In some haste, this morning…

I’m about to go on a yarn crawl, involving some sit-and-talk time I hope, with Maureen – who has (I hope) smuggled in some cashmere Koigu for me. We had hoped that Lorna could join us, but she’s stuck in Jedburgh. There are worse places.

First things first: Carlarey (yesterday’s comment), please tell me about Malabrigo Baby Lace. I googled to no avail at all, if I insisted in having all three words together in that order. My advice for your holiday, however, would be to leave it home and knit socks and enjoy the wine and the five funny people. Socks are always welcome, and I find that there’s something about the round-and-round’ness of knitting them that soothes away some of the horrors of transatlantic travel. If you must take the MBL along, I suppose the only possible pattern is feather-and-fan.

I’ve reached the early stages of row 155 of the Princess border. The next major landmark will be 165, the ¾ point.

How much longer do I have to go? I have a kind of a feeling that I sort of worked it out (and was horrified) during my last major Princess session. But put it this way: I bought ten dear little balls of gossamer merino (from Sharon, who ought to know). This week, I joined in the fourth of them.

The border, in the end, will form two (deep) sides of a triangle. The centre of the triangle and the top of it will be formed by the centre pattern, in the form of a triangular-shaped wedge, and the two ends of the border. And the top will then have to be edged with that not-easy edging. It’ll be interesting to see, if I ever get that far, whether my previous mastery of the edging will have been retained over the intervening years.

Sharon knit the whole thing in nine months, with intervals of laying it aside.

Other…

I have been thinking a little about Theo’s cashmere Koigu, of which the skeins I hope to acquire this morning are the outriders. When I got that IK out this week to look at the article about coaxing handpainted yarn into ikat patterns, I noticed a Koigu ad for a sweater in an all-over zigzag pattern: whatever you call feather-and-fan when the increases are done invisibly instead of with yo’s. And I thought maybe I’d go for a relatively unobtrusive all-over pattern. Estimating the amount of yarn needed is far easier with a single shade. It’s pleasant to think about.

I’m still waiting for the books I ordered from the Schoolhouse Press. We’ve had serious trouble lately with undelivered parcels, and I’m faintly worried.