Well, that didn't take long.

Here's my assessment of the new Knit.1: We need to be bracing ourselves for an invasion of the Stick-Insect Women from Planet Ricecake.

Seriously. Compare this against the spring Vogue and the spring FCEK (FCEK, even!), all the even marginally cute stuff stops at, like, a size 36 bust ("closed," as K.1. so coyly puts it - in other words, if you got boobies, don't count on being able to fasten it). I'm a bit irritated that the ONE cardigan I sorta kinda liked has a 40" "closed" as its biggest size (okay, maybe I could do that, by never closing it), but the arm-diameter is 13 3/4 inches at the widest part. Um, yeah. Relaxed, my naked bicep is 13 1/4". So I could do it if I wore nothing-at-all under the cardigan (which, considering it wouldn't close on me, would be a problem). However, the first time I flexed my arm even to do something as measely as pick up a stick of chalk, I'd be blowin' the sleeves of that thing out like the Incredible Hulk in LA traffic. (yes, I know knits stretch, but really, that's not enough. And it would be horribly uncomfortable to wear something that formfitting. I mean emotionally more than physically)

There is a cardigan where the Small would fit me, but it's big and loose and bathrobeesque. And it's knit of Homespun. Homespun, ya'll. Homespun - weighs a ton, will be dragging the floor the first time you wear the thing. Will stretch all out of that 47" bust (that's the small, folks) and will look like you're wearing a tent. Homespun is for afghans and prayer shawls; it's not so hot (I think) for garments that actually need to keep to a shape.

The other possibility is, as part of the War! On! Obesity! designers are being counseled to only make fugly stuff for women over a certain size (like, 12). You know, in the hopes that us fatties will be driven to starve ourselves, and exercise obsessively, and maybe even have surgery, just so we can be a size 6 like we're all "supposed" to be.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's aimed at teenyboppers, but there are fat teenyboppers out there too. I should know, I was one.

That said, there were a couple of things I liked okay. The little robot keychain things are cute, I could see making a bunch of those just for fun and to use up leftovers (But I could probably design my own were I not so lazy). And the crocheted suedish cap is appealing, would be good on those days when the humidity goes one way and my hair another. And I kinda liked the bolero thing out of the ribbon yarn - it's in the "Latin style" section. But again, I'd have to size it up a bit to work for me, or accept that it would always look a bit Anna-Nicole-on-a-bad-day on me.

However, there was one thing that was TOTALLY worth the price of admission, that I am saving this magazine for posterity for. One thing that I can show knitters in the distant future (provided I'm around for that) and watch them recoil in shock and awe.

It's the hot-pants overalls. Oh, if you've seen the magazine you know what I'm talking about. You're probably chuckling along with me. Hot pants. In overall form. Knit of self-striping sockyarn (doubled). With appliques on the tushie. Just like the prime-number pooping bear I posted about last week, it is one of those combinations that Should Not Be But Is.

There are perhaps three women on the planet who could carry off that look without having to imbue their aura with a hefty sense of irony. If they choose to knit and wear the hot-pant-coveralls, God bless them. But I think the rest of us - we can just shake our heads and take it as a moral for our own knitting: "just because you CAN doesn't mean that you SHOULD."