I suddenly had a searing sore throat on Tuesday evening, accompanied by uncontrollable coughing. It lasted about an hour and then both symptoms melted away, leaving me feeling battered, and newly aware of the precariousness of life. I sort of took yesterday off. I'm fine this morning, so today we’ll go to Strathardle for a two-nighter, back here Sunday. Glorious weather.

We’ll need to do better than that from here on out, if I am to have a garden this year. But two nights will do for now.

I have sorted out two generous bags-ful of lace yarn for the knitters at the Session House. I have retained enough to keep me going for the rest of my life, if I knit nothing but lace. However, for the first time since this vague clean-out began, I have the feeling that there is less yarn in that cupboard than there used to be.

The one box that never gets touched, of course, is the one with my Koigu collection. I really must get going with implementing one of my ideas for that, if it is not to be thrown ignorantly away after my death.

And I have ordered Candace Strick’s sock book. “A revolutionary approach to sock knitting”, written by a friend. How could I resist? It’s coming from Amazon.com. Amazon.co.uk doesn’t have it, and Candace’ own website suggests printing out the order form and sending it to her with a check, which sounds to me about as useful as sending cowie shells.

I’ve finished re-knitting the back of the vest, and have embarked on the front. The next job, now pressing, is to re-calculate the rate of decrease for the new, shallower v-neck. Re-knitting great stretches of something already signed off as an FO turns out to be fully as dispiriting as you might imagine. The temptation is great to throw it aside and get on with the next sock. This time, at least, I will have the wearer try it on before knitting the neck and sleeve-hole ribbing. Although the thought of a second failure is too dreadful to contemplate.

And I’ve been thinking about my forthcoming snood.

Fiona, thank you for the tactful pointer (comment, Tuesday) to the fact that there are two versions of the Shibui Gradient snood pattern. I hadn’t noticed  -- I took the two measurements, on a hasty first reading, to be inches and metric rather than First Size and Second Size. Whatever, I will have only the four skeins from the kit, so it will have to be the smaller one. 45” sounds OK.

I have been spending quite a bit of contemplation time, the last two days, (=while washing up, or walking about, or knitting) thinking about the question of yarn use with this pattern. If you wind a skein carefully into three balls of equal weight, and then knit for a while with all three held together, and then drop one and add a different colour, and then drop a second and add a second of the different colour…you get the idea.

If you do all that, the three balls from the colour you started with will diminish unequally. I think I’ve got my head around the problem and its resolution, but it’s an effort.

Gerri, we need to talk about your question: is Jared's knitted-on i-cord the same as EZ's? I don't know yet, is the short answer.