarn is Brown Sheep so it ought to be OK.

(Have you noticed how often, with a substantial Christmas list, you find yourself thinking easily enough of three or four possible presents for the same person, while others languish? It’s not that some people are easier to please than others, because the easy ones change places with the hard ones, year by year.) (The Sensible Christmas Project is aimed at one of 2013's relatively hard ones.)

The other thing that has turned up is the Dutch book of Loes Veenstra’s work. She is the eccentric – from Rotterdam, I think – who has been knitting sweaters for 50 years or so and keeping them in boxes. I don’t know how they were unearthed., but a video has been made of hundreds (literally) of people wearing the sweaters, dancing in the street while Loes V. sits among them enthroned. There was an exhibition – Stephen West went to see it in January. Scroll down – the early part is about West’s journey to Rotterdam.

And there is this book. No text, except for an introduction in Dutch. Page after page of sweaters. She’s good – inventive with colour. There are a few semi-circular shoulder shawls, and a few vests. But mostly sweaters, plain in shape.

The other news is that I have heard from Let’s Knit magazine, who want to mention me amongst other blogs on their Bookshelf page. This is a great honour which I have long coveted, but it also makes me feel that they must be desperate. I must look out a picture for them.