I think if you blog with Typepad, you (the blogger, not the general public) get the email addresses of commenters. I’d like that, so I could respond to each individually. I treasure them all, but so often don’t get around to saying so.

Anna, the website you provided yesterday seems to fill the bill, Finullgarn-wise. I can’t see a proceed-to-checkout button, but it might reveal itself if I actually started ordering yarn. They don’t seem to show the colours, just a list of numbers – but Nordic Fiber Arts shows the colours and includes the numbers, so that’s all right.

Mel, I was touched by your offer to get the yarn for me and ship it, and deeply grateful. Home-made packages, especially if marked “gift”, are quite likely to escape the attention of H.M. Customs and Excise, although there’s no guarantee. But carbon-footprint-wise, it would be better for the yarn not to cross the briny twice, if it can be avoided.

We are going to Glasgow today to see Alexander and Ketki and their sons, and try to find a family grave in the Glasgow Necropolis (which is worth seeing on its own) – this is an offshoot of James’s family researches. If I apply myself, I should be able to finish the bedsock on the train journeys, and while sitting about in the evening not cooking supper. Back here Monday.

And next week I’ll face the Grandson Sweater/Finullgarn-ordering issue head-on.

Meanwhile, here’s the current state of the bedsock. My husband says the first one is comfortable, and stays on. It's wonderful how Kaffe's different colourways work with each other.



I’ll take the red travel-and-waiting-room sock along, too, the one that’s already been to Connecticut and back. I may well be able to make some progress on that too.

Japanese Knitting

is pretty strange and wonderful. I’ve now got a stitch dictionary, an Heirloom Knitting book, with Aran and Fair Isle and such, and the latest issue of Keito Dama which must be the VK of Japan, but bigger and glossier than anything we’ve got except possibly the Rowan magazine. I’m still waiting for “Flat-Style of the New Sense”, direct from Japan.

The stitch dictionary looks the most accessible, and the stitches are wonderful indeed. One could start by swatching.

I have been taken through the Japanese system of pattern-writing-by-chart once at a session with Mrs Habu at K1 Yarns. The Needle Arts book shop has a good basic set of instructions on the subject. I think the thing to do would be to pick a design – there’s lots that's very nice, nothing that grabs me by the throat – and try to write the pattern in English.

The models are all European-looking.

The Glasgow branch of K1 Yarns is within an easy walk of Alexander’s house. But I think the Edinburgh branch is bigger and better, and anyway why would I want to go to a yarn shop? I’ve got yarn already.

Back here Monday, insh’Allah.