Sunday at least affords me a day off from wondering whether my Malabrigio yarn will turn up. I emailed her again. Here, to cheer us all, is a picture of the Debbie Bliss “Maya” which did arrive, and promptly at that, from GetKnitted, and which will do nicely for the Prize-Attempt Shrug if nothing else offers.

Yesterday’s achievements were mostly in the non-knit sphere. My accounts have been in a shaky state since Christmas, partly because of Christmas, partly because of the January push to get my husband’s magnum opus onto a CD and on its way to his publisher, partly because I tend to spend this valuable half-hour in the morning polishing my prose instead of cashing-up. Things are now tidy, at the cost of some large dumps of money both in and out, to match what the bank claims is the situation. It’s the only thing you can do when you get in a mess.

So I am ready to resume an even more thankless task: getting the afore-mentioned opus onto a Palm Pilot. I may have mentioned this problem before. I can get my husband’s DOS-based files into a modern version of Word Perfect. I can save them as Word Documents. A program called Documents to Go will then grab them and squirt them into the Palm.

But Documents to Go doesn’t do notes, and my husband’s work has lots. So I am going through the whole thing, copying the notes from the virtual reality in which they live into the text itself. And also adding the note numbers, at the appropriate spots. Anyone know a better way? A better squirting-program than Documents to Go, or an add-on, to be precise? Even so, one day that job will be done, and I’ll face up to improving my sidebar.

Knitting

I’m near the end of row 56. Only six more, when that one is done, and I’ll be finished with Page Four. It continues to be glorious fun, and I approach with sadness the near-day when I must lay it aside again for awhile. With 865 stitches (or whatever it is), one doesn’t exactly snatch an opportunity to knit just-one-more-row. But with 78 stitches in a repeat, and the repeats easily learned, row by row, I often sit down and knock off a repeat or two.

What follows only makes sense in the context of the posts of the last few days:

During the first half of yesterday, my internal monologue as I moved about doing housework ineffectively, suggested that I just go with the flow and knit a big elephant into the shawl. Especially if it is as auspicious a creature as MamaLu says. I re-read Mary Thomas on how to do filet lace, and I think I understand.

But then I sized that little creature horizontally, at four stitches to the square. I’ve forgotton the precise answer – but he would be bigger than the 78 stitch repeat. That’s right out.

I have decided to shelve the problem for the moment. Maybe a small lacy elephant will turn up in the next few weeks. Otherwise, I’ll knit the Catcutta Cup itself when I resume work. Mar, it’s not quite like the Yankees. Them, you have always with you, and what’s more they tend to win. I can only knit the Cup when it’s here in Scotland, and that doesn’t happen often, even though there’s only one team to beat, namely England. Scotland tends to lose. We won it in 1990, in 2000 (when it made its appearance on Kirsty's shawl) and in 2006, and I think it deserves a place on the Princess.