Saturday, April 07, 2007

I’ve started row 188 of the Princess border. The Nodding of the Sprouting Seeds is well underway.

It was a wee bit trickier than I anticipated. The nodding bit was more or less OK, but what I hadn’t noticed until the last minute is that some new motifs were introduced in row 184, and asymmetricality is involved there, too. The motifs are perfectly symmetrical, and indeed familiar, but their arrangement, this time, is not: if they are behind a Sprouting Seed which is nodding in the other direction, there are two of them; only one, in front.

So I struggled a bit, and peered at the charts in a way I haven't had to do since I finished the edging, but things have settled down all right now, I think. The secret is simply to start every row, even or odd, from the right-hand side of the chart. In the middle of the central “feather”, turn around and knit back in the other direction. It seems to work.

The nodding will all be over pretty soon – row 192 will see the end of it. I probably won’t have reached it by tomorrow, but I should have done enough that the effect will be apparent in the picture I hope to take of the week’s work.

That’s about it. I didn’t get any more website done yesterday.

Kate (yesterday’s comment), the journey to London by train isn’t too bad: between 4 ½ and 5 hours, plenty of time to knit. We flew a couple of times, one winter when the rail line had been broken by floods, and found that it takes us just about as long, by the time we’ve bussed out to the airport, checked in early as is now required, actually travelled to London, had something to eat at Luton airport (my husband’s diabetes means that regular meals are essential; they’re a good idea anyway); and finally taken a direct but lengthy train ride from Luton to Streatham where Rachel lives. From where we live here in Edinburgh, we can walk to the station.

Night trains still exist. Alexander will be taking one to Glasgow next week, to see to some arrangements connected with moving his family there – to a house not far from k1 Yarns. They must have to slow the train down a bit, to accommodate the sleepers.

(I just wandered around the K1 website for a moment, clicking only on yarns I’ve never heard of. She obviously works hard at seeking out small-scale Scottish suppliers, and has some very exciting stuff. I can’t wait.)
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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:36 AM

    Night trains are definitely slower - I took one from Paddington to Penzance last summer which took nine and a quarter hours instead of the usual five and a half, some of which was accounted for by spending an hour or so sitting in Plymouth, which we left at six o'clock on a fine summer's morning - that was when I woke up, having missed the joys of the Dawlish Sea Wall, but in time for the Royal Albert Bridge and the entire length of Cornwall, while we were brought tea and coffee by the steward. It's defnitely on my list of things to repeat - not much more expensive than the usual train, and we arrived far less tired, with a whole day in hand.

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  2. Anonymous1:45 PM

    The Princess - is my calculation correct that there are 220 rows in total? Are the rows going to get longer each time now? I need some orientation as to the "geography" of the shawl.

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  3. Anonymous3:09 AM

    Some time in the 1980s I rode trains over much of the UK including Scotland and enjoyed it very much. I've heard the service has gone sadly downhill, but even if they stop and put you on a bus for part of the journey, at least you can bring along emergency rations and some travel knitting.

    I've heard that there is a large airport in the western USA that has flights from one end of the airport to the other (which is in the next town), and that it's faster to walk.

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