Friday, September 18, 2009

Judith, thanks for the link to the Ravelry discussion of “Knits from the North Sea” (comment yesterday). Definitely no, is my decision.

However, I find myself intrigued by references to Margaret Leask Peterson, the co-author. She lives on Unst and is said (by DCN, a non-knitter, in a review of the book on American Amazon) to be “unquestionably the most respected living knitter”. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of her, and can’t find any other information, in a brief session with Google – just endless references to the book. With which, apparently, she had little to do. Some of the contributors to the Ravelry discussion might be able to tell me more.

I continued to feel, yesterday, that I craved self-indulgence. Something to do with entering upon this most depressing quadrant of the year? I hesitated with the pointer over “one-click ordering” on the Amazon page for Isager’s “Japanese Inspired Knits” and then decided, no, much more sensible to get a Japanese book – which? – and do this properly.

I settled for pre-ordering Lynn Barr’s “Reversible Knitting”, due on October 1 so there’s not long to wait; and “Knitted Lace Designs of Herbert Neibling” from Schoolhouse Press.

Actual knitting went well enough, as I pressed forward with the second half of the Griswold stole.

Weight-loss

A boring subject, but I don’t want it to drop out of sight altogether as (ahem) seems to have happened with Joe. He lost ten pounds earlier in the year and looked the better for it, at a time when I had lost about that much and looked exactly the same. But he hasn’t mentioned the matter since.

I started at X stone 12, early in March. (Part of the routine is a morning weigh-in, with the result recorded in my electronic Filofax.) I was hovering around W and ½ stone – W stone 7 pounds -- when I went off to Theo’s wedding in July. That did me no harm, and neither did 10 ciderous days leading up to the Games in August.

Then I resumed the Regime (cider only on Sunday, no sugar, careful with fat) and, rather to my surprise, resumed weight-loss. I’m now hovering around W stone 0, keen to break through that barrier.

I lived like this once before, in 2006. On Wednesday, September 27 of that year I weighed in at V stone 11 ¾. And fell and broke my left arm and abandoned sobriety.

So I don’t know whether I will be capable of maintaining the Regime through the three grim months ahead. I can live without chocolate cake indefinitely, I think, but braised sausages, bread and peanut butter and cider are different matters altogether, as darkness closes in.

5 comments:

  1. Well Jean I don't know about the peanut butter. I recently had a late night snack of bread and peanut butter and had one of the weirdest dreams ever. The dream included a sequence in Edinburgh where I was going up a narrow street off the Cornmarket in search of an antique dealer. Maybe I'll try again and it will be a yarn shop.

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  2. Catriona9:51 AM

    You must not even THINK of abandoning braised sausages over the coming months!! There's no need to be cruel to yourself!

    Or be disciplined and then ahve have a blow out of pork and apple suaages braised in cider - 2 birds, one delicious stone!!

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  3. Thanks for the link to the review of Knits from the North Sea: it's all a bit town hall meeting. Did you follow up the comments on the reviews? There's a very angry person out there, with dangerously high blood pressure, I suspect.

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  4. Jean,
    This is one of the very popular Japanese books available here:
    http://www.yesasia.com/us/1003858802-0-0-0-en/info.html
    or here:
    http://www.needleartsbookshop.com/Japanese_Knitting_Books/New_Style_of_Heirloom_Knitting.html

    I have had no problems with any of my orders from YesAsia. I have not ordered from Needle Arts, but many other have reported complete satisfaction.

    At YesAsia an order of $39 gets you free shipping and this is an excellent add-on book:
    http://www.yesasia.com/global/1004200181-0-0-0-en/info.html
    (but leaves you 52 cents shy of the $39 mark).

    The next most popular pattern is not currently available, but very, very popular stitch dictionary is available though it seems to have risen quite a bit in price since I got it:
    http://www.yesasia.com/us/1004125670-0-0-0-en/info.html

    There are also Knitting in Japan groups on both Yahoo and Ravelry for advice, help, etc.

    I know those URLs go off the page for your readers (at least they do for me), if you cannot read them either, let me know and I'll send them in a PM.

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  5. =Tamar8:44 PM

    I read that some people have reported better results when they allow a tiny splurge on the weekend. Theoretically it tells the metabolism that they aren't starving so it doesn't go into "save every precious calorie" mode. Nothing overwhelming, of course - maybe a half portion?

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