I was wandering around, having my usual morning look at favourite blogs, and stumbled through the undergrowth towards this one: http://www.dooce.com/ It's not about knitting at all, but it's entertaining. Read her profile.

Princess

I've finished two repeats of the edging pattern -- only 83 to go. I still like the look of it. I wonder, if I go on, if I'll ever learn the edging pattern? I reflected last night that it's perhaps a bit silly to embark on this without at least trying the yarn that Sharon herself used for the exemplar, given that I revere her above any other British knitter,and that all the world's goods are now available at the click of a mouse. So I ordered a ball, and we'll see. DMC Crochet Cotton #70. Never heard of it, don't like knitting with cotton. But Sharon normally knits with wool, too -- and cotton would be more durable. We shall see.

Hat

I realised as soon as I wrote the sentence a couple of days ago, about knitting a Fair Isle tammy, that that was in fact the thing to do. So the Cranberry Squares idea, in Koigu, has been abandoned, a pattern (Starmore, I'm afraid) selected, and odd balls chosen that seemed to bear some relation to her colour words. "Ochre", "dark lavender", that sort of thing. They don't look too bad, standing in a row.

The trouble with struggling on with Cranberry Squares was that, if I did in fact eventually give up, I would have several little squares of Koigu which would have to be abandoned, as the lengths of yarn would be far too short for useful unravelling.  I regard Koigu as I might spun gold, so that seemed a good reason to desist. Tammies are quick and fun.

Lang Leve Nederland

Tineke supplied the words I needed the other day, to express the Dutch equivalent of "Vive la France". Here they proudly are. I am somewhat Dutch myself, having lived more than a third of my long life as Miss Smits. I have a memory, which probably isn't entirely true, of my father and his three brothers sitting silent and grim-faced over the radio, in their mother's house, as news was broadcast of the German invasion in 1940. Did it happen over a weekend? Memory assigns that mental image to a Sunday. Were all four brothers really there? Never mind. Lang leve Nederland.