All this talk of Japanese knitting sent me back to the Needle Arts Book Shop yesterday. I wound up ordering two more in the “Let’s Knit” series – those words being the only ones in the book in English – and the “Clear and Simple Knitting Symbols” book. I think the latter should go a long way towards making Japanese stitch dictionaries accessible.

What I need to do now is apply myself, instead of just oooh-ing and aaah-ing. Thank you very much for the offer of hand-outs, Mary Lou and Maureen. (And, boy! am I impressed that you can teach Japanese knitting, Mary Lou!) I think I’ve got all I need, what with the Knitter’s article and the free pages on “Interpreting Japanese Knitting Patterns” from Needle Arts itself. I downloaded and printed those yesterday.

Going back just now to get titles and links, I noticed for the first time the book on “Scandinavian Jacquard Hats”. In Japanese, of course. That could be IT! I knit an ear-flap hat for Rachel-the-Younger in Beijing earlier this year, at her request, using the plug-in-your-gauge self-generating pattern the Fishwife pointed me towards. It never reached its destination. A Japanese-Scandinavian hat might be just what Rachel would like, and just the incentive I need to get to grips with a Japanese pattern.

An ahah! moment.

Needle Arts is a delight to deal with, up there with the Schoolhouse and Heirloom Knitting.

As for actual knitting yesterday, I finished the first front of my tiny jacket, and started the second.


While I was lining up links yesterday, I noticed that K1 Yarns has some nice classes coming up – one on Shetland lace next weekend, when we will be occupied with a visit from old friends from our Birmingham days, and anyway I know how to knit Shetland lace; and one on Freeform Knitting, which I’d really rather like to attend – on Games weekend. So I won’t be there.

Emily Dickinson

Skeindalous, you posted a comment in late July mentioning the new biography of ED by Lyndall Gordon – the book which posits epilepsy as an explanation for her oddity. There is a full page review of it in the current “Economist” – that’s a lot of space for a book review, for them – in which they call it an “astonishing” book which will “revolutionise the way in which Dickinson is read for years to come.”

That’s the one I tossed aside because it didn’t have my mother in the bibliography, but maybe I should take another look.

I looked at my mother’s book again yesterday. It suggests nothing more than clinical depression as an explanation, but does say that the family were worried about Emily's oddities and reclusiveness when she was in her twenties. I didn’t pursue it – what is the evidence for their concern? But if she was epileptic, those closest to her would have known, and closed ranks, rather than trying to get her out into the world, wouldn’t they?

Skeindalous, first of all.

My mother’s writing name, her maiden name, was Anna Mary Wells. Her Emily Dickenson book was “Dear Preceptor”, a biography of Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Since my mother was primarily a Dickinson scholar, and since Higginson’s claim to fame lies largely – although not entirely – in his friendship with Dickinson, appreciation of her genius, encouragement of her, and his role in the publication of her poetry after her death, that is what the book is largely – although not entirely – about.

Long sentence. “Dear Preceptor” was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1963 and very well received. Not a light under a bushel or anything like that.

My soapbox moment – whenever it occurred; I can’t remember either – concerned Brenda Wineapple’s book “White Heat” in 2008. That book is about Dickinson and Higginson and was billed on the dust jacket as “the first book to portray one of the most remarkable friendships in American letters…” Reviewers believed and repeated that statement. I’m still seething.

My sister and I got nowhere, complaining to the publisher and to reviewers.

I don’t know about Lyndall Gordon. Is that the new book that says ED was epileptic? If so, I had a look at it in a bookshop, found that it had “Wineapple” but not “Wells” in the bibliography, and gave it no further thought.

I can see that there’s not going to be much room for knitting, in this post. I did virtually none while we were away. I have resumed Green Granite Blocks since returning, and last night added the spots to the second rank of blocks on the right front. I am feeling rather bogged down – there’s a long, long way to go. I have also started some KF socks for Helen.





The vegetables are on the whole fine. I was very happy working among them. It's a very special sort of happiness.







The bunching onions continue to promise well.



The walking onions turned out to be healthy-looking little bulbs with vigorous roots. They are not above ground yet. We’re eating mange-tout peas (but mange-tout peas never taste as good as my father’s snow peas, from his Victory Garden in Detroit in the war years) – and salad and the first potatoes with beans and real peas to follow soon.

The summer pudding was a great success. I made another one with white currants for consumption after we left. I’m told that was just as good.

The rosa mundi is in bloom.

Helen and her family and friends trekked up to Loch Esk for a day’s fishing. Here is Mungo showing my husband the catch.
Mungo is now in CT with my sister and her husband and their new dog. We’re all eagerly looking forward to his blog reports.

Here’s another problem for you: I have taken to doing a few minutes’ brisk walk in Drummond Place Garden in the morning. It is very boring, so I have been trying to activate an MP3 player I was given for Christmas. I gather in order to grab podcasts and transfer them to the player, I need a podcast-grabbing-program. Any tips or suggestions on how to proceed? I use Windows XP.