An 8:30 dentist’s appointment forbids verbosity this morning, but much has been happening on the knitting front…

Today is the day I attempt to acquire the ability to graft ribbing. Here’s Sam, with the Strathardle wool which will be included in his stuffing for luck.

The Yarn Yard yarn for June came while we were away. It was inspired by “a large chocolate cake on a traditional blue willow-patterned plate. The skeins are not all identical…some of them have more of the cake eaten and hence more of the blue and white plate showing.” The letters from Natalie are not the least benefit of membership of the Yarn Yard sock club.

And the big one, yesterday, was a box of Koigu from my friend the Socklady. She has a friend who has so much of it that she is getting tired of paying the storage charges. I can see how that might happen.

So she is selling some of it off, and the Socklady and I have been the beneficiaries. I am told the seller has another 500 skeins in her stash.

The colours are as wonderful as if I had made the choice myself. I’ve knit quite a bit with Koigu in recent years – a sweater for grandson Mungo, one for nephew Theo, one each for the Little Miles Boys, one for Rachel, a Baby Surprise for a neighbour’s baby – and still my stash seems to increase.

I’m thinking maybe I should branch out into modular knitting. Has anyone looked at Maie’s recent book?

Comments

Catriona, I was thrilled to learn that you have finished that Amedro shawl, and enjoyed doing it. Never mind time – you’ve got a long life ahead of you. I knit my first Shetland shawl when I was pregnant with Rachel, and didn’t get back to lace for quite a while. At my age, the limitation of which one is ever aware, is death itself.

Rabbits. The great thing – one of many great things – about Beatrix Potter is that she sees country life with unsentimental eyes, even if she then dresses Peter in a little blue jacket with large buttons. His father, remember, was put in a pie by Mrs McGregor and I am looking forward to similar culinary experiments when James gets here in August. My husband won’t clean and skin them for me.

They’d be particularly tasty this time of year, too. I thought several times last week of Peter and his cousin Benjamin, seeing the young ones frisking about.

I have just re-read “The Tale of Peter Rabbit”. I had forgotten the wicked mouse, “carrying peas and beans to her family in the woods”. I had a lot of trouble with her last year. Mice – it must be mice – also nibble the shoulders of beetroot, when the nicely rounded bulbs begin to appear above ground.

But it would be no fun, gardening in the Garden of Eden.