I've got Internet problems this morning. Will this message ever see the light of day?

If it does, above will appear a pic of the leaflet I mentioned yesterday, supplied by Jamieson and Smith. There are three full-scale lace masterpieces in it, and a few lesser items. I find, to my surprise, that I can't remember which of the three I've already knit -- it'll be there in the archives, but I'll have to look. They now look incredibly daunting, but that's probably a good reason to tackle one of them. They're written for cobweb yarn, but gauge doesn't matter much in these realms. Call it a stole and give it to my sister-in-law.

Another inch forward with the jacket. When I start doing lace again, the daily reports will be even more boring. One little excitement looms: I amuse myself by keeping a spreadsheet record annually of yarn-in and yarn-out. It's a pretty inaccurate measure of what is happening to the stash, since it is possible to do a lot of knitting without ever actually finishing a ball or skein. As witness the Fair Isle jacket: so far, not a single ball has been consumed. In fact, in 2005, I have so far dispatched only one, a Debbie Bliss "Maya" at Kirimichael, on the ribwarmer.

Well, the looming excitement is that all five background shades are getting distinctly low and will expire more or less simultaneously in the predictable future.