Still no yarn. I wrote to her yesterday.

I got a wonderful message from Mary Morrison this morning, about a Virtual Lace Week which Knitting Beyond the Hebrides is holding in April. I can hardly wait. I used to be a member, but it is one of the many things in life that has drifted away from me. I made haste to sign up again.

Religion

Mary, on her website, worries about whether she can hold out for a Yarn Fast in Lent this year. The secret, my dears, is to drink steadily during the other weeks of the year (cider is my choice, Henry Weston’s Vintage Special Cider Reserve, to be specific) – then you’ve got something to give up which won’t affect your knitting. Might even improve it.

I was wandering idly about Cyberspace yesterday, following a link or two in the sidebar of a Blog I enjoy – can’t remember which – and found some thoughts about Lent on the Blog of a young man. At the top was a picture of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, with the caption “Towards the Crucifiction”. I assumed, until I had read a fair amount, that what followed was going to be wittily blasphemous, or at any rate, sceptical. I’m afraid it was an honest misspelling. Positively Joycean.

Knitting

I’m doing row 52 of the Princess Shawl Border. How’s that for rattling along? I have decided to lay it aside after row 66. That marks a natural small climax in the pattern although, of course, Shetland lace being Shetland lace, other motifs will have introduced themselves and be building towards other climaxes. It also means that I will have finished the first of three pages of border charts, although, alas! I won’t be one-third of the way home. Not that finishing the border will be anything like home, when the whole shawl is considered.

Crikey! What are the chances of ever finishing this? But I love the way it looks now, when it's lying about in a weightless heap, waiting for our next session.

Much thought was devoted yesterday to what might be called by now the Calcutta Cup Problem. Encouraged, especially, by Mama Lu’s comment, I put in a bit of work on elephants, and despaired. An elephant, in order to be intelligible in lace, would have to be so big as to be absurd. I’d love to be proved wrong on that. Does anyone know how to knit a lacey elephant in, say, 30 rows or so?

I’ve nothing against elephants. I have even knit some. It’s lacey elephants that pose a problem.

Whereas the Cup itself, being tankard-shaped with handles, is fairly easy at least to suggest.

Well, I’ll keep you posted.

Lorna, I heard from the Scottish Rugby Union. The Cup will be on public display – indeed, it is going to be taken on a tour of Scotland. Watch their website.