One of those days, it was.

We almost never (we realised yesterday evening) watch television as it is transmitted. Yesterday evening, as we were watching the news, slightly delayed – i.e. watching it on the video recorder – Sally Magnusson suddenly froze. Nothing we could think of made any difference to her. The recorder didn’t respond to its zapper. I even went out to the corner shop and got some batteries for the zapper. Nope. I dug in the drawer and found (to my surprise) the receipt for the machine, and today was planned around an appeal to John Lewis.

But lying in bed this morning, the ravell'd sleeve knit up just as the bard promises, I realised that we hadn’t tried the Sovereign Remedy. I got up and switched the machine off at the wall, and then switched it on again.

It seems fine, except that the hard disk has had to be re-formatted. We’ve lost three precious episodes of Neighbours from earlier this week, as well as much else. A great feeling of liberation.

Earlier in the day I had lost contact with my ISP. The remedy proved similar there: disconnect broadband, and connect it again.

The adventure with the video recorder cut heavily into yesterday’s knitting time, but I finished and cast off the sleeve, and started the next one.

I have high hopes for this project. I don't know quite what has happened to the bottom of the sleeve -- there are eight rounds of ribbing in white which don't appear in the photograph.

Thots

Reading Marchant’s text (“Knitting Brioche”) more calmly, I see she says that Fisherman’s Rib and Brioche are the same thing, worked differently. Her photographs make Fisherman’s Rib look a bit tighter, Brioche more fruity. That’s EZ’s wonderful term -- she has a Brioche hat somewhere which I’ve knit a couple of times.

Fisherman’s Rib is sometimes done with alternate purl rows, sometimes with every row ribbed. Does Brioche offer this option? I’m sort of thinking of having a swatching session, when the Grandson Sweater is finished. And maybe even knitting a sweater for a much smaller grandson using one of the variations.

I continue to think about the Harlequin, and about mitred squares in general, as an employment for my Koigu collection. Maybe a simpler, boxier jacket, using the Harlequin idea for the sleeves – i.e., a mitred panel with shaping added at the sides? I could always knit a real Harlequin with yarn of the appropriate weight, when my year’s abstinence is up.

Sandy, I think your idea of devoting a year to EZ’s patterns is brilliant. And I think maybe that green yarn of yours will be OK, in fact rather good, as an unexpected accent, KF-fashion. I would worry a bit more about the dead white which – except in two-colour Scandinavian patterns – can be surprisingly difficult.