I’m getting along nicely. I’m nearly halfway across with the bind-off. The ends-to-be-woven seemed to stretch out to the horizon, but when I tried folding that edge over on itself I was surprised and very pleased to see that I am nearly halfway on that one, too.

Here’s a pic of a finished corner:

KD says to block by soaking, pressing the water out, stretching out nicely, and pinning. That last seemed excessive to me, for a casual garter stitch hap. But in the issue of Knitting (the British magazine) which came today, there is a plug for KnitPro “Rainbow Knit Blockers”. A new product? We like KnitPro.

They’re sort of like combs. You buy a whole box of them, some more or less square, with four pins, others twice the size and therefore rectangular, with eight pins. It would certainly make blocking easier. And for something like the Dathan (or any other) hap, it would obviate the dreaded scalloped edge.

Has anybody used them? Am I right to be tempted?

I felt I had made enough progress with hap-finishing that I could allow myself to start the baby sweater, on the principle enunciated yesterday. The yarn I had in mind turned out, as soon as I had it in my hands to start winding, to be lace-weight. So I have chosen a nice sock yarn from my stash, a company called Knitglobal, a shade called Mountain.

The yarn is sort of greeny-grey. The sweater is knit bottom-up and circularly. I’m nearly finished with the initial garter-stitch band, and I am very pleased indeed with the way the yarn looks..

I felt a twinge of unease because, many decades ago, a friend told me that it was unlucky to knit for a baby in green. An Irish friend, at that. But then I thought of how my son-in-law Edward told Rachel not to wear old-new-borrowed-blue at her wedding to him because “God’s love is not so constrained”. I fancy the same might apply to knitting for babies.

Unless the parents would worry. Is this superstition in common use?

Non-knit

I learned a new Italian word this morning: mito, meaning, literally, a myth. I already knew that much. Applied colloquially to a person, it means a star, a legend. My tutor used it to describe John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons. Apparently his cries of “Order! Order!” have endeared him to the hearts of the Italian nation.