A Day Later

Prince Charles made the right decision, to postpone the wedding -- he had to, but that's easy to say once the decision is announced. It changes the whole aspect of things, and almost redeems the man.

Yesterday was a day of achievement here in Drummond Place -- dispatching a card and birthday present to Rachel's daughter Lizzie, acquiring and fitting a printer ribbon for my husband's obsolete but perfectly functional printer, getting started with Typepad. (The field I was inadvertantly omitting in my previous attempt was the year of my birth.) I think weaving text around pictures is going to work fine. Now I've got to master the rest of it. The Fair Isle jacket progresses well, although the twirling-around-in-lap aspect of things is getting serious as we near the end of the second sleeve.

Above is the current state of the country knitting, Rachel's striped Koigu based on my design for her nephew (my grandson) -- my accumulation of ideas from hither and yon, more like. I'm really awfully pleased, both with the effect of the stripes and with the feel of the fabric. Another stripe or two will bring me to the armpits. Then the stitches for the front will be left behind, and the back knit straight to the shoulder. I'm not tempted to try steeking with a yarn as smooth as Koigu. Things will get mildly more complicated after that, as I'll have to figure out the size and placing of the neck placket. The VK knitting book, and perhaps other texts on my well-furnished shelves, offers some help.  

If I were working in Typepad, I'd put in my fuzzy picture of Jamie's sweater now. Perhaps I'll stick it up there anyway. It's standing up well to wear. His mother Ketki puts it in the machine, on a cold cycle.

I had the idea the other day -- Janis has already heard this -- of knitting a negative-image version of the sweater as a first birthday present for Jamie's brother Thomas-the-Younger, in November. Using, that is, a very-nearly-white yarn for the background. One of the laws of nature, when you knit in stripes, specifies that you never actually finish a skein, so I'll have plenty of colours still available. And according to the Koigu page in the Patternworks catalogue, there are a couple of Aran-y-looking off-whites to choose from.