The air has finally dipped below ninety degrees. The figs are ripe. The tomatoes are overripe. The new freshmen are starting to arrive. Justin Timberlake cancelled his Sacramento shows, the next season of The Office is poised to burst onto network television, and I think– I think– it is time for me to start pretending to blog again.

Knitwise, the last month burned me out. Armed with a truehearted pair of size 4 needles, I slogged through 1.6 copies of my Pure Knits submission in about 3 weeks. The 0.6 version, incidentally, was something like 48? wide. Math error.

I was seriously thinking about getting a new hobby. But baby (I’m addressing the knitting here, not you readers), I can’t stay mad at you.

That’s just a swatch. I’m halfway through the hood (top-down, of course). It’s… relaxing. Ahhh. Nice-nice. I’m strongly considering just knitting myself like five hoodies this winter of varying degrees of blandness. I’ll be just like J. Crew! (Rimshot.)

So everyone is weighing in on the latest Knitty, and I also want to add to the glut of opinions clogging up the interweb. Isn’t it the finest Knitty that we’ve seen in years? Most of it is pretty high quality, but, damn. Neiman. I didn’t know little knitted typeface O things could look so cool. Friends, it is so eeeeasy to make patterned yoke sweaters look like a sad tryst between a clown and one’s grandmother from the old country. Thank you, Weaverknits, for making Grandma look snappy.

My lone misgiving about Neiman is the gauge. It calls for size 2 and 3 needles. Granted it’s been a few years since my grad research salary permitted me to contemplate swatching Rowan Wool Cotton, but isn’t it supposed to be dk-weight? Jaeger Matchmaker DK is suggested as a yarn sub– I’m pretty sure that Matchmaker drapes like chain mail made of cinderblocks when you knit it on size 3. Does anyone have some informed perspective on this? Please share!