I'm swirling away, but I made a stupid mistake.

I got the 150 original stitches back onto a needle -- that black line is the waste wool which was holding them -- and set out in the opposite direction. Start with a wrong-side row, the instructions say. I gave the matter little or no thought -- it's garter stitch after all -- and now I see that I have started with a right-side row. The scarf is finished, as you see, with a contrast stripe, and when you do that in garter stitch, there is very clearly a right side and a wrong side.

I'm not going to rip it out. I have two choices: to add or subtract a row, so that both sides are the same. Or to do the right number of rows, so that the right side for the contrast stripes will be different on the two halves. Since both sides will surely be visible on the wearer, I think that's the option to go for.

I continue to be overjoyed with the pattern. I hate holiday-deadline knitting. I don't do it. The Knitlist -- at least in the old days when self-expression was allowed -- is full, this time of year, of stress-filled accounts of knitting incomplete.

But this scarf is tempting me to join that miserable band. How many could I finish by Christmas? The thing is, they will make great presents for the very people who are the hardest to think of presents for. I'm certainly going to try a stripy one next, this time actually giving some thought to right-side, wrong-side (the answer will be to mix them up, I think).

Non-Knit

James and Kirsty and I went to Deep Sea World yesterday, and had a nice time. It is right under the famous Forth Rail Bridge of which we therefore had an unusual and breathtaking view.