Not Disaster, After All

I finished the body of the Fair Isle jacket yesterday. I thought I owned at least four sets of double-pointed needles in every size known to man, but a search of the box failed to reveal any in the size I want for knitting the sleeves. (I've got a short circular for the top, and plenty of the necessary size for the ribbing.)

So I thought I'd have to do it from the top down after all, starting with the circular and buying some dp's on Monday. (Although on reflection I can just occupy myself with the wrist ribbing today.)

So I cut the steeks with intrepidity and set to, to graft the shoulders. And discovered that there were fewer stitches in the front sections than I expected.

Thinking about it while cooking supper, I figured out that that could only be because there were fewer stitches to begin with, in the front than in the back. Had I placed the gussets and the sleeve steeks wrongly? Would I have to rip back to the point where the gussets start? (=most of the sweater)

Thinking about it when subsequently doing the washing-up. however, I remembered that there are supposed to be fewer stitches in front, to allow for the button band. And counting stitches in my head in the wakeful stretches of the night, I find that all has gone to plan -- except that if I had been fully on top of the problem when planning the neck, I'd have made it narrower. I can always fill it in with some extra ribbing.

So today I'll graft the shoulders and start a sleeve, from one direction or the other. There's always the two-circular method of circular knitting, after all. Maybe I don't really need more needles.

Other Topics

Here's a picture of Rachel's Koigu sweater, as it has been left behind in the country:

Rachel's Koigu sweater


Five-row stripes are utterly delicious to knit. For the ribbing, I seemed to go round and round without getting anywhere, nearly forever. Now I'm whizzing forward in a way easily measurable to the eye. It's glorious. A picture of the prototype, and the pattern, namely James-the-Younger's Koigu sweater, are on my website at
http://www.jeanmile.demon.co.uk/jamie's%20koigu.htm.

I've done some updating of the website, although I'm not finished yet. The Alexander Mileses and the Beijing Mileses are updated, but the Thessaloniki people are yet to do. And I don't seem to have any recent pics of Rachel's family. My main problem is not knowing how to degrade photographs into fewer pixels to make them easy to download. Maybe I don't need to worry; maybe everybody's got broadband. The Beijing Mileses went to Angkor Wat over the Chinese New Year holiday. They sent me some mega-pixel pics, nice ones, which I've posted at http://www.jeanmile.demon.co.uk/china.htm -- if anybody has the patience to wait for them.

Rugby

We had last weekend off. Yesterday, Scotland beat Italy in a scrappy and highly unsatisfactory match -- both teams were boo'd for boring play. And Wales beat France, in Paris, in a well-played thriller. Both France and Wales were so far unbeaten yesterday morning, and both had beaten England, the Big One, so both could reasonably hope for an unbeaten season. France did it last year, Wales, most recently, about 25 years ago. (Scotland did it in 1990, Ireland not for 100 years.)

So Welsh hopes live.

Meanwhile, however, England play Ireland in Dublin today. And the Irish, too, are so far unbeaten, although their victories are over the tiddlers, Italy and Scotland. But they're riding high, and they have home advantage, and England are cross and out-of-sorts due to two unexzpected losses. It could be a good one.