The edging is trotting along nicely. It’s so easy it might get boring, but for the moment I’m just enjoying the forward motion. It’s easy to sink down and knock off a repeat when the Exertions of Life get too much for me.

I figured out yesterday, rather belatedly, that the thing to do is to eliminate the dp needle, and do the whole job with the circular one. Every so often I slide everything to the other end and pick up some more of the selvedge loops. I’m not worrying about the count at all, although I’ll have to when I get to the bit – low on the other side – where I wasn’t making a proper edge.

I’ve made three other small changes on the pattern as printed. What a lot.

1) I decided after a while to slip the first stitch purlwise for every inward-going row, so that there is a chained selvedge on the outside edge. Considerably neater. The pattern says just to knit that stitch (the edging is garter stitch).

2) Those big holes are made with two adjacent yo’s. The pattern says to knit and purl into the big loop on the following row. I’ve always done it k1, k1tbl, and that’s what I’m doing this time. Looks fine.

3) The pattern says to do the actual join by knitting the border st tbl along with a stitch from the central panel. That seemed needlessly complicated, so I’m just doing ssk and am perfectly satisfied with the result.

We’ve pretty well decided on Monday for Strathardle. I should reach the far end before then, and might even be able to start down the other side.

Miscellaneous, including Comments

There’s a marvellous evocation of last weekend’s Woolfest here. My friend Helen found a bus leaving at an unconscionable hour of the morning, from Edinburgh. It was impossible this year because that was the very day we were travelling back from London, but it might be attempted next year if it happens again. Woolfest looks seriously good.

Fizz, thank you for the explanation of “bounce rate”. I’m astonished, if that’s what it means, that mine isn’t 98.7%. Overall, I am 81.78%, Google Analytics says. Yesterday, that went way down to 74.48%. I enjoyed your blog, too. It’s enough to make me think of eating less, and diving into the stash. I’ll remember the shop in Newburgh, too.

I’m still left wondering why people are suddenly looking for Margaret Velard. It’s been happening throughout June.

Natalie, it’s a relief to learn that not all your lace yarn skeins are as long as mine.

Tricia, I looked at Get Knitted’s Malabrigo lace weight yarn. Yes!