You’ve cracked it, Beverly. Of course, the Sayers character – it might have been Lord Peter himself – was coming out of the church when he turned right to avoid walking around it widdershins. Many thanks.

It has been suggested before, Ann, that I figure in Alexander McCall Smith’s pages. The long, windowless wall in the room in which I sit is part of Scotland Street. I will observe my dog-walking neighbours with more interest in the future. Any one of them might be fictional, too. A bit like Through the Looking-Glass.

I didn’t walk yesterday. As soon as I powered up, going clock-wise, the leg muscles protested, although I am comfortable enough tottering about during the day. I let myself out of the top gate and went on to the newsagent. Going clock-wise is going to be an Entirely Different Experience.

Knitting

More Amedro progress. The 7th pattern repeat is finished, a new page of text started. There are 11 repeats in all, not 10 as I have said here before. The decreases have started nibbling away at columns of the diamond motif, leaving only three columns intact in the centres of the wings.

I applied myself mentally to the Japanese instructions for that hat yesterday, and made much more progress than I might have expected. The Fair Isle part should be easy enough. I don’t quite get the beginning. The garter-stitch edging is knit downwards (from a provisional cast-on?) and appears to go around the ear-flaps, which is rather neat.

I was pretty slow to figure out that help may be available. All it needs is one English-speaking knitter, somewhere in the world, who understands this hat, and the chances are not bad at all that I can find her/him. I have posted the question to the Ravelry group, and have also joined a Japanese knitting group on Yahoo.

That reminds me of a final footnote to the jabot-knitting story. That problem was eventually solved exactly as above, by finding Joanie Newsome and the jabot pattern she offers free on Ravelry. The answer was, knit it in tiers. An alternative is to knit a single rectangle of lace and fold it in a way I had explained to me but never understood. Well, the footnote consists of the fact that an answer to that question is on page 47 of Starmore’s “Celtic Knitting”. The jabot there is crisp linen, not knitting, but the fold is illustrated clearly enough.

I think. But I’m not going back there. I found the illustration when I was revving up for my class with Starmore at the I Knit weekend.

This morning’s excitement is getting my husband to an early, for him, appointment with our practice nurse to find out how his thyroid and blood pressure and such-like are getting on. I’ll take Matt’s socks along.

I mean to walk up into central Edinburgh a bit later this morning, to see the Pope ride by in his Popemobile. If the crowds are intolerable, I’ll just come home again (like the Grand Old Duke of York) – I have no intention of climbing a sycamore tree. Even so, it will be interesting to see the numbers and mood of the people who are there.

The Pope (the old boy must be airborne as I write) will be in progress between Holyrood, where he will have been saying howdy do to the Queen, and Morningside, where he will have lunch with our local Cardinal Archbishop. I imagine that will be a low-key affair – rest stops have been built in to the itinerary, given the Pope’s age, and I suspect that is one of them. What would I give him for lunch, if I were the Cardinal’s housekeeper? I think I’d stick with Jamie Oliver’s tray-baked salmon with green beans, olives, anchovies & tomatoes.

As I composed myself for sleep on Sunday evening in London, thinking of various aspects of the following day’s journey to Edinburgh, it was pleasant to reflect that the Pope himself, way off there in Rome, was lying down with not entirely dissimilar thoughts.

Starmore

To begin with, read Shandy’s account of her Starmore class the day before mine.

And thank you, Shandy, for the reference to Starmore’s “Aran Knitting” which I have been re-perusing. In it, she specifically claims priority for unventing Celtic knitting – “Until its publication [“The Celtic Collection”, 1992] infinite Celtic cabling was not seen in knitting.” She said something of the sort in our lesson.

Lavold’s copyright is 1998 for "Viking Patterns for Knitting". She says something in the introduction about 15 years of toying with and working on the idea. As you say, Shandy, there was a lot of that sort of thing around at that time. Starmore clearly got into print first. There is no bibliography in Lavold, and no reference to Starmore that I can see.

Alice’s book – for those new to the subject – is a collection of sweater patterns, some of which have infinite Celtic cabling on them. Lavold’s book has some sweater patterns – good ones – and a lot more swatches and charts. She mentions in her introduction the identity of many Celtic interlaced patterns with Viking ones, and seems to imply that she thinks the Vikings may have picked up the idea from the Celts.

What is the source for your glorious throw, Shandy? I could scroll back and remind myself – I’ve admired it before.

I had thought already (before yesterday’s comments) that I must now have a go at the Lavold technique for starting a Celtic knot. She was very excited about having unvented it. I strongly suspect that you’re right, Maureen, and there isn’t much difference between the two. I feel sure, incidentally, that Lavold was working independently of Starmore, quite likely without any knowledge of “The Celtic Collection”, especially given the difference of language.

Start at the top – Starmore’s class was terrific.

I had got the impression from the internet, long ago, that she was bad-tempered and suspicious of the world. None of that was in evidence. The class was perfectly planned, prepared, presented. Alice Starmore doesn’t tell her pupils to stop talking (a problem of Annie M.’s) – we are all busy with our swatches, listening and looking and talking, occasionally, to her.

I even finished my swatch the next day. I wouldn’t do that for just any teacher. I wonder if I have photographed it upside down.




The lesson ended smartly 15 minutes before it was scheduled to. I was briefly miffed, but then realised that what she was doing was allowing time for us to talk to her one-to-one. As several people wanted to do. The next session followed very shortly – if she had gone on to the scheduled end, she would have had to shoo us unceremoniously out of the door. I took a picture of her during that period – this is the best of a not-very-good bunch.




I would have liked to ask her my question, but it was completely irrelevant to the topic of the day and probably unanswerable anyway, even by her. It is this: I extravagantly admire her Stillwater pattern. I tried to knit it, and gave up after several inches because the usual rhythm of Fair Isle patterns is completely absent -- I couldn’t get my head around the 18-stitch repeats. Is there a technique?

Getting it out to scan it just now has rekindled my enthusiasm. Maybe I should try the pattern on a hat.
I then had a nice (but slightly lonely) time wandering around the market. I bought Lily Chin’s cable book, which seemed appropriate to the theme of the day and which looks very thorough. And some yarn – well, I almost had to:


I had already decided that I would proceed next (sock-wise) to Matt’s socks, and that I would need to buy yarn. I had only 100 grams of the yarn I intended for the purpose, and that’s not enough for a full-sized gent. So instead of seeking out another ball – wrong dye-lot – of the yarn I already had, I bought 200 grams of a different yarn – expensive socks – and have made a good start, as you see, on the actual thing.

(Alas, I can't seem to make Tickerfactory work any more. Does anyone know an alternative?)

(Hellie came round on the Saturday evening. I told her what I was up to, and explained about the Curse of Knitting for the Boy Friend and how I had taken expert advice and was completely reassured. She thought it was all rather funny, and that Matt will like the socks.)

The yarn is Artist’s Palette “Smoothie Sock”. My one is very like the top illustration, except browner rather than greener. It’s a good deal darker than it appears in my own snapshot. Wonderfully soft. I had sort of hoped that Posh might be there, but she wasn’t.

I’ve finished Helen’s KF socks, except for ten minutes of actual finishing, which I had better put in this evening. Kaffe’s stripes and Oliver shaping and Knit Pic needles bring us as close as we’re likely to get to the self-knitting sock.