Friday, April 15, 2016

Grandmother Rachel just emailed to say that Juliet smiled at her yesterday – aged five weeks exactly. Early but not implausible. It has always seemed to me wonderful that the first thing a child learns to do is something so utterly human.

And another thing that seems wonderful, in a thoroughly imperfect world, is that English asparagus and Jersey Royal potatoes appear in the supermarket at the same instant. I’m sure neither were there when I last was, on Saturday. We had them for supper last night, with a bit of haddock. My husband didn’t think the asparagus was very good.

Knitting

I took myself in hand and went back to the Sous Sous. I have extended the four-stitch ribbed edging to a length which should reach around the back of the neck. The next instruction is to graft the live stitches from the front shoulder to the bound-off ones of the back – “or, alternatively, cast off the stitches and sew shoulders together” – a rare touch of insouciance, for a knitting pattern. I love grafting, so I’ll at least attempt the former option.

I haven’t matched front and back yet. The back shoulder stitches were sloped, a few cast off at the beginnings of many rows. It would have been a bit fiddly, but by no means impossible, to keep them live for future grafting. I wish I had read the pattern through at the start, but I am sure that is a virtue I will never acquire.

Comments

Thank you very much, Lisa, for guiding me to the Ravelry page with the patterns from Valimaki’s “Color Wheel Knits”. She is a designer I very much like, and there are some good things there – but I now know that I don’t need the book, at least, not right now.

Joni and Tamar, thank you for guiding me to Franklin’s colouring book. I pre-ordered it from Amazon.co.uk even before reading the next comment. Isn’t this an extraordinary phenomenon, adult colouring books? One likes to imagine the marketing meeting at which a Brash Young Person suggested such a preposterous idea. And now it turns out to be the Next Big Thing! Where does anyone find the time to do all that colouring-in?


Knitlass, I hope you have a grand time at the Knitting and Stitching show. My husband and I went to one at the Ally Pally once. The astonishing thing, which he remembers as vividly as I do, was the Japanese pavilion. So it must have been 2001 when we were there. The journey to north London was well worth it for that alone. 

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:36 PM

    I had read that the pencil manufacturers like Faber-Castell have added more production of pencils due to this trend. Double shifts at the pencil factory.
    Also some bars are offering colouring nights as "mixers" for young adults!
    LisaRR

    http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/03/25/is-there-really-a-global-shortage-of-colored-pencils/

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  2. I never read ahead in patterns or recipes, often to my great regret, like the lemon tart planned for that evening which has a note buried in it about "24 hours in advance" - The Sous Sous might be heavy enough that grafting would stretch at the shoulders. Just a thought and justification that you made the right choice initially. And earlier versions of adult coloring books http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/adult-coloring-books-were-popular-and-subversive-1960s-180957666/?no-ist

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  3. There is a lot of asparagus grown in polytunnels hereabouts (South Lincolnshire) and we have come to the conclusion that it is better to wait for the truly outdoor stuff for the best flavour.

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