A bit less than three rows of garter stitch to go, and the Princess border will be ready for the insertion. Garter stitch knitting of hundreds of gossamer stitches is a lot more fun, and a little bit quicker, than I expected. All through the border I’ve had trouble easing the stitches over the join between cord and needle. Without all those blasted yo’s, they glide like silk. So, barring disaster, I should finish today. I’ll polish off the Little Boy sweater and then start Sam. We’re going back to Strathardle tomorrow, anyway.

Mary Lou, I was delighted to hear that Sam’s designer knows he is going to compete at the Strathardle Highland Gathering. I can presumably get news of the result to her through Blackberry Ridge. Bear in mind that I never win.

The weather is disgusting, and so is the forecast, so the May calendar pictures are going to have to be artistic. I took one of the apple tree in bloom last time, but it isn’t very good. Yesterday, guided by your advice and specifically by my friend Helen, I bought a cheap copy of Photoshop Elements on eBay (buy-it-now), so I’ll have help.

Swirling

There’s a comment, much appreciated, from Natalie yesterday – Mrs. Yarn Yard herself. She thinks I’m thinking on the right lines, swirl-wise. Yesterday it occurred to me that I could try a hat. 210 stitches is obviously too many, but 105 would produce a hat that would fit somebody. I’ll use the May Yarn Yard club offering, with the cuff of the hat in the plain yarn. You’ve got to knit round and round to get the ikat effect.

One of the great comforts of old age is having all those differently-sized and –styled people to knit for.

I’m rather taken with my new system of having some easy weekend knitting on the go. It seems to be working. I started the Little Boy sweater in March, and here it is virtually finished, and the Princess has advanced too: neither, in other words, has shewn any tendency to slide down the slippery slope from WIP to UFO. So once Sam is up and running, I’ll maybe start a swirly hat.

IK

The summer issue delighted me by turning up yesterday. As usual with summer issues, there’s nothing much there that I actually want to knit. Perhaps only Candace Strick's “Merging Colors” scarf on page 10. I love the concept of Merging Colors, and I’ve got a sweater’s-worth of the yarn in the Caribbean Sunset colorway, but I haven’t done anything with it.

I went to the IK website yesterday, to renew my subscription, and clicked on the option to read about Eunny Jang, the new editor. I learned that she is going to “tele-commute” or some such phrase, from the East Coast to Ohio. I’m not sure I approve, and await results with some anxiety. An editor needs to be there, quite a bit of the time, to take part in scenes such as Pam Allen describes in her valedictory editor’s letter.