Word-recognition seems to have done the trick. Please let me know if you’re having trouble. I’m always a bit scared when confronted with one, and sometimes they’re not at all easy. The example Blogger showed me was perfectly straightforward – I hope they’re like that in practice.

I couldn’t exclude Anonymous because Ron often logs in like that.

Well, here we are back. We had a good time, if an anxious one. I am mostly afraid that my husband will fall while pottering about in the garden. I did, twice, gentle falls onto soft grass, no harm done. He wouldn’t be able to get up again. But it didn’t happen. I can’t even assuage anxiety with cider while we’re there – a crisis might require me to drive. In Edinburgh, I could just dial 999 for an ambulance and have the vapours.

I was taken aback at my own decline – I’m used to his. How stiff I have become, and how exhausting are previously routine tasks. I devoted most of my limited time and strength to arboriculture – weeding, manuring, and watering the two trees we planted last year – the pinus bungeana, a Chinese temple tree put in to replace the Golden Scots Pine our children gave us as a Golden Wedding present (eaten by neighbour’s horses); and pinus sylvestris, the Scots pine itself, planted in memory of my husband’s sister.

I don’t know what she would think of it. She was never entirely reconciled to Scotland. But the tree is doing well.

And I netted the Summer Pudding Bush, which has set a good crop despite neglect; and hoed the potatoes; and did some weeding. Hat, the Babington leeks are hanging in there – i.e., alive, but not growing on their own yet.

Knitting

A new blog post from Franklin – they’re rare, these days. He promises us an e-book – that's something to look forward to.

I stumbled, this morning, via Zite, on the fact that I can watch Craftsy classes on the iPad although Archie and I have so far failed to upgrade the operating system so I can’t have full access to class material and so forth. So I watched Stephen West’s final lesson, on blocking. It contains a marvellous passage in which he has rolled a newly-washed shawl into a towel (as I do myself) and then stands on it on his head (as doesn’t happen here) while continuing to deliver the lesson.

While we were away, I started his Barndom shawl, from his newest collection, Westknits Book 4, “Made for Movement”. And have made good progress with it. I probably should have left it behind to be a Strathardle WIP but life seemed so uncertain that I brought it back. It’s a fun knit. I’m using one of the recently-purchased skeins of Rowan Art Yarns, and some not-quite-white madelinetosh sock that I bought when I thought I wanted to stripe the Relax.

Relax2 reached the divide-for-front-and-back point yesterday. It’s looking good.

Safely home, alive and well, with a certain amount to report --  I started a Stephen West shawl, for instance.

But my husband has a routine diabetic appt this morning at what constitutes for us the crack of dawn. Blogging will have to wait another day.

Have a look at the comments on Thursday's post. Something is going to have to be done about spam -- I'm not sure what.

This is blog post no. 2499.

The view from our dining room window at 11:30 last night. The light is truly magical, this time of year. I'd love to experience the "simmer dim" on Shetland.

That bright circle isn't the moon, which won't be full until the end of next week, but the church clock-face.

Chilli-growing

Waitrose came up trumps. My Big Nameless chilli plant is a Jalapeno. There are possible further refinements of that definition, but "Jalapeno" is all, and indeed rather more than all, that could be asked of a supermarket Customer Services desk.

The last time we went to Strathardle it flagged somewhat for lack of watering. This time, I’ll put all the chillis in a roasting tin with some water at the bottom, and stand them in a south-facing window. It’s too cold at night on the doorstep.

Knitting

“Westknits Book 4 Made for Movement” turned up from Loop yesterday. Signed, “Happy Knitting! Stephen”. I think the first item in it, a shawl called Barndom, is the one he showed us in the Craftsy class with what seem to be travelling slip stitches. I might just spend the next couple of days in Strathardle playing around with it.

Especially because, on my way to Boots to pick up yet another prescription yesterday, I stopped in at the John Lewis yarn dept, and sure enough, there was Rowan Art Yarn. Reader, I bought some.

And I could use one of those skeins in combination with an off-white madelinetosh.

Meanwhile, Relax2 progresses well. Three more underarm increases to do, I think, out of 12. I faced up to counting stitches the other day and found, to my considerable surprise, that I was four short. Careful inspection located one dropped stitch. I have secured it. I suppose there’s no guarantee that I cast on the right number in the first place. I’ve added them in unobtrusively.

So, off we go. Back by Tuesday, maybe sooner. A possible complication that could keep us here today is a Chinese brush pot, such as a calligrapher might rest his brush in. We saw it in a sale at our local auction house on Tuesday but, after some deliberation, left a bid on a different one. We were outbid, but our first choice was unsold. I’ll ring the auctioneer at 9 and make an offer. And if it should be accepted, the resulting kerfuffle – paying for it and collecting it – would be enough excitement for one day.

I had one of those dread custom charge cards from the post office yesterday – that’ll be the Pakokku. Taxing the car on-line was a doddle, but trying to pay the post office defeated me. I’ll have to return to that problem, obviously.

Comments

Jean from Cornwall, I accidentally discovered how to achieve the coveted “This comment has been removed…” notice. The secret is, don’t tick the box that says “Remove forever?” Just click on “Remove comment”. I like it better this way, to let you all know how I suffer.

I think Blogger’s own software catches about half of the junk posted to current posts. (And if their algorithm included suspicion of any anonymous comment which ends in an URL, they’d do even better.) (Or do you pronounce it, “a U.R.L.?”) And every day there are at least two dozen more, attaching to old posts, automatically moderated, individually deleted.

And, Kristie, gosh! thanks. Sure enough, there I am in Zite, along with Helen’s Greek chilli plants. But it was so much better, hearing it from you first.

Dawn, I was grateful for the link to Craftivore, which I enjoyed very much. Beautiful knitting – and what a beautiful woman! But I didn’t see anything about knitting alphabets. What have I missed?

And, Marian, thank you for the link to Stray Cat socks. Although I could wish she included a couple of pics of how the yarn knits up.

If you follow the link provided with Marian’s name in the paragraph above, you’ll see a wonderful Stephen West shawl. Talk about karma…

Non-knit

Grandson Alistair turned 17 on Monday. That’s his mother looking distressed because her baby has grown up.

Rachel is our eldest child, and all four of her children are older than 17. They are all present in the photograph at the head of the blog. Alistair is the eldest surviving grandchild of what might be called the second tranche. Archie is next. The youngest two, James and Thomas of Cairndow, are also in the picture above. I want a shirt like Alistair's.

Knitting

I’ve watched all of Stephen West’s Craftsy class by now except for the final lesson on blocking. His youthful diffidence is very engaging. I’ve laid out some yarn to take to Strathardle tomorrow – tomorrow! – with the thought of improvising a West of my own. I’d better take the socks to knit as well, just in case.

With any luck, the book (see yesterday) from Loop will turn up today, and I’ve already got SW's Daybreak pattern. I won’t need to improvise if I don’t want to, but I am inspired.

The latter half of his Craftsy course fizzes with ideas, but is short on detail. For instance, he uses slipped stitches in a striped shawl to divide a stripe into boxes, by carrying up stitches from the stripe below. I think I could just about do that. But in one example, the vertical stripe of the slipped stitch shifts backwards and forwards like the stem of a vine. Because of M1’s, pushing it this way and that? Because the stitches are actually lifted over other stitches? I could post a question to Craftsy. I might do that.

I’m sorry about the interruption – it sort of breaks the flow of conversation. But the car is MOT’d, and today I can tax it on-line. A great improvement on the days when one had to queue in the post office (after getting to an appropriate post office, not just any old one) with a sheaf of documents and a chequebook in hand.

Chilli-growing

Greek Helen wrote yesterday to say that her cleaner brought her some excess-to-requirement chilli plants. They will grow like Jack’s beanstalk in Greek heat. I wrote back with a paragraph of grandmotherly advice (=keep well watered). Variety unknown, of course, but chillis are great at cross-pollinating, so maybe they aren’t any particular variety.

And here, there is now no doubt that first Apache flowers have set fruit. So exciting! And reddening is going forward at an increased pace (?because of doorstep days in the sun) on Big Nameless. I can’t see on what principle the plant selects the next chilli to redden.

Knitting

I now have the bit between my teeth about  Mind the Gap sock yarn. TrailingCloud seems to be the only source (she dyes it), and she’s on holiday.

Marilyn, thanks for the reference to EZ on double knitting: it’s February in the Almanac, as you say, and of course she doesn’t go off into Post-Quinn-like explorations of colour patterns. She is knitting a baby blanket, and says that she would rather do it in the round.

Looking up the passage, my eye was caught by the instructions for a centre-out square shawl on the facing page, nothing to do with double knitting: “Some people even like to work the first six to eight rows on two needles, and sew the seam later and fairly invisibly. Suit yourself: I like to do the job properly.”

That sounds uncannily like the voice of my late sister-in-law.

I have gone happily on with Stephen West. He hasn’t actually set any work since we mastered the yo, so I feel no compunction about watching the next lesson. (I don’t dare face Franklin until I’ve done some mattress stitch, and Herzog wants me to have made some embarrassing measurements.) I’ve ordered Westknits Four (Made for Movement) from Loop.

We’re hoping to go to Strathardle on Thursday – this is relevant. I have pretty well decided to abandon the practice of a separate Strathardle WIP. We are fading; we’ll be there less often. I am scared to be there alone with my husband in our mutual states of frailty. This time, I thought, I’ll just take along the Pakokku socks.

But then I thought, what about reserving Strathardle knitting time for wild experiments –  for improvising a Stephen West of my own, for example? It’s a thot.

I’m well into the underarm increases for Relax2, and I think my conscientious M1R’s and M1L’s are the next best thing to completely undetectable. But I’m doing them.

The news is that John Lewis in St James Centre now has Rowan Art Yarn. Lindsay, their Rowan lady, emailed me yesterday. I have yet another prescription to collect from Boots this week, so I can finally have a look.

Yesterday was sunshine all the way, so the chillis had many hours on the doorstep. There is a great difference between the two Apaches – one has darker leaves and a much more positive attitude towards life. It was always the stronger plant, but I can’t see why they should be so very different. The faded flowers continue to adhere. I should know soon whether a crop is forming. It doesn't look as though they'll get out on the step today.

Knitting

I went on with Stephen West yesterday. I knit his Garter Stitch Tab cast-on (Lesson One). Lesson Two was about directional increases. He offered two brilliant mnemonics: I LEFT the FRONT door open, and I’ll be RIGHT BACK. I did a few rows with four increases in each of the right-side rows, and went on to Lesson Three.

That concerns yo’s. The dullest of us could master the yo in less than the 15 minutes of the lesson, but it took me quite a while to grasp that he was not just substituting yo’s for the directional increases of Lesson Two, but also adding two more in each wrong-side row, extending the wingspan.

I have now also grasped that I am not knitting a Stephen West shawl (at least, not yet) – only a swatch. I’d like to do a Craftsy class that had a tangible result, like your Artemisia sweater, Elizabeth. This class doesn’t seem terribly meaty, compared to some, but Stephen’s ebullient charm makes up for a lot, and there may be fireworks to come.

And it has little perks like a real classroom class – he told us in Lesson Three about how he switched to continental knitting when he had a Christmas present project that had to be finished fast. He has rather an interesting way of holding the yarn when he purls – purling is the real downer, for continental knitting. I wind the yarn around the fingers of my left hand like a cat’s cradle (or dog’s dinner) and hate the process. I might have another try.

I was interested in your remark, Foggy Knitter, about EZ and double knitting. (The connection of thought between this paragraph and the last being Craftsy classes, of course.) Does anyone remember where the passage occurs?

And reading your blog sent me off in pursuit of London Underground socks. Do you mean this yarn from TrailingClouds? I fear it is going to go on my must-have list. The great thing about socks is that one actually finishes a pair from time to time, and goes on to the next. That Pakokku I ordered should turn up soon.

Queer Joe (who is engaged on a Blogathon, I think) had a post recently (June 7) about his WIPs. It made me glad of the relative good discipline of my later years. It is bad enough, being torn by all the patterns one wants to try next, without having them actually lying about. I used to have a lot. One day, in her adolescence, Greek Helen said, “What’s that going to be, if you finish it?” I was cured.

And, oh yes, Relax2. Two and a bit more rounds to go, before the underarm increases.

I won't be here tomorrow. I'll be taking the car to the garage for its MOT.

I was wrong about the weather yesterday – the rest of the country (Scotland, GB, take your pick) had another glorious day, but the clouds over Drummond Place didn’t burn away until late in the afternoon, so the chillis stayed in the kitchen all day. Today will clearly be better.

The first flowers on the better Apache plant have faded. The excitement now is to see whether they have set fruit. On Big Nameless, an unfertilised flower falls at the slightest touch of a fingernail. That’s not happening on the Apache, so maybe…

Knitting

One of the things one learns in a long life is that, no matter how outré a vice one adopts, there are other people out there who practice it, too. Kristieinbc, and perhaps you, too, Karen, are fellow stashers of Craftsy classes!

Yesterday I not only signed up for Stephen West’s class, I actually watched the first lesson (despite having two unfinished courses to my credit, and two other unwatched ones). He is young, good-looking, rather camp. (Am I allowed to say that?) Maybe he was just camping it up for Craftsy. I’m not complaining; camp is fun. It is not a word, incidentally, that I would apply to Franklin. He’s fun in a different way.

We’re knitting a shawl. In the first lesson we started off with a very interesting little garter stitch square. Perhaps I’ll just dip into the madelinetosh sock bag and have a go. And then watch Lesson Two! What wickedness!

Karen, I was interested in what you said about double knitting. I wondered why Craftsy offered two classes, especially when one of them was by Alasdair P-Q himself. I’ve got his book (somewhere – things are getting out of hand) and will never knit from it, I am sure. It all sounds too difficult and tight. But I am willing to be persuaded by the man himself. And now I know that if it still sounds too difficult, I can try Lucy Neatby. I love her, anyway.

And then there’s Brioche Knitting, and Designing with Cables, and…

I must get back to Herzog (saving Franklin, like the best chocolate in the collection, to be savoured at the end). I have sort of decided that I don’t like Fitted, when it means knitting that defines female ins and outs. I prefer to relax in a Relax. On the other hand, a well-fitting sweater, such as Herzog wears as she teaches, is a fine thing. I must press on.

As for what is going on here, I measured Relax2 this morning. It comes to 36cm and for a moment I thot, hey! but then I consulted the pattern, and it turns out, for the size I am aiming at, that I need 38. I don’t think I’ll measure again. I’ll count eight rounds – I’m counting anyway, for the placement of the eyelets – and then start increasing.

Stephen W promises directional increases in Lesson Two. Karma, wouldn’t you say?

Anonymous, I was most interested to learn that the absence of Rowen Art Yarn from John Lewis, St James’ Centre, Edinburgh, isn’t just a local eccentricity.