Mid-Stream Horse-Change

So, she’s changed her campaign manager, has she? Could it be she’s rattled?

It’s sort of funny that the Hillary camp actually seems to be complaining that Obama has better organisation. Hey, this is her third presidential campaign, she’s supposed to be the competent one who knows how things are done. He’s the new kid on the block, remember? whose inexperience will let him down.

I’m sure running a campaign is not exactly the same as running a country, but I suspect there are parallels.

Janet, you may be sure I am knitting the Obama sweater with great industry, except for taking yesterday off. It’s Theo’s gansey, and I have decided, after that happy weekend, that I will go ahead and put OHB in seed stitch on the lower right sleeve. Whatever happens from here on out, Obama is more than a footnote to the story of ’08. And this is the sweater, remember, which Theo has promised to wear to have his picture taken with Obama. He can point the initials out. (“They’re backwards because she was knitting from the top down…”: it’ll be what they call a Talking Point.)

I had a happy day’s scarf-knitting yesterday – Stacked Wedges from “Knitting New Scarves”. Manos yarn is silky when it’s pure wool. Manos Silk Blend, which I am using, is beyond sensuous. (I had to look that up; I got it confused with “sensual” once on a philosophy exam in my very distant youth.)

I chose a needle appropriate to the yarn, and the result is distinctly narrower than the pattern expects. It would have been easy enough to adapt, by casting on any odd number of stitches. However, I don’t think it matters. Helen’s is narrow too (although perhaps not quite as narrow as mine) and it’s stunning. The important thing is to make it generously long.

The pattern is fun, and easy. So easy, that the difficulty is remembering where you are in it.

I hope to crack the button thing today. Maybe I’ll have a Donate-to-Obama button in the sidebar soon.

I was grateful for, and appalled by, the comments yesterday on health care. It is depressing that you think neither Democrat can crack it. I remember – I wish I had it now – an excellent New Yorker article during Hillary’s first attempt, explaining that she was bound to fail because of the insurance companies and the way they worked. Quite apart from their profits, the cost of all those people who process claims must be prodigious.

Not only were last night’s primary results good, from my point of view, but the BBC World Service, – to which we, like many an elderly insomniac, listen all night long – for the first time since this caper began, didn’t feel it necessary to broadcast repeated clips from victory rallies with everybody shouting.

I slept peacefully and got out of bed this morning not even knowing what had happened. I must have dozed through the early-morning news.

Still on the subject of politics…

One of the things I am doing in my jigzone-less state, is catch up on blog-reading. This morning I got to the Knit Sisters' post of January 29, which was utterly horrifying and taught me a bit about that ever-mysterious subject, American health care. So, if you have proper health insurance it covers everything, does it? Like visits to the dr to discuss your asthma?

I guess, amidst the horror, I was sort of surprised that Disaster-only insurance would cover a broken arm – happens to me all the time, and doesn’t involve in-patient care; I thought disasters were cancer and heart attacks and that sort of hospital-y thing. And the other surprise was that an asthma-visit was beyond the means of a struggling Poor Person who was already paying for Disaster Insurance. I thought that would be sort of necessary-and-therefore-somehow-affordable, like the unexpected and unwelcome things that happen from time to time to cars and computers.

If you have no money at all and are living in a box on the street, can you get help with asthma?

You guys certainly need to elect a Democrat.

A bit of knitting…

I got within a couple of rows of the divide-for-the-neck point of the gansey, watching Scotland lose another rugby match, this time to Wales. We hope to go to Strathardle on Thursday of this week, for the first time since our epic struggle to escape through the snow on January 4. It would be nice to have finished the front by then. But I’ll cast on the scarf today.

Jared has re-appeared, with some wonderful hats.

I’m working on buttons. In fact you’ll find an (inactive) one if you scroll down my sidebar. [No, it doesn't seem to be there.] I had a scheme, but it didn’t work. Next I’ll try it Helen’s way.

I am trying to give up jigzone.com for Lent – far harder than doing without cider – and it leaves me with no obvious warm-up activity when I first sit down in the morning. Today I have submitted a seed order to the Real Seed people, and ordered my beautiful blue yarn for the Poet’s Coat (almost certainly, too much of it) from the Yarn Yard. I threw in a skein of “Perthshire Berries” for obvious reasons.

Seed orders require cogitation, and browsing. So there’s not much time left for blogging.

I had a lot of help on the button-problem yesterday from Helen and Anncrafts and Kathy in Juneau, and I think I grasp the requirements. Anncrafts provides a link, in yesterday’s comment, to an extremely lucid article on the subject. Somebody should tell Google about it. I got nothing comprehensible from them. She also, if you follow the link to her blog, offers a very useful-sounding recipe for a lentil chilli.

Maybe tomorrow I will have a glorious button. Kathy mildly pointed out that I’ve already got one, for LibraryThing. So I have! But I think LibraryThing did all the work on that one, perhaps supplying me with some HTML to paste in.

Knitting-wise, I am very near the neck-division of the front of Theo’s gansey (it is to have a common-or-garden shaped neck) and may even reach it this evening. A good point to stop for my day-off of scarf knitting. According to a reckoning in Natalie’s blog (at the Yarn Yard), I’ll be 70% finished when the front is done. Sounds good! I must update Ravelry.

Politics

Theresa, I think it was the Whitewater business that got me feeling the Clintons weren’t desperately well off personally, or maybe were worried about what Chelsea’s education would cost. Not a logical conclusion, and anyway it was a long time ago – any number of prosperous Rodhams could have died in the years since and left their money to Hillary, as you rightly say. And you in the US don’t pay much inheritance tax, do you? And she would have made a packet, although not perhaps five million, from that book.

Thank you for the encouragement to go ahead with my Swiss Mountain cashmere and silk order. Maybe that will be tomorrow morning’s activity, if the credit card can take any more.

I had a nice time with Helen in John Lewis's yesterday. I didn’t much fancy the new Rowan book she had come to buy – too much Kidsilk Haze, which I have eschewed for life. Some nice KF stripes in there, admittedly. Neither of us bought any yarn! Although we were glad to note that the department seemed busy.

She was wearing the Stacked Wedges scarf from “Knitting New Scarves”, and I think that’s going to be my choice. I’ve been browsing the KNS Knitalong, however – the variety of things people choose to knit is a great tribute to the book – and am (a) tempted by the general enthusiasm for Shag and (b) tempted back towards Drifting Pleats by the happiness of the one blogger I read who had finished it. Maybe next time.

And next time is likely to be the Swiss Mountain cashmere and silk I have had my eye on for a while. I think it might lend itself well to pleat-drifting.

So that was nice. Although I'm no further forward on the question of how to add an active button to my sidebar.

Lindsay, the JL Rowan lady, lent me “Knitting America” which is extremely interesting. So far I have been mostly browsing the pictures, for it is truly lavishly illustrated, but I’m going to have to double back and pay strict attention to the text. I don’t think it’s quite as solidly scholarly as Bishop Rutt’s excellent book, but I’ll let you know. [Too many adverbs in that paragraph.]

And the news which Lindsay and Helen were talking about – and which I myself had an email about when I got home – is that Glasgow’s K1 Yarns is to open here in Edinburgh. No date yet, but the site is chosen. Back when I had the choice, I preferred our own HK Handknit. But now that that option is closed, it is great news that we are to have another specialist yarn shop here.

Since I seem to be flitting from Odds to Ends this morning: I followed Franklin’s link to Meg Swansen’s knitalongs yesterday. I tried the Conch Hat myself once – it’s tremendous fun, but mine came out sized for a premature baby, or perhaps a cat. I think maybe one would have to get the Sheepsdown yarn specified, and I’m not currently tempted, amidst my other temptations. But I’m going to sign on for the Kliban Hat, later on, even without a cat to knit for. It includes instructions for “adding color stripes in ribbing without producing a wrong side”. Wow!

Politics

Hillary says that the five million dollars she lent her campaign was all her own money, not Bill’s. So how did she come by five million dollars? If that much money sticks to subsidiary occupants of the White House, no wonder people are willing to put themselves through this ordeal to get there.

There was a depressing article in the Telegraph yesterday, rude about the whole process – “the whistling, yelling crowds….look dated, and somehow at odds with a country with as many difficulties as this one” – and about all the current participants. Most rude about Mrs Clinton, least rude about Mr. McCain.

I’ve cheered up a bit about Tuesday’s voting, although I still profoundly wish there were a way to put a stop to this. I can remember nothing like it. Whichever one wins, the nation will know that only half the Democratic party wanted it that way.

I am amused to learn that the Clintons have lent a lot of money to Hillary’s campaign. The BBC said that she had lent it to herself, but I have had a personal message from Obama’s campaign manager this morning, saying that it came from both of them. As must be the case. She couldn’t be that rich (one would hope), a hard-working senator like her. This must come from Bill’s post-presidential earnings and rather underlines his ambition to get back to the White House.

Theo made an interesting non-partisan appearance on local radio yesterday. He posted the URL in advance on the family blog, but when I tried to listen, I was told that access from outside the US was not allowed. (Did that happen to you, Janet?) His proud parents couldn’t hear it either, as they had a power failure at the crucial moment. So Theo sent us an electronic copy—that is, an audible one – last night, and I hope he will post that to the blog.

Enough politics. Too much.

The sun shone yesterday. Here’s the gansey, on the doorstep in my own shadow. I added a bit more last night. You can faintly discern the initials, TELeC, at the lower right just above the ribbing.



I have decided that it is silly not to allow myself one day a week of non-gansey-knitting, as planned, and have therefore started winding a skein of Manos Silk Blend and perusing “Knitting New Scarves” again. I’d like to knit Drifting Pleats, challenge-wise, but the author says it requires undivided attention throughout, and I’m not willing to give it that.

I’m interested in Tricorner, because it’s exactly the same technique as the Linked Rib I’ve already done, but produces an entirely different result. And I like Tilted Blocks a lot. But top of the mental list, at the moment, is Stacked Wedges. I’ll confer with Helen this afternoon. (Don’t miss Kristin Nicholas' comment of yesterday.)

Jean K., you’re absolutely right, “Knitting Lace” by Susanna Lewis is a marvellous book, full of excellent technical advice about using lace in knitting design. I forgot. I’m sorry to hear it’s hard to come by – the moral, as so often, is that you’d better go ahead and buy any knitting book you’re interested in right now, because it’s going to cost a packet on eBay in five years’ time.

Our granddaughter Kirsty Miles of Beijing was born in one of the rare years (2000) when Scotland won the Calcutta Cup, and I incorporated an image of it in her Christening shawl (bottom of page). I used Susanna Lewis’ exposition of the technique of curved faggotting, p. 145, for the handles.

Well, not much sleep, as predicted, and not much result, either. Some BBC pundit said yesterday what was beginning to worry me: is the Democratic party going to cleave itself asunder with all this, while the Republicans rally, however glumly, behind McCain? But I heard Howard Dean during the night say, no, this is fine, because it gives the nation a chance really to get to know the candidates.

I’ll let you know what I decide about tee-shirt-buying.

Meanwhile, Kathleen, that’s a good question, what is there to read about lace? And I don’t know the answer.

There is Margaret Stove’s book, “Designing Your Own Hand-Knitted Lace”. It has some good chapters about the structure of lace and the different effects of knitting it at different gauges. That is essentially the ground Shirley Paden covers in the article in the current VK, and I like her idea of referring to “single-sided” and “double-sided” lace.

Margaret Stove calls the two “knitted lace” and “lace knitting” (or else vice versa) and I cannot be the only knitter unable to remember which is which for 30 consecutive seconds.

But I can’t think that I’ve ever read anything about incorporating lace motifs in garment design, and that’s what I’m hoping for from SP next time.

Not much here. I went out to a committee meeting last night, advanced the current sock a few more rounds, but inevitably neglected the gansey. And it looks as if I’m going to have to knit remorselessly on, no idling away Sunday with scarves and hats and swatching linen stitch for the swallowtail coat.

I’m going to meet my friend Helen for coffee tomorrow. (John Lewis’s yarn dept. will be the assignation point.) I am desperately impressed that Kristin Nicholas describes Helen as a friend. She is very clever about computers as well as knitting, and may be able to teach me how to capture buttons for my sidebar.

Here we are: Fat Tuesday. I don’t anticipate much sleep tonight. My friend in Brookline says “Don't worry! My vote will be properly cast.” Is she being evasive?

Don’t miss Franklin today. (I trust you never do.) I’m not tempted by Dolores’ ingenious campaign package, but Joe and Mar will want to stock up. I spent awhile wandering around the Obama pages at Cafepress, after looking at Dolores’ work. There are some good tee-shirts by now. Maybe I’ll order one tomorrow if I’m feeling at all cheerful.

And speaking of ordering – I spent a few minutes at the Yarnyard yesterday, after posting my blog entry, as an alternative to standing up and facing the day, and found this among the sock yarns. Natalie describes it as “a beautiful clear blue”. What I am aiming at, as I have said, is “a swallowtail coat of a beautiful blue”. Since Natalie uses the actual word “beautiful” I take it as a sign, and shall proceed to order.

This is a sock yarn, and has almost twice as much metre-age to the gram as the alpaca specified for the Poet’s Coat. But since I have to do a big swatch and some substantial re-designing, that shouldn’t entirely matter. Maybe alpaca is heavier. Maybe I could use Natalie’s yarn double.

The Winter VK turned up yesterday, with some useful things in it. Lily Chin’s articles about fit have been consistently interesting.(Sleeves, this time.) I like Vladimir Teriokhin’s cropped cardi in Noro Silk Garden, no. 15. Shirley Paden is a top favourite designer of mine – she’s writing about designing with lace (which she does brilliantly) but this first article doesn’t get much beyond stating the obvious.

Scotland lost disgracefully, in a largely boring match. I don’t know if I can go on with this. I suppose I’ll have to register a flicker of interest on Calcutta Cup Day.

I forgot, yesterday, to list the Spinning Fishwife among the blogs that Make my Day. I’m now up to a baker’s dozen. This is harder than it looks.

I finished the back of the gansey yesterday, remembering to make it just fractionally short so that I can lengthen and narrow it at the blocking stage. It’s looking good. I’m glad I stuck with so simple a pattern. Less is more.

Kathy, I loved the Barack Obama link you sent me yesterday. It’s when he unleashes that smile that one goes all weak in the knee. It wouldn’t work at all if he smiled all the time like a toothpaste ad. And my sister this morning reproduces a good ad he put on during the Super Bowl. I wonder what fraction of a split second of that my contribution would have paid for.

I’ve had an email from his campaign manager urging me to Phone Five Friends. I would drive them into the enemy camp, I am sure, if I attempted any such thing.

There is one dear friend, a master knitter, who with her husband has been working hard for Edwards. I could ring up Isobel and have a nice time talking to her – but it wouldn’t be of much use, politically, because she lives in New Hampshire.

However, I did a small favour on request today for a friend who lives in Brookline. She is of the what-does-it-matter-they’re-all-the-same school, rather like Joe and Mar. And when I wrote to her telling her that I had executed the commission, I asked her to vote for Obama. If he wins in MA, you’ll know that it was all my doing.

I continue to think about swallowtail coats. I’ve read the Poet’s Coat pattern, and it doesn’t sound easy. The gauge is pretty tight – 7.5 stitches to the inch over linen stitch. It’s knit from the bottom up. It does form a tail in the back, although you can’t see it in the photograph. There’s some elegant short-rowing right at the beginning.

That won’t apply to me, since I’ll be splitting the back. Maybe once Tuesday is safely behind us, I’ll try it out with something from the stash, a sort of pre-swatch swatch.

The Six Nations rugby season got itself underway yesterday. I don’t feel much enthusiasm this time, but I tried. I watched most of the match between Wales and England, and got quite a bit of knitting done – the gansey pattern is easy enough to accommodate rugby, at least when Scotland isn’t involved. There remains about 3.5” of the back to do.

Unfortunately the part of the match I didn’t watch, having drifted away to do something else, was the good bit. Wales came from way behind, and won.

Scotland play France today, here in Edinburgh. That’s often a good match, and the weather doesn’t seem likely to tempt us out for a walk.

I feel I have been churlish in not acknowledging, so far, Helen's and Kathy's nomination of this blog for the YMMD award. I was very touched.

I was interested in Helen’s list, too. (She’s brilliant at finding gems on the internet.) I know I ought to re-arrange my own list: I find I’m not bothering to look at a lot of the posts which I have asked igoogle to look out for and remind me of.

Leaving Helen and Kathy out of it, the ones I never miss are – will the list reach to ten? – Franklin, Queer Joe, Annie Modesitt, my sister and her family, Knitterguy, the Curmudgeon, Rabbitch of course, Lorna, Mel , and Sean. Ten it is -- 12, of course, really, because Helen and Kathy belong there.

Kathy, I love Nick’s hat. My plan for myself had been to gansey-knit single-mindedly until Tuesday, and then allow myself a couple of days frivolity per week – a scarf from Knitting New Scarves, a watchcap, maybe finish up those KF socks for Alexander’s birthday at the end of the month. (He was born in a leap year and has never been entirely forgiven, as I’ve probably said too often before, for not holding out until the 29th. He should be 12 this year, instead of whatever boring age it is he will have attained.)

But what if the nomination continues to be poised on a knife-edge?

On reflection – a million US pundits must already have said this – I don’t see how Obama could accept the VP nomination from Hillary, quite apart from the considerable Problem of Bill. It would be selling out to the Old Washington against which he has aimed his whole campaign. On the other hand, he’s young enough to think of ’12 or ’16 and maybe wouldn’t want to alienate the party high-heid-yins by being seen not to be a team player. Tough one to call. Let’s continue to hope he doesn’t have to.

I liked the clip of him which comes with this article igoogle found for me – Obama in reflective rather than oratorical mode.

I think we’re making real progress on the swallowtail coat front, thanks to helpful commenters.

I am going to run with Helen's comforting notion that anything goes, as long as it has split tails in back. She provides a delicious link in her comment yesterday to Ruskin in court dress. No wonder his wife ran off with Millais.

I had thought like you at one point, Karen, that a swallowtail coat had to be cut off abruptly at the waist in front – the costume, in fact, when rendered in red, of a circus ringmaster. That was the stage I had reached when I decided the Poet’s Coat wouldn’t do – it would have to be changed too radically.

But further research suggests at least that the term can also be applied to a coat which looks, in front, much like the Poet’s Coat, but which “swoops from the waist button to the center back in an arc”, in Fuzzarelly's most helpful words. Beatrix Potter’s Jeremy Fisher wears one at home, as Helen pointed out yesterday. Johnny Townmouse’s friends and relations do too, when they dress for dinner, but the pictures of Jeremy Fisher are more helpful.

So the swoop of the Poet’s Coat will have to be altered, so that it doesn’t finish until a point near the centre back. I think I would divide the tails in back somewhere near the waist, but only slope them very slightly on the inside, perhaps an inch or an inch and a half for each tail.

The next thing is to find some yarn – it must be of a beautiful blue. (I wonder if any of you will see where this is going.) I agree with you, Tamar – comment a few days ago – that alpaca, as prescribed in the book, is not what’s wanted. I should think a good honest DK weight in good honest wool. What one needs is a good honest LYS. Then a swatch. Then a plan actually done on knitter’s graph paper.

Miscellany and Politics

Dawn, I read and enjoyed Go Knit in Your Hat’s venture into politics. Manic Knitter, I had begun to hear rumbles of the idea of an Obama-Clinton ticket. Trouble is, if Clinton goes top, the VP (unelected) will be named Bill: would Obama settle for that? My sister pooh-pooh’d the idea recently, on the very sound grounds that Clinton and Obama really don’t seem to like each other. I don’t understand why Edwards couldn’t run as VP again, but apparently not.

Here are the KF socks. I use slightly more than 100 grams to knit a pair of gent's socks, and have learned to save on yarn-buying (!) by finishing the toes from the odd-ball bag. In this case, the odd ball is the same KF colorway, in the stripy version.

And here the gansey:

I think we edged somewhat forward yesterday. My husband is willing to admit only that we held our ground. In any event, I feel a bit better.

London: we had four good days of looking at art. The highlights were the big show of pictures on loan from Russia at the Royal Academy, and Anthony McCall, who sculpts in light, at the Serpentine. Wonderful!

The remaining day, Sunday, was a welcome respite from art. Our son James, in Beijing, has become interested in family history and collects ancestors the way I collect Vogue Knitting Books. He had got wind of a family tomb in Brompton Cemetery, and had sent us instructions from the cemetery authorities about how to find it. Thomas-the-Elder kindly drove us there on Sunday afternoon.

It was a lovely afternoon, and a pleasant place, a Royal Park. (But for interesting dead people, you do better at Kensal Green.) We found our tomb with no difficulty, perfectly legible, not overgrown with ivy. This is a picture of my husband transcribing the inscriptions.

His great-grandfather is buried there, and Great Aunt Henrietta whom he can just remember.

Knitting

The gansey progresses well. And I remember I have promised a pic of the KF socks.

“Boho Baby Knits” has arrived and is full of good things. It is sort of sad when you find yourself so far advanced in life that your grandchildren are, largely, past wearing such garments.

But not quite all of them. I am re-enthused about the Poet’s Coat. It is shaped in the front – I hadn’t realized that – and straight across the back. If this (discovered in an image-search) is really a swallowtail coat, the Poet’s Coat could easily be adapted to suit by the addition of a modest tail in the back.

But the Oxford English Dictionary is emphatic that “swallowtail” implies a forked tail, like a swallow. I need to struggle on with image-searching.

Home again; very tired. It’s funny how cumulative tiredness works. We did fine in London; I can scarcely breathe this morning.

Knitting-wise, when we left I was just starting the heel flap on the first of the gent’s-size KF sock pair. Now I am four or five inches down the leg of the second – not too bad. Picture soon. I don’t suffer from second-sock-syndrome, but I don’t like doing sock ribbing, and I do like plenty of rib for a gent’s sock, and those 50 rounds are harder to get through on the second than on the first. I gritted my teeth and got them done on Monday and Tuesday so that I could sail forward with the leg on the train journey home yesterday.

The sad thing, knitting-wise, was that I FORGOT to bid for the Alice-in-Wonderland Vogue Knit on Sunday morning. I have corresponded in Ravelry with the designer of the Poet’s Coat (see last post) – it’s not a tail coat, let alone a swallowtail. I’m sort of afraid that if I started messing around with it, I’d wind up with something that wouldn’t even be useful as a little-boy’s dressing gown. Which would be shame since the original is so wonderful.

I think I need to search images in Google and get a firm grip of what a swallowtail coat actually is. More on this subject to follow.

Kate, did I answer your question? Memory suggests that 16” is a really-small baby size; 18” more practical; and 20” more practical yet. They grow fast, as Franklin recently discovered on re-visiting his niece. I think your 21.5” is fine – press on.

Politics

South Carolina was a big boost, and so was the Kennedy endorsement, and Edwards’ resignation, even without an endorsement, will be of more use to us than to Hillary, I think. So, a whole 10 days between South Carolina and next Tuesday, of feeling cheerful and hopeful. I still think in my bones that she’ll get the nomination.

Here is my thought. (Woollywoman, you’ve already said it more succinctly, in a comment on my last.)

History has produced a number of strong, intelligent, capable women who have proved to be highly successful leaders of their nations. They come in two categories:

…the ones who got to the top at least partly because of whose daughters or wives they were: Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, Indira Ghandi, Benezir Bhutto.

…and the post-World-War-II ones who did it on their own: Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Mary Robinson, Angela Merkel (not to mention Madeleine Albright and Condi Rice).

If Hillary wins, she goes into Category I. And I feel that America, of all nations, deserves a first-woman-president in Category II.

Shan, you’re wonderful. I have completely fallen for the Poet's Coat [scroll down a bit] in Boho Baby Knits, and have ordered the book. The swallowtail coat is to be a joke-present for a family member, and s/he might be willing to pass it on to a small person whom it might fit. I may have more to say when the book arrives. Alexander thinks either of his sons would wear it, should it be passed on to one of them.

All went well yesterday. I have a new crown in my mouth, and lunch was successful. It consisted of Jamie Oliver’s “Tray-baked salmon with olives, green beans, anchovies and tomatoes” from “The Naked Chef”. A reliable recipe, but you never can tell.

And speaking of food – we’re going to London tomorrow, not without dread. We will be staying with Rachel and Ed in Streatham, although they themselves will be in Newcastle for the weekend visiting their daughter Hellie who is at university there. Meanwhile the other three children will be at home with us, and Friday is the Bard’s Birthday.

So I will take along a haggis.

Knitting (and political) Odds and Ends

Here’s the current state of Theo’s gansey. If Obama does get the nomination, I think I’ll add his initials in seed stitch just above the wrist ribbing on one of the sleeves. It seems a fairly remote possibility at the moment.

I had a personal email from John Kerry this morning, about swiftboating. I am finding Bill Clinton’s role in all of this more and more distasteful, he who wouldn’t lift a finger for Al Gore. If the framers of the 22nd amendment had thought for a moment that the husband or wife of a former president might stand for that office, I think it would have given them pause.

I read an old Knitter’s, selected at random, in my bath this morning, as often. I found I had Winter, 2003, in which I was rather struck by the Squares Squared jacket. It is offered twice, in yarns so indescribably awful that I must have completely overlooked it, the first time through.

Today is unusually fraught with external event – a dentist’s appointment and a lunch date here with my husband’s sister. Can I stand the excitement?

I continue to enjoy Theo's political essays, from which I am learning a lot that is not reported in the newspapers I read.

Knitting

Mary Lou, thank you for taking the trouble to find out who Eric W. Pasold was, who donated the funds which will finance the conference I hope to go to in the spring. The links are there in yesterday’s comments. I hope your eye is getting better.

My friend Helen, who is a positive mine of recondite information, found this treasure for me on eBay yesterday:

Vogue-Knits were slim vols which I think might be called off-prints: more than 100 of them were published all told. Each one gathered together patterns on a single theme – Men’s, Cardigans, Ski Sweaters, whatever – from recent Vogue Knitting Books. But did the VKB ever publish patterns for toys? I don’t remember any.

However, my main interest here is not historical but practical. I want to knit a swallowtail coat, and I am hoping there is something here which would do, or which could be adapted to do. The one on the cover looks like a real possibility. I’ll tell you why eventually. Size is not terribly important, except that I certainly don’t want to make a full-sized one. Teddy-bear size would do nicely. Or smaller – does Jean Greenhowe have anything anywhere? I’d be grateful for suggestions. I hate that kind of fiddly knitting, but this is important.

Now I’d better face the day.

Politics

Thanks to all for the attempt to explain. No doubt this morning’s papers will try, too. I didn’t know about “super delegates” and had begun to get the impression that nowadays the state primaries were all that mattered. I’m glad something is left for the boys in the back room to do.

Gran – I’m afraid the link with your comment doesn’t work – the appeal of Obama to me is youth and strength and intelligence and humour and handsomeness, much as I felt about JFK 48 years ago. And about no one since. I admire Bill Clinton for several things, not least what he achieved in Northern Ireland, but I never fell for him. With Obama there is the additional hope that, being black but not descended from slaves, he might be the man to heal America’s great wound.

Knitting

Not much. I pressed on with the back of the gansey, attached another ball of yarn, and put another skein on the swift.

I also sent in my cheque for the knitting conference. It is remarkable what a chore it seems these days to write a cheque, address the envelope, write a covering message, assemble these things, affix a stamp, walk to the post box. Most of my life is conducted with a couple of clicks. Fishwife, I so hope you can contrive to be there.

Might-Have-Been's

The Beijing Mileses regularly travel to Britain on BA flight 036, which crashed last week at Heathrow. They feel a bit shaken, but since all of the passengers and crew are fine – many of the passengers didn’t know they had crashed, until they had to slide down those slides – none of the rest of us are very impressed.

My husband and I flew from Glasgow to London in the 60’s with a pilot – in those days, a sheet of paper with his name, and various bits of flight information, was actually passed back from the cockpit and circulated from hand to hand – with a pilot who, a few months later, perished with all hands on a third attempt to land at Heathrow in filthy weather. I think it was and remains the worst crash the airport ever had. Shakel was his name.

Alexander was working in NY in 1988. He came home for Christmas. His return journey was booked on Pan Am 103, five days after Lockerbie.

But the one I often think about happened on dry land. I was driving all four children to school. As I approached the one traffic light on the journey, it turned green, and since no one was waiting, I sailed across without slowing down. And then saw, in the rear-view window, a bus cross on the other road behind me, shooting the light. How much was in it? Less than a second?

But it’s impossible to worry in retrospect.

Politics

So I fear that’s it: we’re to have the same old same old, after all. I shall cling to faint hopes until Tuesday the 5th, though, and knit bravely on.

And knitting

A dry, bright day yesterday, and I took some pictures at last of Wednesday’s purchases at the HK closing-down sale. I offer you both Outdoors and Indoors. The brown-y one is for a child’s sweater, the pink-y one I hope for me.




Helen brought me this recently, as a first-foot present, and it promises to be very useful:


In the sweater section, it gives not only finished-chest-measurement but a suggestion for what age of child might fit each. Three skeins of the brown-y Araucania – that’s what I’ve got – will be plenty for a school-aged child. I have five of the pink-y ones (that’s all there was), and that’s going to run it close, for an adult sweater.

The Sweater Wizard gives yardages, too, and I can play around with that a bit. And there are smaller adults than myself in the close family.

On actual knitting, I did separate the gansey front and back, and am now racing towards the back shoulders. My current decision is, after all, to shape the neck and not have a shoulder strap.
And when the gansey is finished, I must put in a couple of months on the Princess. Kathy has finished hers, and Missalicefaye is speeding forward. My ambition for ’08 is to finish the body and at least make a start on the top edging.

So, here we are, Nevada. I got a personal email from Michelle Obama yesterday.

And some more interesting post. A friend in California (small world dep’t) sent me this link about a day conference on the social history of knitting in Scotland, to be held here in Edinburgh in March. I think I’ll have to go. It will surely be the one conference where it will be perfectly all right to take one’s knitting. Anyone else?

And someone wrote from New Zealand asking about this pattern:

It's an old Patons pattern, designed by Mrs Hunter of Unst. The writer inherited it from her sister-in-law, along with a half-finished shawl and the wool. She had nearly finished it when she was burgled, losing the pattern, parts of the shawl, and the wool. Clearly burglars in New Zealand have different priorities from any I have had to deal with.

Not only will I copy the pattern and send it to her – despite my strict upbringing on the Knitlist – but I am actually saying so out loud here. The pattern must be 50 years old, because I knit it for Rachel before she was born, and she’ll be 50 in June. It is certainly unobtainable anywhere, so no one is being deprived of any revenue.

She says she is going to knit another one when this is finished, for her other child. I encouraged her to look to Amedro and/or Miller, and knit the next in one piece. This pattern asks you to knit six separate pieces and spend quite a lot of time sewing them carefully together.

It is exactly the sort of thing knitting editors did in those days, like knitting Fair Isle flat. EZ’s early career was a titanic struggle against that sort of thinking, and we are all the beneficiaries.

The pattern itself, which seemed to me the dernier cri of lacy complication in 1958, now looks embarrassingly banal.

The gansey

...is now 16 1/4" long. I was aiming at 17", cast-on-to-underarm, but I think I’ll split it today, after a couple more rounds. I still remain very slightly concerned about excess girth, and would like to have a bit less length when it comes to the blocking stage, so that length can be achieved at the expense of girth.

I find that when I take the trouble to think and to write down my calculations before I start, I then tend to follow my own scribbles as slavishly as those of any world-famous designer. The instinct to be a Blind Follower is born with us.

Beverley, I love being asked questions I can actually answer. Vogue Knitting Book No. 47 would be autumn, 1955. I am particularly fond of the ones of that era, because that’s when I was taking up knitting seriously, after a four-year hiatus while I was at college in Ohio. Things have been very quiet on the VKB front on eBay lately, but since I need only five, now, to complete my set, I guess that's inevitable.

I forgot to mention that we have received the Old Kirkmichael postcard we recently bought on eBay. The subject is, indeed, the mill: you can just see the wheel on the far side. We know where it stood, slightly upstream from us and on the far side. I think I'm right in saying that not a stone remains. We had never seen a picture of it before. A choice postcard indeed. Postcard-makers 100 years ago were far more enterprising than they are now.

Angel, thank you for the political comment, which fits nicely, but in more detail, with what we’re being told here. It sounds from this morning’s Telegraph as if Latinos are likely to stay with Clinton. Nevada will be very interesting.

Your blog: children’s sleeves, and especially babies’ sleeves, are better short. A lot of patterns make them too long. Children, and especially babies, are no good at rolling their sleeves up, and I suspect their arms are shorter in proportion to their bodies than adult arms.

I never understood, until you told me, what “refried beans” were. Thanks for the recipes. January and beans certainly go well together. Mel has been cooking up some delicious-sounding ones lately, 7th and 11th January.

Meanwhile back at the ranch…

…there’s not much to report. I still haven't taken any pics of the new Araucania yarn. Here’s the current state of the gansey – about two inches to go to the underarm. I seem to have done the gusset calculations right: that doesn’t always happen. I like the look of reversed st st for the gusset a lot, and will always do that in future when gussets are needed.

If all goes according to schedule, our television set will be repaired today. I suppose I had better plug the aerial back in before the man comes, to make sure that it hasn’t pulled itself together of its own accord.

We had a great day out, yesterday.

We were really too late for the best of the HK sale, but I bought more Araucania Ranco than I have lifetime remaining to knit it in – three skeins (=generous child’s sweater) of a browny Multi shade, possibly the same one as the sweater I’m already knitting in Strathardle; and five skeins of dusty pink in what claims to be a solid colour but obviously, deliciously, isn’t.

I’ll try for a pic today, if we get any daylight.

The last of the KF sock yarn had been sold that very day.

Helen was more restrained, and only bought a book.

The shop is closing, we gathered, because Jeannette wants to spend more time designing and also, I think, because she is exhausted. She confirmed that someone has plans to open a similar LYS – ah, but could it be as good? – in the Grassmarket soon. Let’s hope. Apart from the folly of buying yarn, I was very glad to have the chance to say goodbye and to thank her.

And I told her, Maureen, that the shop is mourned as far afield as Fargo.

Meanwhile the gansey goes smoothly forward. I’ll soon be dividing front and back at the underarm, which means I’m practically finished. Or at least that I must give some thought to shoulder treatment. I am up-sizing a Brown-Reinsel child’s pattern and I could just do what she does, knit right up and join the shoulders with a three-needle bind-off. But I have an obsessive love of shoulder straps, and I think I’ll try to do that.

Politics

Sure enough, I got a personal message from Senator Obama yesterday. Not asking for money but – oh! clever twist – asking me to ask other people for money.

I would have thought that at this stage, ardent prayer would be just as useful. He’s got to win both Nevada and South Carolina, the Telegraph pointed out yesterday, or he’s toast (to use Theo's expressive term). However, if anyone feels moved to donate, this is the URL. Tell me, either in a comment or in an email to my address as given in the sidebar, and maybe I will match your donation. I think you’ve got to be an American citizen. This offer does not apply to you, SisterHelen, or to you, Theo.

Gardening

Jenny, yes, I’ve got “Gardening with the Enemy” and find it very useful. There are some things – even some vegetables – which the wretched creatures simply don’t like. Potatoes, rhubarb, and – more surprisingly – broad beans and courgettes are perfectly safe. I’ll go ahead with Joan J raspberries, feeling pretty confident, and grateful for your reassurance, Mel.

I’ve got one (shabbily cobbled-together) raised bed, Fishwife, and agree that it’s a hopeful way forward. My sister brought me the actual book last summer and under its guidance I have limed and manured the bed (but not at the same time, as Mel Bartholemew seems to suggest: all my other books insist that you mustn’t, to the point of bursting into italics on the subject) and covered it with an old plastic tablecloth. I hope to cobble together a second raised bed before the action starts this year.

Politics

So, it’s Romney by a considerable margin in Michigan. I don’t understand what happened to the Democrats there; your comment, Stashhaus, makes it all the more mysterious and interesting. I knew the Michigan delegates wouldn’t be counted at the Democratic convention, but I didn’t know that only Hillary was on the ballot paper.

I’d really like to see the Republicans nominate Huckabee or Guiliani, because I think they’re the most beatable, but anyone will do.

And finally, knitting

I think you can just discern the gusset beginning to emerge, next to the pink marker.

I put the next skein on the swift. No tangles. I should have done this from the beginning. If I give it a couple of twirls from time to time as I walk past, the ball will be wound by the time I need it, and no knitting time will be wasted on winding.

Today’s excitement is that Helen (of Chronic Knitting Syndrome fame) and I are going to explore the closing-down sale at HK Handknit, and have lunch in a pub, a rare dereliction of duty on my part, keenly anticipated.

And “fame” is the word. Jigzone has included a link to her blog for a month or so now, and she gets thousands of hits as a result. It’s better than being mentioned by Franklin.

I’ve found “Joan J” raspberries without difficulty, Fishwife. But does “spineless” mean that the rabbits’ll get 'em? I’m planning to put them outside the protected area.

Follow that link for views of a vegetable garden to beggar belief. How could one woman do it?

Part of the idea of thinking-raspberries, apart from deliciousness, is the wish to make more of the garden permanent and therefore less work. I’m thinking of a patch of sorrel, and perhaps trying Good King Henry again, and extending the herbs. Sea kale?

This thought segues rather neatly back into politics. The Sunday Times remarked this week that the Republicans are just beginning to realise that each of their candidates is seriously flawed, one way or another. I find that hard to believe: I’ve seen it coming for months. I respect and admire Mr McCain, and I think he’d not make an entirely bad president – but he’s too old. The drawbacks of each of the others are too obvious to need rehearsal.

One of my Theories of Life, based on recent experience, is that after 70 the individual years begin to count again, as they did in childhood and youth. If he’s 72 when he’s inaugurated, he’ll be 76 by the end of his term, and at that age strength of body (at the very least) is waning and you’re thinking of maybe planting fewer potatoes.

Mel, I am heartened by your assurance that I’ll get a “personal” email from Senator Obama one day, as the result of my contribution. I’ll let you know when it happens.

Manic Knitter, I am much encouraged that you regard Theo’s gansey as talismanic [=get Obama elected]. I had begun to regard the notion as rather silly, but will now knit on with renewed vigour. I didn’t get much done yesterday as I had to wind a new skein, and for some reason they keep tangling, although this one wasn’t quite as bad as the last. I’ll do the next one on the swift instead of arranging it around my knees.

[I read the account of your Christmas visit, which puts ours well in the shade. We had some sniffles, and Thomas-the-Younger was sick, off-stage, but that’s nothing compared to your experience.]

Two further non-knit thoughts: I corresponded with the seller of my new postcard yesterday. He referred to the building as a distillery. Was he just extrapolating from my guess that it was a mill, or is there something I don’t yet know in the message? It went through the mail in 1907. I await its arrival with great excitement.

Today is the true end of the holidays – our fishmonger should be back from his annual post-New-Year holiday. It’s a very sensible time of year for him to go, with the weather often limiting the amount of fish landed. But, oh! we miss him, just when lighter meals are wanted. Happy New Year and welcome home, Margaret and John.

Largely non-knit…

…although I did get that gusset started last night. Brown-Reinsel mentions the possibility of doing it in reversed st st (as I will be doing) – I just hadn’t noticed, the first time through. It’s a seriously good book. “Knitting Ganseys”.

Political

On the theory that knitting a gansey for Theo is not really much use to Obama, in the last analysis – indeed, in the first analysis -- I made an actual donation yesterday, the first time in my life I have done such a thing. I expected the acknowledgement to come in the form of a “personal” email from the candidate, but it didn’t. I am torn between rejoicing in the triumph of common sense over sentimentality, and the urge to tell them they’re missing a trick here.

I remember visiting my mother in a retirement community in NJ, late in her life, and her telling me she had made a contribution to Jesse Jackson’s bid for the nomination. I said I didn’t think he was of presidential calibre. She agreed, and said she had sent the money to encourage him, because he was black.


She was devotedly liberal, but spent some of her formative years in the Confederacy. Perhaps for that reason, perhaps just because of her generation, her attitude towards blacks was condescending, although she’d have been furious if you told her so. I wonder what she would have made of a black presidential candidate towards whom condescension was impossible.

She was also an ardent feminist, and a great admirer of Bill Clinton – I think her last vote must have been for his second term, in ’96. I wonder if she’d have favoured Hillary just because she’s a woman, an attitude which seems to me equally condescending.

Lots of people loathed Mrs Thatcher, and lots of others admired her extravagantly, but no one ever accused her of being a woman.

eBay

No VKB’s lately, but I bought this gem last night. Not just Kirkmichael, but Balnauld, Kirkmichael – the little group of houses including ours, down that dead-end road. We’re pretty sure this building isn’t standing any more. Could it have been the mill? That looks like the burn – our burn – in the foreground.


Spinning Fishwife, thanks for the raspberry-growing tip. Noted. I’ve got lots of catalogues (and Google) – I’ll find it.

The only knitting to report is more-gansey. I keep thinking I am about to start the gusset, and it somehow seems to keep receding. Maybe today.

Meanwhile, I’m getting kind of behind with comments.

Stash Haus, thanks for the reminder about the gift shop at the Churchill War Rooms. I’ll add it to the exhibition list in my Palm, and see what can be done.

Everybody, thanks for the sympathy about the demise of HK Handknit. (That link is right, and I’ll fix yesterday’s.) Especially Maureen from Fargo, with whom I spent a very happy morning there last April. (I know it was April, because the sun was shining. That didn’t happen again for a while.) That was the day she suggested I knit Sam the Ram for the Games last summer – and the rest is history, as they say.

Gardening

Karen, I think your idea may be little short of brilliant, of growing raspberries without support. If something is worth doing, I always say, it’s worth doing badly. After all, they grow as weeds all over the place, without support, and are threatening to overwhelm the path from our house to the den. I will remember your suggestion of Autumn Bliss, too.

And, Judith, I will get the catalogues out and consider Tayberries again. The Ardle (as in Strathardle) is a tributary of the Tay (although it loses its identity before it gets there), so conditions ought to be perfect. “A sort of arch structure”, you say. I wonder if that is something I could cobble together myself, or would the Tayberry just bring it down? There’s lots of old wood of various shapes in the byre. And potash – that’s wood ash, right? We’ve got lots of that.

It’s time I got on with ordering seeds and potatoes, too.

Politics

I was grateful to everybody for the comfort about Karl Rove’s article. Subscribing to the LeComptes blog in igoogle, as I do, seems to bring in a lot of interesting political articles as well, and igoogle itself suggests others. Theo has miraculously embedded Obama’s NH speech in defeat in the blog. It’s a good speech, and interesting, too, for the sad faces behind the candidate.

Julie, I know I should be grateful for access to the art galleries of London (and Edinburgh, and Glasgow). But I haven’t recovered much pep since the hols and that horrible day with the snow, and London is very hard work. And a great big place, and you can’t see out of it. One of the lovlinesses of Edinburgh – Robert Louis Stevenson mentions it, in his little book on the subject – is that you can stand almost anywhere, and see beyond.

And to yesterday’s sorrows, another has been added. The best, I might almost say the only, LYS in Edinburgh is closing down. Helen and I are planning to go on Wednesday, to pick over the bones and tell them how sorry we are. The Spinning Fishwife thinks it may be a matter of the owners’ health, in which case I can only conclude that the place is cursed: the first owner died young, and suddenly, perhaps with a DVT, after a trip to the US.

It’s a great shop, in a good location, not too central, not too remote, not too big, not too small, always full of customers and good yarn and one or the other owner who really love yarn and can, as required, teach you how to cast on or speak with excited enthusiasm about the new yarns coming in next month.

Of my current three WIP’s, two derive from there: the KF socks which are my travel project, and the Araucania sweater in Strathardle. The yarn and pattern for Lorna's baby came from there, too. (Follow the link, and you’ll see the result.)

In my opinion, at least so far, the Glasgow competitor, K1 Yarns, can’t hold a candle to it. I may have hit them on a bad day – the owner was away, and someone non-knit was sitting in for her. I’ll try again, the next time we go over to stay with Alexander and Ketki. But my heart is heavy.
So that’s sad.

Helen and I had a good time yesterday. If you follow the link to her website (as given above) you’ll see the very scarf she was wearing. It’s very good, and I am keen to get back to Knitting New Scarves.

Non-knit

John Lewis can’t come until next Friday to see about the television set. The nice woman I spoke to thought the symptoms sounded terminal, and promised that the man would have a replacement in the van. We have reverted to this one, nearly 40 years old: I bought it with my first three months’ salary as a part-time Latin teacher, in the fall of 1970. It keeps us in touch with our soap opera, at least.

Sort of low this morning, weighed down by trivial misfortunes.

--- Our new television set doesn’t work. No picture.

--- Rachel says she hasn’t had a New Yorker since December 17, and is forced to read books. I subscribe for ourselves and for all four of our children, and over the years my struggles with the subscription department – somewhere way out west – have been titanic. For any lesser magazine I would have given up long ago. This year I renewed early, and when they sent me the list of subscriptions with all the zip codes stripped out, I sent it back and told them to put them back in. I’ve heard nothing since. Our subscription and the Thessaloniki one are OK.

--- It rained all day yesterday.

--- We're going to London at the end of the month to look at art.

--- I read an article by Karl Rove yesterday which brushed some of the lustre off Obama. It was nothing to compare to Gennifer Flowers or Whitewater, just using a teleprompter for a “spontaneous” speech and bluffing when he didn’t entirely know his stuff.

This all sounds pretty trivial. My friend Helen is coming round this afternoon and will cheer me up.

Or I could buy some yarn. I like the Yarn Yard's “Fegrig” colourway a lot, and feel that I ought to have “Perthshire Berries” out of regional loyalty. Our market town, Blairgowrie, is a big raspberry-producing centre. The fields are hideous with polytunnels. For personal consumption, we seek out the roadside stall of the man who doesn’t have tunnels and I don’t know why I don’t get someone to put up some supports so that I could grow some rasps myself.

Here’s where I am with the gansey. I will press remorselessly on at least until a couple more primaries have been settled. We need to recover some momentum before Tsunami Tuesday. The pattern and even the initials are unusually legible in this picture.

Theo's “what happened” essay is interesting, and I mean to follow some, at least, of his links.

Mel, we didn’t get the “iron my shirt” episode (and coverage has been pretty extensive over here), but what you say fits with Theo’s remark about press coverage of Hillary’s tears. Here, that episode was presented as the humanizing touch which may have won NH for her. To me, it looked like an overtired child who has landed on the wrong square in Monopoly. Not quite Commander-in-Chief-ly.

I knit onwards. The gansey will reach the gusset stage soon, and I’ll go for Meg’s brilliant idea of doing it in reversed st st so that it is unobtrusive, but available, as she puts it, when you want to flail about. Since width remains a bit of a worry, and since I wonder if cashmere might not stretch a bit like alpaca, I’ll be slightly economical with the up-and-down measurements.

I get emails all the time from Knitter’s Review. I don’t know how that happens, and mostly I disregard them, but today I read one and arrived at this. Neither Knitter’s Review nor the website exactly mentions what I think might be the exciting thing here, namely colour. My big discovery for ’07, made the day I got my cashmere Koigu, is that cashmere doesn’t take dye as wool does. It comes out rather flat and distinctly un-glowing.

Which explains all those windows-ful of dull cashmeres we hurtle past in the Burlington Arcade on our way from the Royal Academy to Bond Street.

But silk, of course, takes dye like nobody’s business. So maybe the Swiss Mountain people have created a blend that preserves the best features of both yarns, a very exciting thought. I’ll wait until they have their full compliment of shades, and then maybe venture on a scarf’s-worth of yarn.

Here’s the picture of the new Yarn Yard yarn. Even outdoors in the sunshine, my photography doesn’t begin to do it justice. “Hats On” by Charlene Schurch has turned up from Amazon, and it’s terrific – I’m afraid I’ve forgotten which of you recommended it, but thank you. I think I have decided that as soon as I dare lay the gansey aside for a day, it’ll be the watchcap next.

Oh dear. A week is a long time in politics, but rarely quite as long as that one, Wednesday to Wednesday. Theo, you don’t have to worry too much about being wrong, when everyone else in the Western world was too.

On a brighter note, I took the gansey off the needles last night and threaded it onto waste yarn. Laid out unrestrained on the floor, it measures 24” across. I was aiming for 25”, so that’s perfect. I’ve got it back on the needles and am knitting happily on. It’s sort of boring to knit, but I am delighted with the way the pattern looks. I finished a skein last night -- that always feels like progress.

Perhaps I will soon allow myself to wind my Manos Silk Blend into a ball and put in a couple of days a week on a New Scarf..

I didn’t get the Yarn Yard yarn photographed yesterday – it was one of those days which never quite seemed to get started. Today is brighter, although stormy.

I am grateful for everybody’s help, in comments yesterday, with the question of knitting a sweater for my husband. I love Jared's Big Blue, Dawn, but I don’t think my husband would. He doesn’t wear cardigans (that’s easily altered) and doesn’t care much for any deviation from bog-standard long-sleeved v-neck. He’s much more amenable to interesting colour.

Thank you for the link to the mill at New Lanark, Natalie – I didn’t know about them, and they do indeed have some remarkable wools at remarkable prices. Next time I feel strong enough to climb the hill up to Princes Street, I want to have a serious look at the Peruvian yarn that John Lewis is selling (think Araucania, but this particular stuff is exclusive to JL). There might be something there, at considerable expense.

There’s something about EZ’s shirt-yoke, as in Jared’s sweater, which makes me tingle. I’ve knit it several times. Jared’s exemplar is a brilliant one – it isn’t entirely easy to get it to lie flat. I’m also pretty keen on a standard saddle-shoulder: I might be allowed to get away with that.

New Hampshire Primary Day

Here we are.

Janet, my only friend in New Hampshire – a master knitter – is in the Edwards camp, too. But it doesn’t sound as if he’s in with much of a chance. Theo has responded promptly to my request for the insider’s view – do read, it’s interesting. My own opinion, for what it’s worth, is that his wife’s health rules Edwards out. Obviously, disaster can strike any of us from anywhere at any moment, and a president has to keep on presiding. One thinks of Patrick Kennedy’s little life. But to elect a man with drawn-out anxiety and pain almost inevitable (I gather) during his presidential term, seems unwise.

In any event, I’ll be hard at the gansey today. And by the time I sit here tomorrow morning, we’ll know the answer.

Another day should bring the gansey to the point where I can thread it onto waste yarn and consider the size. It seems sort of appropriate that it should happen this very week.

Yesterday’s big news on the knitting front was the arrival of the January Yarn Yard club yarn. It’s stunning. I’ll try to remember to photograph it on the doorstep during the brief hours of daylight. I’m thinking watchcap for self. Amazon tells me that that hat-book I ordered a while back is on its way. Maybe there’ll be something there. Not too fancy, though. The yarn should speak for itself.

And here’s a question. My husband needs a heavy-ish, long-sleeved sweater – DK or sport weight, no chunkier than that. He toiled around the sales looking for something yesterday. It seems churlish not to knit him one. I’d welcome suggestions for yarn. A certain modest amount of interesting colour, in a darkish manly colour, would be welcome.

I tried the Araucania website to see if they do anything like the “multi” yarn which I’m knitting in Strathardle, in a heavier weight. But the website is over-designed and I didn’t get anywhere. I’m going to see my friend Helen later in the week. She knows everything there is to be known about yarn, and may have some ideas.

Since I have no knitting pictures for today, here are some miserable children (Thessaloniki Drakes and Beijing Milses, intermingled) photographed at Christmas. Compare and contrast with the same small people in my sidebar.

Here’s where I am with the gansey. I feel slightly more hopeful about the size – not only will cables constrain it, but the whole pattern is essentially a rib. If it’s close to size, I could always knit it an inch or two short, and lengthen (and therefore narrow) it at the blocking stage. We shall soon see.

As we shall in New Hampshire. The British press has always been keen on Obama, although regarding Hillary as inevitable. Since she lost that quality in Iowa last week, they have all but skipped ahead to Obama’s inauguration. My sister phoned yesterday; we had a nice New Year’s conversation, largely devoted to politics. She’s far less maniacally devoted to Obama than I am, but not hostile.

What we need is a contribution from Theo to his family blog, with the insider’s view of what is going on. Perhaps later in the week, huh? British readers, at the very least, would be enthralled.

Here are some pictures from our holiday:

Christmas Day in the morning… And me and Thomas-the-Elder, at our family lunch on the 28th...

(Scanty) details in this morning’s paper make it less likely that the woman who died in Kirkmichael (see yesterday) was related to the people who pushed us out of our driveway on Friday. It is, paradoxically, a relief.

A woman went missing in Kirkmichael on Friday, after setting out on a strenuous walk, and was found dead yesterday. The people who pushed us out of our driveway were a man in his late forties and two healthy-looking girls on one side or the other of 20, on their way to lunch after a morning spent tobogganing. Age-wise and love-of-outdoors-wise, the dead woman may have been their wife and mother. There couldn’t have been all that many strangers in Kirkmichael on Friday. Would God do a thing like that? All too likely.

Here are the missing pictures left over from yesterday, Ketki in her gansey and Cathy in the melon scarf from Victorian Lace Today (the only picture of an actual ’08 Christmas present). The yarn is the Yarn Yard’s Jean laceweight, named for ME.




Anonymous in Canada, I looked up Cathy’s jacket (yesterday's picture): It’s the “Round Trip” pattern, Knitter’s, Fall ’03. The Mitred Mozart you mention is a Candace Eisner Strick pattern –do you happen to know when it appeared? I’d like to take another look at it.

I sit down at the turn of the year and make a list of the projects bubbling in the back of my mind: not resolutions, just trying to catch the moment. I found it very hard this time to get anywhere beyond, More Princess, Theo’s gansey, Finish the Araucania sweater. A Mitred Mozart might be just the thing.

I got a bit more Araucania done while we were in Strathardle, the back finished except for casting off – I want to smooth the shoulder cast-offs. I know it’s done with short rows and wrapping but couldn’t remember precisely how, and all my books were here in Edinburgh. So I’ve left the stitches on a string and made good progress with the front.

And back at the ranch, I’m Knitting for New Hampshire on Theo’s gansey, establishing the pattern. The fear continues to hang over me that the whole thing will have to be frogged and re-started because it’s too big. We’ll see, fairly soon. I have an almost superstitious reluctance to rip out those nice initials. A picture tomorrow, maybe.

Happy New Year, everybody, and thank you for your messages.

I’m feeling pretty good about Iowa.

We’re back in Edinburgh. The holidays were good, although not entirely stress-free. On Friday the 28th, we all had lunch at the Strathardle Inn: all of us, 22 people, my husband and I, our children, their husbands and wives, all of our grandchildren. It may never happen again.

Yesterday’s return was an epic struggle. The last of the party, the Beijing Mileses, departed on Thursday morning, by limo to Edinburgh airport, thence to Heathrow, thence to the Middle Kingdom. It went smoothly.

Within an hour, snow started falling seriously. Our house is several metres below the level of the road to the village. I drove the car up to the flat bit of driveway before the final short, sharp ascent. I couldn’t take it the rest of the way and leave it beside the road because it – the road – is too narrow.

On Friday morning there was lots more snow and it was still falling. The car wouldn’t move for the sheer bulk of the stuff. We shovelled. It got going, moved along pretty well, and then stuck a couple of feet below the level of the road.

We went back to the house and finished up, closed the outbuildings, drained the water, turned off the electricity, and went back up to the car with sacking, in a state of close-to-terminal exhaustion.

We are near the end of a dead-end road. It was not the day for casual travellers. G*les from the big house might have gone by in his big car, or Jake on his tractor. Either would have stopped to help, but between them they scarcely constitute traffic.

As we were tucking the sacks under the wheels, and I worrying not a little about the immediate prospect of my 82-year-old husband pushing the car, some strangers appeared. They offered to pull us, we said a push would do it, they pushed, we got up. You can’t call it a miracle, but it was certainly providential. Maybe they were angels in disguise? The rest of the journey was not without its difficulties, but here we are.

This is supposed to be about knitting. Here are some pictures of people wearing things I knit.

Helen's husband David, with their son Mungo:

Helen:

Rachel in her striped Koigu:

Cathy, in a fun pattern from Knitter's whose name I've forgotton, with James and their daughter Kirsty:

Thomas Miles, with his brother James, in a recent little-boy sweater:

There's more, but Blogger seems to think that's enough for today, and they're probably right.

Here we go. I am sorry not to be here tomorrow to wish everybody a Happy New Year on the darkest day. I don’t know when we’ll be back; in time, I hope, for the Iowa Caucus on January 3. At that point I’ll start knitting hard on the gansey, and hope to carry on right through New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Which should get me to the point where I put it on waste yarn and consider with care my options for how to proceed. Much as Clinton and Obama and Edwards will be doing, in a different sphere.

Apart from politics, I am always surprised by how good January feels. Most of it is every bit as dark as December, but the darkness feels different, right away. Pretty soon now!

I finished the Linked Ribs all right, and should have no difficulty polishing off the little hat tonight or tomorrow in the country.

Comments

Fishwife, funny to think of your being in D. Place yesterday and we wouldn’t have known each other if we’d passed on the pavement. I hope we’ll meet in ’08. It’ll be on my list of “achievables”.

Shandy, that is interesting news indeed about EZ’s neice. There were three sisters, EZ the eldest. The middle one was epileptic and, for whatever reason, died in her early teens. So this must be the daughter or granddaughter of the remaining one, Pringle. I would like to have the details, although I would never have the courage to get in touch.

I suppose EZ is getting better known on this side of the Atlantic in recent years, thanks to the Internet. But she is undoubtedly an American phenomenon. Like the phrase “Kitchener stitch”, once completely restricted to North American knitters. I first heard of her in an article in the Sunday Times more than 20 years ago – you could send for a copy of the Baby Surprise pattern, slightly modified to make it double-breasted. I did, and have knit that mimeographed sheet almost to death. I have noted all of the recipients on the pattern – I think the first one was my granddaughter Hellie, under her pregnancy-code-name of Bernadette. She has just turned 21.

Calantha, how nice to hear from you. I’m sure you’re right that I’ll feel happier in the country, in the natural light. It is good to get away from television- and computer-screen. Sort of soothes the mind. Life always seems more manageable there, too, largely because we don’t get much mail so it’s all piling up here to be managed when we get back.

An old friend of Alexander's was with us at the Games this year. He sent me this picture the other day, and Sam seems a very suitable image to close out 2007:

The last day. Scary. I’ve done the final, perfunctory Christmas cards (a bit late, according to the official post office deadline); I’ve got another session to face in a post office queue this afternoon after all; and an appointment to have my hair done. I haven’t measured the linked ribs in the last 24 hours, but feel pretty confident that I can cast them off today.

I didn’t need much more than the yarn I originally started out with, after all; but it was worth getting more rather than leaving the scarf slightly-too-short. Tying in a new ball (as I did last night) is fun. Half of the knitting, although it may not appear so, is a simple st st tube. All you have to do is arrange for the new ball to be joined while that is going on; knit one stitch with two yarns together, and tie a tidy knot on the inside of the tube.

In a trice, the knot will have disappeared forever – I hope you tied it properly – inside the next set of flanges.


I think it looks rather nice.

So what to do with the nearly-two-balls left over of Silk Garden? (Just add them to stash.) Sean has been knitting dickeys lately, from EZ’s “Knitting Around”, and I’m tempted. A dickey would certainly be cosy, and should be almost instantaneous to knit.

So I got the book out, and read about dickeys, and then wandered about the pages for a while. It suddenly occurred to me – I’m pretty slow on the uptake – that “Stretham” where EZ was sent to live with some aunties during the Great War, might be “Streatham” (pronounced “Stretham”) where my daughter Rachel lives.

I got out my London street guide and, sure enough, found “Mount Nod Road” on Streatham Hill. It’s in a classier part of town than Rachel’s bit, but it would not be impossible to make a pilgrimage if I ever felt inclined.

There are things about that book that make me uneasy, most especially her treatment (or non-treatment) of the Second World War. Why did they emigrate to America, with no money and no job, a land EZ “hated and feared”? She says that the winter of Pearl Harbor was a cold one; otherwise, the war is scarcely mentioned. Did she feel guilty about abandoning the old country? There must have been Lloyd Joneses in London and Zimmermanns in Munich who occupied their thoughts. The Old Man says, in his own stirring account of his escape on foot from Hitler’s Germany, that he never saw his uncle or father or brother again.

It’s none of my business, but I feel she made it my business by writing an autobiography.

Comment

Knititch, where exactly did you bump into an Enid Blyton who wrote stitch dictionaries? I can’t find anything to back this up on Google on in the Wikipedia entry on her, but it’s very hard to believe that there were two Enid Blytons.

I will remember what you and Vivienne say about the Book Depository.

Lunch with the sister-in-law was OK, the hat progresses, I did some more scarf in the evening. I’m nicely on target to finish both hat and scarf in time. I think. I’ll try to take a scarf picture today if it ever gets light.

One very distinct advantage of having all those people in K*rkmichael next week is that I have largely been spared both the trouble and the expense of posting packages this year. I went down to the post office after we got back yesterday to dispatch the only one on the list. The queue filled the little shop. I see I’ve missed the last-posting-day for second class Christmas cards (yesterday) so I’d better get back on that job.

I think I am getting some interesting colour-swirls on 110 stitches with Yarn Yard yarn, as hoped, and really do mean to return to thoughts of ikat knitting in the New Year. She’s got some gorgeous yarns in the shop, including a lace yarn named after ME.

Comments: Knititch, I just ordered the Charlene Schurch book from Amazon on your recommendation. (It’s currently out of stock in the UK, but they promise not to charge the credit card until it comes in.) Tamar, thank you for the specifics on hat-knitting.

Today’s Event is a long dental appointment while he makes a crown for one of my few remaining teeth. It should be something of a stress-reliever, and I may get some more hat knit in the waiting room.

Another day of modest achievement. I got the serious Christmas cards stamped and into the mail box and within an hour had a phone call from the stepdaughter of one of the addressees, to say he was dead. Not a close friend, but an old one. That’s the fifth member of our not-very-extensive Christmas card list to fall off the perch this year, and we’ve scarcely started on incoming messages yet.

In the afternoon, weary of Christmas cards, I went up to Princes Street. It was awful, and I didn’t achieve much, and everybody looked as miserable as I felt. What a curious annual ritual this is!

Things were brighter on the knitting front. I started the little hat, to plug that gap on the present-list. (Princes Street reinforced my decision to do it: better a hat he doesn’t want but at least keeps his ears warm, than expensive junk that occupies him for a moment or two.)

It is to be a simple stocking cap, using my favourite (although it’s not easy to choose) of my unknit Yarn Yard club yarns. How many stitches to cast on? No time for elaborate calculations here, nor do I have the recipient’s head measurement to hand. A cap like this is so simple that most books don’t bother. Even EZ wasn’t much help – she suggests 110 stitches for a watchcap in an authoritative but unspecific way (in Knitting Without Tears) and then proceeds to give a pattern using 36.

My usual resource in such matters is Vicki Square’s “Knit Great Basics” – no text to speak of, just schematics and charts where you slot in stitch and row numbers according to gauge. She gives three sizes – small, medium, and large. OK – but is that small adult? or small child?

But children’s heads are nearer adult size than you might think. And the finest gauge she gives is six stitches to the inch, and I would expect to get something more like seven with this yarn on 1’s.

So I wound up back where I started and cast on 108, Square’s recommendation for a small hat. And I think I’ve got it. It looks, if anything, too small in the picture, but the cast-on is stretchy, and seemed too big until I started ribbing: I think we’re all right. I’ll switch to the handpainted yarn, and increase to 110 stitches, before we go out to lunch.

110, because I think that’s the number which will produce interesting swirls of an ikat-y nature in a Yarn Yard yarn. No time to go back and look at notes on that subject, either. We’ll see.

Moorecat, that’s an interesting and useful tip, about making a scarf its wearer’s height. No great problem here. It’s aimed at a young teenager from a shortish family – she couldn’t be more than 5’3” which is about what I had planned for the Linked Ribs anyway.

So at least, among the horrors of this pre-solstice week, I think I’m on target to finish both knitted presents. We now hope to go to Strathardle on Thursday – a firm who were supposed to deliver some new chairs that day phoned late yesterday evening to say they can’t do it, what about Friday or Saturday? Not on your nellie, said I. I have just begun to realise that our entire family will be in K*rkmichael next week and will want feeding – not just on the 25th.