A much better day.

Here is a picture, as promised, of the youthful, mustachio’d Alexander wearing a sweater knit in the “Sand Lodge” pattern from McGregor. I seem to have been unusually, and rather successfully, restrained in my colour choices.

And here is the current state of the Calcutta Cup sweater. I did all the arithmetic yesterday, and have launched myself onto the patterned part of the sleeve. You will notice that I am doing what I said I wouldn’t do, and knitting it with two circulars. The DP’s were extremely awkward – I used to be able to do it. Maybe the trouble was that the only set I could find in the right size were inconveniently long.

I had to rip out the first half-dozen rounds because of a miscalculation in the setting of the pattern, and took the opportunity to start off again with circulars. It’s going pretty well. The two needles are radically different from each other, one wooden, one metal, and I figure that everything will be all right if I keep firmly in mind that I must always be knitting with two ends the same, two wooden or two metal. Eventually the whole sleeve will fit on one small-circumference circular. One Christmas, long, long ago I knit hats for everybody on my list and as a result I have a first-rate collection of small-circumference circulars in a wide range of sizes.

Comments

Crafty Granny, welcome abroad. I had never given much thought to the question of Grandmothers as Bloggers. Mary Morrison is a favourite, a fellow Texan of yours – but she rarely writes these days. I believe The Curmudgeon is one, too. She was a child bride. But I have always valued cyberspace precisely for the way one floats in it free of the constraints of age or sex.

Yarn shops: I don’t get around to many in London, due to the pressure of art. When I can, I visit the departments in John Lewis on Oxford Street, and Liberty, on Regent Street. They’re very close to each other. I’d like to drop in on I Knit near Vauxhall, but wonder if I’ll ever achieve it.

Edinburgh’s best is probably HK handknit. What I’m really looking forward to, is getting acquainted with k1 yarns in Glasgow. The next time we go over there, my husband will have to look at art by himself.

Apart from those, I shop on-line.

Lorna, you seem to have spent a whole day in Glasgow without going to K1! What restraint! Thank you for the tip about putting Oasis in my calcium pill containers. I had forgotton how much I used to love Oasis.