The picture is a close-up of the scarf stitch, Italian chain ribbing from Walker I, page 47. I think I'll declare the scarf finished today at five feet plus and get back to the second sleeve of the Fair Isle jacket. I'll be happier when that is successfully under way.

Barbara Venishnick

Marian Poller steered me to her obituary in the Hartford Courant. There is a facility for leaving messages with the obituary -- rather like comments on a blog -- so I added mine. This idea is new to me, and it seems an excellent use of electronics. I am sure her family will discover thereby how highly the knitting world regarded her. She is survived by her mother, as well by members of the generations one expects to see represented.

If you want to attempt it, I must warn you that the Courant is intolerant of the slightest mis-spelling (I think I've got it right, above). Good old Google is prepared to give you a certain amount of latitude.

On-Line Knitting

My server, demon.co.uk, had a hissy fit the other day and started blocking all my Yahoo groups. I straightened things out soon enough, but the interval was oddly peaceful. So yesterday I took the ultimate step of unsubscribing from some of my knitting groups, and setting all the others to Nomail. I still maintain a couple of groups on non-knit subjects, and indeed contributed a note to one of them yesterday on the subject of potato-chitting.

There's plenty to read out there on the blogs, and it has been a long time since I learned much of anything from a posting to a knitting list. But it's the end of an era, all right (if I keep it up), and one that has made a tremendous difference to my life as well as to my knitting.

Knitting With a Smile

The third and last book in last week's box of treasure. (I have another book-order in mind, however.)

This one is Swedish in origin and sub-titled "A Knitting Sketchbook". I expected charts of Swedish stitch patterns, but it's more than that. It's a pattern book, and a good one. The disappointment is that although many of the patterns recommend the author's own yarn, "Gunga Din", her website doesn't seem to provide the specifications and colour charts I had hoped for. Just kits. Maybe I didn;t persevere long enough. Maybe the site is new and will expand. Maybe I should try a general Google on "Gunga Din yarn". The author is Inger Fredholm, and her website is www.fredholmknitting.com.