New Patterns

The Woolworth's round the corner from me is closed now. It's the same branch that I used to shuffle round after school in my school uniform (why do teenage girls think it's cool to shuffle?), while my friend stole bars of chocolate. We used to look at the records, as CDs were called then, and the sweets. Guess what she does now? That's right, she's a lawyer.

I went out last week thinking I would probably buy Knitting Goes Large, along with the new Rowan mag, but I came home with the mag and Amber instead. Amber is a collection of Kim Hargreaves patterns. As always, she has some real stunners.

Lindsay, the wise and wonderful Rowan lady in John Lewis, was wearing Bella. Hers is in Vert, I think, and this looks like Blue Velvet. Really cool, and I have it on good authority that can be knitted in four nights.
There's a very nice cardi called Charm.
I was also seized with enthusiasm for Whisper, which is in my beloved Kid Classic. The largest size is just a little bit small for me, so I'm tempted to try a few more stitches or slightly bigger needles - what could possibly go wrong?


As for Rowan 45, I'm not usually mad about the Spring issues of knitting mags, because I don't really do pastels or short sleeves - I'm very allergic to ultraviolet light so I've always tended to cover up - but I'm rather taken with this one. I won't put up a lot of pix because you can find better ones elsewhere, but I like this top, Sandsend, in the amazing shrinking fading Rowan Denim yarn. I made one of these sweaters a long time ago, one from Great Big Knits, and I liked it very much - the yarn has fabulous drape - but I have strongly held beliefs which prevent me knitting something large with the intention of ending up with something small (this is what stops me felting) and I haven't made any more. But this tempts me.


Don't you love this photo? It's everything I like about Rowan styling, and it's why their patterns don't date like others do, because they aren't ineradicably linked in your mind's eye with this year's accessories. Do you think she's just wearing very high platform shoes, or is she actually standing on a stool? Either way, kudos to her for keeping a straight face.

I'm getting on with the border on the White Pinwheel.

At first I was picking up a stitch for each row of the border, but that looked a bit skimpy and I did't think it was going to lie flat, so I ripped it - eeek - and am now picking up a stitch on every second row. I may need to buy another ball of yarn, especially if I'm going to make a hat too.


Thanks for pointing me in the direction of Carol O'Connell, Joan: I've started my first one. One of the reasons I have big hands is that most of the women in my father's family are six feet tall: one of my aunts calls me the The Wee One because I'm only five feet six. My growth must have been stunted at some point, most likely by staying up late. If you see a six-foot redhead in Belfast, she's probably a relation of mine, although I didn't get the red hair, alas.

Those of you who have been paying attention will know that one of my Top Five Films is The Right Stuff. You can understand my delight then, when I discovered that on top of Obama's outstanding political qualities, he's also a movie buff.



I came across this on John Naughton's blog; I wish someone was working on an upgrade of the UK software too.

Dear World:

We, the United States of America, a top quality supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located, and a decision was taken in early November to completely replace the software responsible. The new software became fully functional on January 20, 2009. Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are again operating correctly. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward to resuming full service and hope to continue improvements in the years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely,

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA