Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day and, more importantly in these parts, my brother's birthday.  It's kind of a big deal for our family this year.  We're all getting together for corned beef & cabbage and birthday cake. My sisters and Mom and I are giving him this (Julia's brother-in-law's cool, cool book):  Recording The Beatles.

I was a little worried that it wouldn't arrive in time, my fault since I only ordered it on Sunday, but it arrived on my kitchen table with a real nice thud yesterday!  (It weighs in at 11 pounds, so I'm not kidding about the thud.)  Way before he was a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan, my brother was a Wings fan; and way before he was a Wings fan, my brother was a Beatles fan -- I wrote about it a year ago.

He is going to FREAK OUT when he gets this!

I will admit that I peeked and flipped through the book a little and it is beautiful.  This comment at Bedazzled about the almost-pornographic photos... of recording equipment... hits the nail on the head.  I don't even care about microphones, amplifiers and mixing boards, but this book makes me want to care!  Someday, I'm going to have to borrow it back.

I'm working on a card to accompany the book, and this is the image I've come up with so far.  I'll change that to "The Something Else's" and "We Love You," and I've got to work Mom in somehow... maybe on the inside... maybe she can be George Martin or Billy Preston or one of the other Fifth Beatles.

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Knitting-wise, with Katie taking possession of yet another sweater the other day, Madeleine let me know, in no uncertain terms, that she is still awaiting (and still wanting) a sweater that she picked out a few years ago.  The one Katie is wearing in the previous post, by the way, is the cover sweater from Vogue Knitting, Spring/Summer 2003.  Maddy desires one from the Spring/Summer 2004 issue (#2, if you're interested) and it's a great sweater, but it's knit in Berroco Suede -- 15 balls in the smallest size, and we'd need more like medium (17-19, hell let's just call it 20 balls) and at $10 a ball, well, I don't usually spend upwards of half that on yarn for my own sweaters...  I'm afraid Lion Suede would be too bulky and/or involve way too much math to make work.  Any thoughts on what would make a good, still suede-ish, reasonably-priced alternative for a 16-year-old's sweater?

Happy St. Paddy's Day!!  Don't forget about the contest -- you can read all about it and enter here.  Deadline is Sunday.