I have spent the best part of the last hour trying to find an ancient source for the tale which lies behind Franklin's latest competition. To no avail. When I should have been here writing about yarn.

“Knitting” magazine didn’t turn up yesterday after all, presumably delayed by the holiday. Post-Christian England sets great store by the Easter weekend, affording as it does the opportunity for the first beano of the season. Post-Presbyterian Scotland soldiers resolutely on.

I feel I should be commenting on my recently-arrived books, or on VK, but my mind is still wholly occupied, knitting-wise, with Jade Saphire Exotic Fibres, a package from whom, or which, Franklin’s cyber-friend Sean recently unwrapped at the shop he manages in Harvard Square. I have not encountered so reclusive a commercial enterprise in a while.

Google on Jade Saphire, and even if you hit “I’m feeling lucky” you wind up with this page from Lamb’s Ear Farm in WA: eight colourways of Mongolian cashmere. Eight glorious colourways. I found a blog written by a girl who works for Jade Saphire E.F., somewhere in the east, but not a whisper from the folks themselves. The blogger mentions her employers’ name only in passing – clearly the job is wasted on her.

It even occurred to me to wonder, in the course of the day, whether Jade Saphire could possibly supply the cashmere-and-silk (Sean mentions both cashmere and cashmere-and-silk) which Skaska offers in her vague and unsatisfactory way. (Thank you for your further work on the subject, Esther.) But Skaska says that her pure cashmere is Australian, whereas J.S.’s is known to be Mongolian, so probably not.

Anyway, the shop Sean now manages is Woolcott and Company – I bought my “Circular Solution” there some years ago, the most useful knitting gadget imaginable – and they don’t do mail order. But he was kind enough to answer a comment I left on his blog, and the result is that he is going to send me some photographs of the yarn and I will order by telephone.

What are you going to do with it, my husband would ask, if I discussed this purchase with him. I know the answer to that: I am going to knit myself a large rectangular stole, on the lines of the Faux Russian Stole in A Gathering of Lace, to wrap myself up in, in the evening. I’m thinking red and gold, like a Hindu bride. I can take it with me when they carry me off, and continue to wrap myself up in it in the nursing home, and the grave.

And when am I going to knit it? Ah….

Comments

Karen, I think that’s a wonderful idea, tempting Galina over here. She could tie us in with a trip back to Russia—she must go from time to time. Kate, congratulations on the birth of your daughter. The last time I went on an American yarn-crawl, some years ago now, I was disappointed at the choice of washable yarns for children. I think I’d look at Lorna’s Laces: there are some lovely washable qualities in that range. Don’t know if Woolcott stocks them.