Found a stole pattern

Whil reading blogs the other day I found what I'd been looking for for a while - a suitable pattern for my laceweight mohair yarn. It is now destined to be River from Rowan book 38. I ordered this from Get Knitted on Thursday, along with a couple of balls of RYC Cashsoft DK for further Odessas, and the package arrived this morning (along with a lolly and a pen :-).

I've never owned a Rowan pattern book before (and the RYC is my first purchase of Rowan yarn), and I've read some mixed opinions on their latest collections. I do like this book, there are a number of great accessories and some lovely garments. However some of the pieces, most notably in the first section, don't look terribly wearable to me!

I was quite amused by the section about the new "plus size" pattern book. Now, in my world, "plus size" probably means what, size 20 and above maybe? I am not impressed with this book starting at UK size 14 and calling it "plus"! For goodness sake, size 14 is I believe the average size now in Britain. I wear size 14 tops but usually buy 16s in jackets, cardigans etc. I have very square shoulders but barely a size 14 chest :-) Why on earth can't designers design for women, rather than too-thin models? Why does it take a "special" book like this for a lot of us to get decent patterns that have been thought out properly for "real" women.

After that little rant I'm off to cook a chicken and spinach curry, yum :-)