Well, here we are. I’m feeling more sprightly this morning. It’s difficult to distinguish, here on the outer edge of life, between it’s-been-a-hard-day/nearly 80/post-viral/Something Worse, and of course these categories blend into each other.

Alexander and I were meant to be in touch to fine-tune arrangements for today. I didn’t hear from him, so tried to phone in the late evening yesterday. No reply. No one there at 9 pm on a school night? Did I mis-dial? Last night I felt certain that they were all in a&e somewhere battling for the life of one of them. This morning, with the sun shining, that seems less likely. They couldn’t all be dead, or they’d have been on the news. I have mobile numbers and will make contact soon.

I finished the Pakokku socks. My husband thinks the foot looks rather long. Oh dear, but we’ll soon see. I’ve got numbers for everybody of course, but the Fleegle-Strong heel may have thrown things out. Helen and Ketki and I are the three with substantial feet. Rachel and James’s wife Cathy are tiny.

Helen was very complementary about the fit of the socks I finished for her last month – same numbers, but toe-up. Fleegle-Strong does add more mileage than some heels, and it may make a difference which way up it's done.

I also cast on Relax2.  Much anxious arithmetic, but I think I’ve got it right. The yarn I am using is finer than that in which the pattern is written, and so arithmetic is involved to begin with (apart from deciding on how to achieve desired width). The designer gets 23 stitches to 4”, I get 26. I’m reasonably competent at arithmetic, but inches-to-stitches sometimes feels like comparing apples to raspberries and I have moments of wondering, do I multiply here? or divide?

Then I consulted a book and decided that with so many stitches to cast on (186 x 2) the only sensible thing to do was to wind another skein and do a long-tail cast-on using both. There’s nothing worse than running out eight stitches before the end (it has happened), but having a left-over tail several yards long is undesirable too. So I did that. It would have had to be wound one day anyway.

I see, on a wholly different knitterly subject, that IK has a new editor. I heard this in an email from Spinning Daily (or something like that), not that I spin (alas). I don’t know her. She looks rather Eunny-like. I think she (E. Jang) has matured as an editor – at first, every pattern seemed designed for her figure which is rather emphatically not mine. We shall see. I hope the new one doesn’t require too long a breaking-in. At least VK is in sound hands at the moment.

Comments

Many thanks for yesterday’s. I’ll remember Malabrigo Sock for Relax3, if we get that far, but am grateful to have had my suspicions confirmed by you, Meezermeowmy, as to its suitability for socks. And, Tricia, Whimzy! I had never heard of them. The yarn looks beautiful. And you’ve knit socks with it, and it works! Will it be “Woodland” or “Spring Storm”? Or both!

So now I’ll go forward with the day. Back here Tuesday, insh’Allah. If disaster has, in fact, struck Cairndow, I’ll post a note.

[All is well in Cairndow: Alexander thinks I must have phoned while he was out putting the ducks to bed, a lengthy process yesterday.]