Thursday, January 05, 2017

News: I’ve had an email from Nick LaPensee (what a wonderful name!) of Knitzi to say that mine has just been returned to him from the Royal Mail, marked “Not Called For”. Nobody ever told me to call for it. He will send it again, marked as a gift. I have replied with delight, urging him to bill me for his extra costs.

I had completely given up.

I had another good day. I have finished gathering in interest-received for the tax man, and am ready to go on to the next question, which concerns dividends. I didn’t do quite as much shawl-border as on previous days, but I did get past my self-imposed requirement of two rows a day.

Beth, thank you for Donna Smith’s remarks about picking up stitches from an edging. I’m sure she’s right, that if it looks OK, it is OK.

But I had a thought today. I have signed up for only one class at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival this year (to leave plenty of time and strength for the market). But that one is with Hazel Tindall. What if I knit six or eight inches of lace before the class and took it in with a spare needle and just asked her how she would do it? Of course she’s not primarily a lace knitter, but she is a Shetlander and must have knit some lace.

But then I thought that such an action would place me precisely among Franklin’s Ten Knitters You Meet in Hell. (Go read it, if you never have.) I would be the Game Changer, the man who turns up in the class on Introduction to East Andalusian Four-Way Intarsia and wants help with his cabled socks. So maybe I had better not do that.


I have been having a lot of trouble this evening with the computer suddenly changing into the Greek alphabet. I had better stop while I’m ahead. Was it something to do with Franklin's article on the Twist Collective website? I was writing in Word, and thought that everything would be all right once I went back to the wider world, but it wasn't. EVERYTHING I typed came out in Greek, even "Help" which the system, understandably, didn't recognize. I felt a bit like King Midas. What did I do wrong?

5 comments:

  1. Your problem with Greek reminded me of a neighbor we used to have who would call up my husband from time to time to say "help, my television is speaking Spanish again." And he would have to go over and press buttons on the remote control until it was back to English. I hope you are able to remain in English permanently!

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  2. Anonymous3:36 AM

    Jean.....Hazel is the most helpful teacher I have ever worked with, and I'm sure would be happy to help you. But I would suggest warning her ahead of time, via her blog .....please say hello to her for me. I enjoyed being along on a knitters cruise with her last year.

    Barbara M. In NH

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  3. But surely, Jean, you don't need help with picking up the stitches, because yours went smoothly. I, however, have tried again, and failed again, with the Houlland. I have the whole edging lace, but must have made some sort of glitch part way along, because there is no consistent row to pick up from.
    Then it came to me, having read your previous entry: Why not cast on for the body, and then sew the edging lace in place at the end? I think I will give that a go. You can call that "Blind following" if you like, but I believe the modern term is "Workaround."

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  4. There may Be a combination of keys that you have hit that have switched your language to Greek. I will check at work on my windows computer

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  5. Anonymous2:23 PM

    If you were using your iPad when the Greek problem arose, you might try pressing the little "globe" logo to the left of the space bar. Doing so toggles my English keyboard with a Hungarian one!

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