Tennis

I read or heard somewhere over the weekend that Mr Nadal had complained to the Wimbledon authorities at having to play a match today, on the heels of yesterday's effort. So he must be greatly relieved at not having to do so after all, and I am sure Mr Kyrgios won't complain at having to take his place at short notice.

Goodness, that was exciting. Four of my grandchildren are older than Mr Kyrgios (pronounced without the “g” as if it were “kyrios”. Lord). He has never been to Wimbledon before, and until yesterday had never had a match with a top-10 player. 

It would be wonderful if he could win the whole thing, but that would be far too good to be true. The same applies to Mr Murray, so that leaves Federer and Djokovic. I suppose it'll be Djokovic.

Knitting

All went well, yesterday. I exercised some care in not trying to combine knitting with tennis except while everyone was sitting down. I've done 16 bumps so far, of the edging of the Unst Bridal Shawl.

I share your wonderment, catdownunder, at the fine work of Shetland knitters, with no electricity to knit by, even, for most museum pieces and collectors' items. And they are literally perfect, or virtually so, over thousands and thousands of stitches. Sharon Miller with a magnifying glass can perhaps find an extra k3tog...

My UBS is going to be a poor thing, overall, because of the trouble I had establishing the borders after knitting the centre. And the row of motifs I was doing at Easter, with all those k3togs, manifests a certain clumsiness. Not to mention the Messy Corner. And there are many instances of places where I found I had too many stitches or too few and made a little adjustment in situ. I wouldn;t quite say that that happens all the time, but it's often enough to be too trivial to mention here. It'll be all right when it's blocked, I tell myself – but Hazel Carter says that that's when you see all your mistakes.

I don't quite understand how your lifeline works, Knitting08816, and I want to. You mean it's in the border stitches – not at right angles, through a row of the edging? I've never used lifelines but I'm beginning to wonder...

On a more cheerful note, Lavold's “Viking Knits and Ancient Ornaments” turned up yesterday. Highly enjoyable. There is something profoundly satisfying to the eye and to the mind, about Celtic knottery, whether knitted or drawn or carved.

We have a fine group of such stones at Miegle, near Strathardle. It's been a long time since I've seen them – maybe an expedition this summer? They don't even seem to have a website of their own –the link is to one called “Undiscovered Scotland”. Lavold's book is illustrated with knotwork from a wide variety of sources, and not indexed. Maybe Miegle is even in there somewhere.

I find in my book-sorting so far that books of patterns by single designers are the ones most likely to be consigned to the flames (= put into a banana box to be taken downstairs – let's keep this thing in perspective). Lavold will escape, I think. Anyway, it's not just a book of patterns. One can make one's own use of the motifs, as with Starmore. Perhaps there could be something for Archie here, along the lines of the one on the cover.

Today's excitement is another dental appt for my husband, which should advance the cause of the Pakokku socks somewhat.

Non-knit

I reflected yesterday, walking my little morning walk to the corner shop to get the papers, that if I were Shandy or Kate Davies, I would take some pictures for you of the remarkable gardens people have on their steps and in the basement-level areas. Our next door neighbour, for instance, has a good-sized chestnut tree in a pot. Then I thought, why not, and actually took some pictures. I hope to have them organised for you soon -- I still haven't mastered pictures on my new laptop, and so still load them into the old computer and edit them there and mail them to myself, a slow process.