I've reached the beginning of round 130 of the borders of the Unst Bridal Shawl. It really begins to look as if I'll finish all 136 (=be ready to start the next phase) before the end of June. The plain vanilla garter stitch rounds are indeed a bit faster, but the sheer bulk of stitches is now awkward to push around the needle. I am grateful to this wonderful, well-behaved yarn for not trying to escape every time I pause to do it. How will I manage with the Queen Ring, which has more?

Don't forget that I've also got to finish Rams & Yowes in time for Ted's first birthday on October 29. He'll be there for Thomas and Lucy's wedding on November 1 – it would be too unspeakably embarrassing for me to have to turn up without his blankie. Only when that is done am I free to think about the future. I hate deadlines, so I've got to return to that one early enough that time won't press. Why could I never apply that principle to any other activity in life except knitting?

I looked for, and failed to find, the original Scarf Style book. Maybe I don't have it? Maybe I'm mixing it up with Lynn Barr's brilliant “Knitting New Scarves”? But I went to Library Thing – haven't been there for a while – and it confirmed that I've got it, so I'll have to look harder today. It was a job worth doing, cataloguing my knitting books. I added Martin Storey's men's book, and Scarf Style 2, hoping that  that brings me up to date.

Sue sent me this interesting link to a blog about knitting (ganseys) with a knitting belt. I've Evernote'd it, and it makes me eager to get back to experimenting with the belt. First finish that blankie.

Miscellany

The new Knitty has Franklin back, in fine form, with a 19c book about floral knitting discovered in Bishop Rutt's collection. I can imagine being interested in and amused by such a book, but could never, even in my most energetic and intellectually active years, have succeeded in knitting anything from it. Or even tried. Franklin has done a boutonniere, and if that's the sort of thing you like, it's terrific.

Mary, I'll have a go today at discovering what forms Quicken is willing to export data in. That's a good idea. I didn't fire up the old computer at all yesterday.

I have changed my desktop background picture from a gloomy early-evening shot of Murrayfield as Scotland were about to lose another international match – taken by Alexander at some point in recent years – to the one I posted here the other day, of those cows blocking our progress from Kirkmichael to Bridge of Cally. It makes me feel happy to see it, as Murrayfield never did,