Virtually nothing, today. I knit on and on, round and round, and the halfway point of Miss Rachel, from cast-on to underarm, continues to recede.

Miscellaneous

n  We had a new Fruity Knitting last week, always an event. The interviewee was Ysolda Teague. She is enchanting. I always used to get her slightly mixed up with Lucy Hague – both are local. Now I think I can keep them straight. I have lost Hague’s “Celtic Cable Shawls” book. It’s been gone for so long that I may give up and buy another. It’s a keeper, if I were only able to hang onto it.

n  I had a teaser about the forthcoming VK today. I wasn’t tempted, except briefly by Shiri Mor’s amazing geometry. I looked on her Ravelry page and found that it is achieved with the help of a lot of crochet, so that’s out. A little crochet, I might manage. I'll comment further when the magazine arrives.

n  I’m reading Adrienne Martini’s “Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously”. It is about a year devoted to knitting Alice Starmore’s “Mary Tudor” pattern in the days when the pattern was out of print and many of the yarns unavailable. It can all be had from the Virtual Yarns website now. I disagree with much of what Martini says, when she strays from the subject, but I’m enjoying the experience.

Comments

Mary Lou, that scarf isn’t entirely mindless, because you have to join in a new colour so often. On the other hand, each new colour means another stripe done: it sort of cancels out.

Connie and BCGramma – that’s not a cat plate, but a cardboard cutout which we bought long ago, pre-Perdita, from the National Gallery gift shop in Trafalgar Square. My husband always had tortoiseshell-and-white cats. The resemblance to Perdita is remarkable. It is a detail from a kitchen scene by Willem van Mieris at (roughly) the turn of the 17^th-into-18^th century. I know this, not from profound art historical expertise, but because Alexander and Ketki sent me a birthday card recently showing that very same cat, with the information on the back.

Janet, I have no quinces. The tree flowered splendidly, and I was out there several times helping things along with my soft brush. Surely the tree is self-fertile? It’s in fine fettle, after this wet summer. I hope for better next year, but I’m worried.

Knitalot, that’s great news about your daughter. I hope she’s as happy at York as Archie seems to be at Lancaster.