My friend in WA got the kit for KF's "Magyar" pattern for me from Ebay! It's on its way.

It appears above -- I hope; I haven't scanned it yet. It is, to my eye, as close as the great man could get to a pattern which would qualify for inclusion in the You Knit What? website (http://youknitwhat.blogspot.com/ ) But that's not the point. It's that whole bag of discontinued Rowan yarns in colours he designed himself. Also above (I hope) is the other KF pattern from Rowan 8. That's better. I could use that. I also have all his books, I think, including the one that's just swatches, so there will be no difficulty in finding a pattern. Time to knit it, is the problem.

Meanwhile, I've put the row of holes in the Princess Shawl, and then knit two of the subsequent four plain rows. So that the moment when I actually start knitting the Princess Shawl is not far away. Sharon Miller's Gossamer Merino is utterly amazing, cloud-like and insubstantial and strong. 865 stitches don't crowd the needle at all.

"Obscure" points out, in one of those unanswerable comments, that lace knitting is the perfect fix for the cash-strapped. You can knit and knit and knit, with high-end expensive yarns, and scarcely spend anything. When I was very young and very poor, I knit Rachel a Shetland shawl while I was pregnant with her. The pattern was a Paton's leaflet -- I found it again recently in a charity shop, to my great delight. Edging and the four trapezoids and the centre were knit separately and sewed together. But the point here is that I bought those balls of yarn separately, one at a time, as needed, because I couldn't afford to get them all at once.

James in China reads this Blog sometimes -- the Chinese block it, not because they fear my subversive views on knitting but because everything from Blogger is blocked, just in case. But James knows a work-around, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the Chinese haven't figured it out as well. He reminds me that his daughter Rachel (it gets confusing) will make her First Holy Communion next April: what about a veil for her? So I have set Rachel-the-Elder to work looking for her daughter Lizzie's veil. If she finds it, I'll bring it back from our October visit to London and wash and dress it for James to take back to China after his November appearance for his father's birthday. If she can't -- and she couldn't find the Shetland shawl just mentioned, the last time anyone wanted it -- I'll do another. 

The plan, you may remember, is to set the Princess Shawl aside once I have established the lace patterns, and finish off the two small projects which linger nearby spreading a miasma of guilt (the Baby Surprise, and Fergus's Wallaby). I'll do that, as planned, and then either return to the Princess or embark on a veil, as the situation requires.