I don't know how to say the equivalent of "Vive la France" in Dutch. I would if I could. I flew to America with my eldest granddaughter Hellie when she was 11 or so -- her first visit. We arrived in Boston and as the plane came down I told her about the Tea Party which had once taken place in the water below us. So it is, this week. The EU is a great idea but too many of us clearly feel as I do that our destiny is being usurped by unelected men in suits.

Lots of activity on the knitting front in the last 24 hours. I finished my Clapotis (and I mean finished-finished, ends and all). I heard from Judith, expanding the idea she had advanced in the apparently unreadable comment. Many thanks for this.

The Clapotis:
I think the pattern is fine as written.  I am sure it has enough drape if
you can use the exact yarn specified. The problem is when substituting yarn
how do you know how much yarn to use? A tension square really does not help
that much as you are looking at length and drape and flow.
I decided to use stash and worked out this 5/5 system to get the drape I
wanted and it seems to be successful with whatever yarn I try. Yes it is a
system of fifths 1/5 for the start and increases and one 1/5 for the
decreases and end and then a MINIMUM of 3/5 for the middle bit and it all
seems to be in proportion. If the recipient is very tall you could add a bit
more in the middle. You just knit the increases until you have used up 1/5
then start the middle section, use the 3/5 then commence the decreases with
the last 1/5 and it all falls into place.
I just found it easier to weigh it all when knitting mainly as I had only
200g of Jaeger Luxury Tweed for the 1st one and managed it fine (40g
beginning 40g end and 120gfor the middle) So it then seemed sensible to
weigh for the rest!!
I do hope this is clear. Please note I am not trying to take over the
wonderful design or offend the designer. I was just trying to figure out an
effective way of using stash and not running out of yarn!

AND I heard from Sharon Miller:

Regarding the Princess Shawl Pattern: as you may know, this was a special ‘Limited (to 250 copies) Edition’ pattern, which has now sold out.  We hope to make it available again but have committed not to do so before 3^rd November 2007 and how and in what format it will be in is still to be decided.

So what about the link which Ingrid supplied and which I posted yesterday? I'll look into that.

AND I started the Cranberry Squares hat from the Winter '04 edition of Knitter's. I have made the first mitred square, see picture above, and I didn't enjoy doing it. It was fiddly. As I've remarked recently, knitting is no fun if it's no fun. Morning, as so often, has brought some consoling thoughts. Try shorter needles. Try marking the centre decrease so that I don't have to keep peering and counting stitches. I'll give it another go this evening, and if I still don't like it, I'll scrub it, and knit a Fair Isle tam instead. The Games program just says "Hat --any craft".

Well, there's more to be said on most of the subjects above but that's plenty for now. My baby lettuces on the doorstep are now showing their true, red leaves -- and they have weeds!