I did it – I resumed Princess knitting, and the experience was fully as wonderful as I remembered. Like reading Latin or Henry James. I am currently employed in the early part of row 147 of the border.

Things become even more fun after row 180 when what Sharon Miller calls “sprouting seed” motifs appear on the top of the motifs to the left and right of the central “feather” in this picture. They look a lot like motifs on Paisley shawls. All the “sprouting seeds” must nod towards the central “feather” of the whole border; thus, half of them nod to the left, half to the right. It doesn’t look too difficult to me, but I know some Princess-knitters have found it tough.

The whole border has 220 rows. And that will leave, I fear, most of the shawl still to knit.

The pattern was published in a limited edition, 250 copies I think, and although it will eventually re-appear on the Heirloom Knitting site, for now, that’s all. I am constantly surprised at how many of us are actually knitting it, from so small a base.

I don’t know what to do about interleaving it with little-boy-sweater knitting. Alternating days doesn’t feel right: the Princess is so demanding an intellectual experience that one wants to remain immersed in it. For the moment, I don’t need to worry. The presence of our friends from Boston next week will ensure (I hope) that the little-boy-sweater makes great progress, and the Princess none. Then we’ll see.

Other knitting…

While we were in Strathardle last week, I at last got hold of the schedule of the Home Industries Tent for this year’s Games. The knitting is truly disgusting. The choice is between a “knitted toy” and a “teddy for tragedies” which has to be donated. A pattern is provided for the latter. Talk about choice.

The last time something like this happened, I took refuge in the Handicrafts section, where they asked for a “hat (any craft)”. I knit them a tammy, and won first prize. Which is not to be compared with winning a first in the Knitting section. But this year Handicrafts offers so such escape.

So I’ll have to knit a toy.

There’s a rather nice sheep in the brand new issue of Knitting magazine. The trouble with that is (a) I’d have to buy some fluffy novelty wool to represent the fleece and (b) all the competitors will see Knitting, or have it pointed out by friends.

I’m going to try to repeat this mermaid, which I knit for granddaughter Hellie in 1992 or some such year. She loved it to death, and might be glad of a replacement. I have got plenty of yarn in appropriate colours in stash, some probably left over from the original. And nobody else, I’m willing to wager, is going to knit a mermaid.

In a pretty untidy house, my knitting archives are in rather good condition, you may rightly conclude.

Ikat, etc.

Here’s the current state of the little-boy sweater, including the beginnings of the wallaby pouch. Attaching it was tough, even with the purl bumps to go by. I am all thumbs with a crochet hook in my hand. But the job has been successfully completed.

So today is the day to pick up the Princess.

Thanks for the help on ikat-knitting. Esther, you’re right, that’s the IK article I was thinking about – although I see when I look it up that it is about creating vertical stripes, not ikat. I googled, and got the excellent article you recommended, Anonymous. (Blogger has cut off the end of the URL in your comment, but the link just given will carry anyone interested to the spot.) Google also suggested a scarf pattern by Lucy Neatby.

I couldn’t find the Kim Salazar pattern. I think she is consolidating everything on the wiseneedle site – but I kept getting a pop-up which said I had won a Really Big Prize, and wouldn’t go away, so I fled without perhaps looking hard enough for the ikat pattern.

Clearly, some ikat-systems depend on the hand-painted yarn having equal lengths of each colour, which is not true of Yarnyard yard. But the article just mentioned by Estelle Carlson is based on the entire length of the repeat, from one loop of the skein to the next. Maybe I’ll play around a bit with the April Yarnyard offering.

VKB

Things have been incredibly exciting lately. In the last 16 days I have bought no fewer than eight rare, early copies, from six different sellers. Assuming the most recent purchases actually turn up, I now have all but 10 of the 69 issues in the original series. I am missing three war-time ones, and seven from the '30’s.

Last night I bought this one from a seller in Canada. I was the only bidder, and got it for the upset price of $9.99. That’s five pounds for the VKB of autumn, 1937. It’s obviously in shabby condition, but who cares? It’s got its cover. Clearly, I ought to be watching the American VK list; but there are hundreds of items on it, and it’s hard work. Delynne, a blog reader, spotted no. 11 for me. Thank you, and thank you.

And while we were in the country last week, my sister kindly bid for and got this one for me. It pains me to show you the picture. You can be sure I won’t treat it like that once it’s in my hands. It is the issue for autumn, 1944.

I hope (for the sake of my credit card, if nothing else) that that’s going to be all for a while. I can curl up with my treasures and study the evolution of the modern knitting magazine. The earliest VKB’s had neither a cover-picture of one of the delights within; nor a chatty introductory letter from the editor; nor multiple-sizing.

There will be reports to come.

Comments

Laritza, the yarn for Ketki’s gansey came from Jan at Frangipani. She was tremendously helpful – traditional 5-ply Guernsey wool is the only thing she sells, and there’s an excellent range of colours.

Helen, my mother too went a bit soft on Mother’s Day towards the end. I disapprove with every fibre of my being, but perhaps the same thing is happening to me – at any rate, Rachel always phones on Laetare Sunday. Neither of us makes any reference to the purpose of her call, but I’d miss it if it didn’t come.

Knitting…

I knit happily on, on the little-boy sweater. I don’t seem to have kept any notes about how to translate the Wonderful Wallaby pattern, which is written for worsted, into a finer yarn, but I’ve done it twice so it can’t be too difficult. The last time through someone suggested – and I wish I could remember who, to thank her again – putting in a line of purl stitches where the bottom of the wallaby pouch is going to be attached. Even with worsted, I found it very difficult to keep going in a straight line. So I’ve done that.

I like the way the colours are working out, a lot. But I’m going to leave it one more day before taking a picture. It’s not ikat, more a wonderful swirl. Natalie has warned me to be careful to wind each skein in the same direction. That is something I’m sure I’ve never heard of, but I think I can see what she means now that the knitting is underway.

There was an article somewhere once about getting ikat effects from a hand-painted yarn. Does anyone remember? It was probably in IK, probably in a general article about knitting with hand-painted yarn, not terribly recently. The general idea was that you coiled the yarn on the floor and measured the distance between repeats of the colour sequence and somehow incorporated the measurement in your knitting. It sounded like a lot of trouble when I read about it, and it sounds like trouble as I write it now, but I’d like to think about it again, now that I have discovered The Yarn Yard. I could try Google.

The books I ordered a fortnight ago are beginning to flow in, and there is still much to write about the Vogue Knitting Book, but I’m going to leave it all for another day. Since there’s nothing to illustrate this morning, I’ll quit with the usual picture of My Garden. Nothing much is happening under the rhubarb-forcing pot, but I got a few spadesful of earth turned over, and humped a load of manure in – you can see it piled up – and prepared four of the eventual eight stations for courgettes: that’s them under the plastic water-bottles.

Laetare Sunday

Knittingkate, I had always assumed that “Sassenach” meant “Southerner”, on no evidence – yesterday I looked it up, prompted by your question. It is a Gaelic-speaker’s word for “Saxon”. Apparently Irish Gaelic uses it too, and the Welsh have a related word. So, strictly, it has to mean the English only, perhaps even including the lowland Scots.

Here we are back again. We had a nice time, although spring has not made many inroads in Strathardle yet. There was no new floral display to incorporate in my March calendar effort, so here is a picture of my husband working on a weedy border in front of the house. Just as we were leaving I spotted our primrose in bloom, so that is another possibility.






We passed many daffodils on the way up, but ours are not out yet. I picked a few yesterday morning to bring back, however.

Ketki’s gansey progresses. It is beginning to seem endless, but this time I really did polish off Mrs Laidlaw’s pattern. There remain only a few nearly-plain rows and the front is finished. Then we have provisional casting-on, shoulder straps, neck gussets, all the fun of the fair. One day Alexander will have to take a proper picture to show off the surface texture.



Look at that cone! The knitting may be taking forever, but this time I finished off a whole cone and attached the next one. It was gratifying to be reminded how big they are.

We were back yesterday in time for the rugby. Ireland beat Italy, predictably, in Rome. France beat Scotland, thoroughly, in Paris. Scotland has not had a very good season. Until yesterday, neither had Wales; they had even managed to lose to Scotland. The last match of all yesterday was Wales v. England, in Cardiff. And Wales won. I’m afraid everybody in the Six Nations enjoys beating England (and seeing England beaten) most of all, so it was a grand climax to the day and to the season.

While I watched, I went on with the ribbing of the Wallaby sweater for a little Miles boy in The Yarn Yard’s March club offering. It was one of those days – we’ve all been there – when I seemed to rib and rib and rib with no result. Three times around, at least, for every round added to the work. But at last I finished, and attached the hand-painted yarn. (The ribbing is in the solid yarn.) I hope to do enough today to see how it’s going to work. I’m hoping for a sort of ikat effect.

Old friends from Boston are coming next week, and the Princess, for all her charms, is not company knitting. So a couple more days of this to get things thoroughly started. I think I’m a little bit afraid to pick up the Princess – can I still do it? Will I still enjoy it? But I felt those hesitations after the last long interval; I think I’ll be all right.

There’s lots of news on the VKB front. Soon.

I’m sure I explained about Laetare Sunday at tedious length last year, so I won’t go into it all again. One word shall suffice: cider.

We’re planning to go to Strathardle today – back in place on Sunday, insh’Allah. Daffodils are everywhere in Edinburgh; I hope we’ve got one or two there, for my March calendar picture. The weather forecast is good. My seed order has arrived. The potatoes are chitting in the dining room, not far from the Calcutta Cup ’06 sweater.

I blocked it as hoped, yesterday, and that’s a final picture of it until we see it on Alexander. I got the bit of extra girth I wanted in the blocking. I’m really quite pleased. The whole fun of blocking is going to visit and enjoy the result from time to time as it lies on the dining room floor.

This is a picture of Sunday’s and Monday’s work, securing those ends.

Ron – and everybody who has left a kind comment – this kind of knitting is really easy, once you have mastered knitting continental with the left hand and English with the right, and weaving, where necessary, as you go. I can’t knit continental with only one yarn, for some reason; but with two, there’s nothing to it. I learned, mysteriously, in the 60’s, from Mary Thomas’ Knitting Book, which has instructions for the weaving process. I don’t carry floats over more than three stitches, usually only two. The result is very tight, and needs a largish needle in compensation.

Then last night – not what I said I’d do next – I cast on for a Wallaby for a little Miles boy, with the The Yarn Yard yarn that Natalie dyed for me specially. It’s nice to knit with. I got about an inch done, maybe less: I committed the Fatal Error of picking up the work at a very early stage and setting off in the wrong direction. I guess it can happen at any stage, at least with ribbing. The mistake has been frogged and redeemed.

The link in that paragraph is to her page of one-off yarns. I covet that brickwork-and-lichen combination, but I Must Be Strong.

My plan remains to alternate small-boy-Wallaby and Princess, once I get the former established.

Other…

This is exciting news, that Eunny is to be editor of IK. The Curmudgeon says that the present editor, Pam Allen, is going to Classic Elite as creative director. She’ll be lost to me, in that position, and I’m sorry to see her go. The same sort of thing happened to Nancy Thomas, I think – former editor of both VK and Knitter’s. Another great editor.

But I hugely look forward to the day when Eunny picks up the reins. She is a brilliant and meticulous designer.

I bought VKB No. 13 yesterday, autumn 1938. I paid a lot, as I now expect to do for a pre-war issue. (For months and months, there were no VKB’s on offer of interest to me – suddenly, they’re as common as mail-order catalogues.)

The sale closed at 16:02 or something like that. I was so wrung-out when it was over that I didn’t even want to go back and watch the end of the match between England and France. It was a good one, but I couldn’t take any more excitement. England won.

Knitting

I surprised myself by finishing the loose-ending and grafting last night. The Calcutta Cup ’06 sweater is done except for blocking, which I hope to accomplish this morning.

Rosesmama, here’s a rather blurry image of the raglan shaping. I kept one stitch from the sleeve and one from the body in the background colour (whatever it happened to be) on every round. After joining body and sleeves, I knit about an inch straight, which was a mistake. I then decreased every other round, one stitch on each side of each raglan line, eight stitches in all eliminated on every decrease round.

Until the whole thing was so long it was time to stop, and get rid of the rest of the stitches in the neck border.

And, yes, isn’t Eunny's sweater absolutely wonderful? I meant to say so yesterday. Presumably we’ll see more of it in Jamieson’s Shetland Knitting Book 4. I can’t wait. Like you, I couldn’t possibly wear it, and wouldn’t trust myself to get the fit for a daughter or daughter-in-law who could: but I can still gasp in admiration. Interesting that she steeked that whole neckline.

I was very interested, too, in what you said about knitting socks-within-socks and the famous passage in War and Peace. I think I read somewhere once that no one could figure out how the fictional character did it – but now we know that you could and did.

Jean, the instructions in VKB No. 2 achieve a lined baby sweater by alternating wools as well as stitches: 1st row: in white, knit 1, bring wool to front of needle, slip 1, bring wool across front of slipped stitch to back to needle. Repeat throughout row. 2nd row, using pink but still on the right side of the work so you must have slipped the stitches back to the beginning of a dp needle, Slip the stitch knitted in the previous row, bring wool to front of needle, purl the stitch slipped in the previous row, bring wool to back to needle. The 3rd and 4th rows are done from the wrong side. In the 3rd you’re purling the white stitches, and in the 4th, knitting the pink ones. Clear as mud?

Maralyn and Tamar, thanks for bringing me up to speed on “URL”. I live quietly, and don’t talk to people who have need to mention such things, so it all goes on in my head. I have always said “earl” to myself, and so of course I wrote “an URL”. Alexander moves somewhat more in the real world, and was clearly right to pick me up on it.

Lene, if you’re still here, I really like your striped sweater. That ribbing at the side looks like a good idea. Do you have a formula for how much to put in?

The match was a thriller – Scotland lost by one point.

I finished knitting the Calcutta Cup ’06 sweater. The neckline came out better than I expected. I’ll leave it for now. We’re going to London in early April (alas!) and it can be tried on Alexander then and comments solicited from the whole party.

“Finished knitting” does not, of course, mean “finished”. I’m working on the ends – I’ve done both sleeves and am inching up the side. At least Fair Isle isn’t as bad as tidying up after Kaffe. (Yes, I weave the ends in as I go, but I never trust them not to un-weave themselves, so I secure them anyway.) Then there are the underarm stitches to be grafted, and the blocking. Fair Isle isn’t as malleable at the blocking stage as sweaters knit in single yarns, but I hope to be able to get a little bit more width on both body and sleeves.

Double knitting

The link Natalie supplied in a comment yesterday was missing an “L”. This is the correct version, which she sent me later:

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEfall06/FEATextreme2in1.html.

And see Kate’s comment yesterday for another very interesting article about the technique, from a different issue of Knitty. I’m going to have to keep a closer eye on that publication.

(I wrote “an URL” here not long ago, and Alexander pounced. It should be “a U.R.L.”, according to him. I asked Thomas-the-Elder yesterday over breakfast which way he said it, when he had to say it out loud. His reply was, “link”.)

VKB’s

Do follow up the very interesting link Lorna provided yesterday. The plain-vanilla link to the blog is http://www.almostrandom.com/needlesnhooks/. The writer has come into possession of a delicious stock of American Vogue Knittings.

She says, if you scroll down to the post where she introduces the collection, that there’s a gap in the 70’s. I suspect – I’ll have to contrive to find out – that it was a real gap, that after the VKB went down in the late 60’s, there was no Vogue Knitting for a while on either side of the Atlantic, until the present Vogue Knitting International rose phoenix-like from the ashes. To coin a phrase.

I wandered around American eBay for a while yesterday. If I were really serious about this, I’d have to visit it regularly. VKB No. 2, the real VKB, the No. 2 I bought last Sunday, is on offer there. If No. 2, why not others?

American sellers are generous with illustrations, and there is no doubt that there is a considerable -- ?total -- overlap of patterns between VKB and the American magazine. I was particularly interested in the American Fall/Winter 1961 – the American ones are dated, thank goodness -- because I think I actually knit the pattern on the cover. But I knit it in 1956 or, less likely, ’55, when I was an undergraduate in Glasgow. By 1961 I was knee-deep in small children. I’ll buy that issue if it doesn’t fetch big bucks.

What a day for pleasant surprises.

Our eldest grandson, Thomas-the-Elder, is here, on his way to Murrayfield to watch Scotland, almost certainly, lose to Ireland at rugby. He’ll be out carousing with friends this evening, but spent yesterday evening with his aged grandparents, by whom his company was much enjoyed.

Marcella has written to me with the name of a plant that repels rabbits!

Natalie of The Yarn Yard has written to say that the yarn she dyed for me specially, to knit a sweater for a small grandson, is on its way and should arrive today.

VKB

I bought VKB No. 29 on eBay yesterday, for a stiff but not quite black-tulip price. A few minutes later, the same seller sold No. 31 for one-third of what I had just paid. It’s a funny business. It was a highly significant purchase for me, in that I now have all the post-war VKB’s.

I also have a couple of tattered American ones, which I got a fair while ago in a swap with Judy Sumner of Knitlist fame. I looked at them yesterday, and discovered that “Vogue’s Knitting Book, 6th Edition” is copyright 1945. That’s a significant discovery. By 1945, the VKB was well into its second decade. Autumn, 1945, was VKB no. 27. That surely means that the British VKB was the original.

We spent the academic year 1960-61 in Northampton, MA. As I remember it, I didn’t knit at all that year – this was in the days before Webs. But I have a memory, it’s funny how trivial memories sometimes adhere, of picking up Vogue’s Knitting Book in a supermarket and flicking through it and not buying it because I already had the current VKB back home in Glasgow, and the patterns were largely the same.

So what I now need to do is seek out the American eBay and buy a date-able Vogue Knitting from the 50’s or early 60’s, and compare patterns to see if memory is accurate. Maybe if I’m lucky, the American magazine will have easy-to-find dates. Anything will do, and lacking-a-cover is fine, so it shouldn’t cost too much.

My friend Helen delivered Nos. 2 and 5 yesterday, purchased on Super Sunday. They’re good. For now, I will just mention that No. 2 has a baby jacket which, for just about the first time in all this book-collecting, makes me want to throw everything aside and knit it.

There is a technique called “double knitting” which I have read about but never tried, where you knit with two balls of yarn at once and by means of slipping stitches, and slipping whole rows back to the beginning of a dp needle, wind up with two conjoined pieces of fabric. The jacket in Vogue is perfectly simple, practically Vibeke Lind: you cast on at the lower back, knit straight up, add more stitches for the sleeves, divide at the neck and knit the fronts downward. And at the end you have a simple baby jacket – lined.

The cast-on and cast-off edges would automatically be joined. Would the selvedges? Vogue just says to finish the edges with “twisted cord”.

Other…

I should mention that I’m now doing the neck of the Calcutta Cup sweater. It’s almost certainly too big, but I might as well finish and see for sure. More tomorrow.

And that I mean to pursue the subject of Jane Waller and her books. Thanks, commenters.

Calcutta Cup sweater

I reached the lower-neck-shaping point yesterday, and got seriously to grips with it: sweater and pattern-sweater spread out on the floor; pen, paper, calculator, measuring-tape to hand. But before I got very far, I reflected.

When I reach the desired length – it should happen today – I will have a good many more than 40%K stitches. Meg says that’s fine; decrease them in the first round of the neck edging. (I must have miscalculated when sleeves were attached to body – I did a whole inch or so without shaping; clearly I shouldn’t have.)

But if I leave stitches behind for the neck now, and perhaps decrease a few more on either side of the neck before I finish, the decreases just mentioned will have to bunch on the remaining stitches. Won’t that unbalance things? The front will be wider than the back? Would that matter?

So I didn’t do anything, and am proceeding to the neck on all stitches. I will then try to raise the back with the neckband as we have been discussing, Xmasberry. I suspect you’re right that the difference between EZ’s treatments of the different sweaters may stem from the fact that one had colour patterns and the other didn’t.

But I remain determined to try again if the first attempt doesn’t succeed. I can still cut.

VKB

I’ve been revelling in my new purchases.

Number 9 is autumn, ’36. There is no hint of storm clouds gathering, or of the Depression. All is close-fitting, fine wools, one size per garment (although there are two patterns designed for a 38-inch bust measurement, one of them actually labelled “Suit for the Larger Woman”.) Suits figure prominently. The skirts are unlined, which seems odd to me. There are lots of sporty sweaters, all pretty trim to the modern eye, intended, according to the text, for golf and ski-ing and winter cruises.

There is even, oddly, a “Warm Coat for Winter Tennis”. It looks too bulky for tennis in any season.

The ads are wonderful, as ever. I am particularly taken with an ad for a Bairns-Wear layette leaflet – the cover shows a baby in the arms of a fully uniformed nurse: not a hospital nurse, I am sure, but a domestic employee, a “monthly nurse.” No mother in sight.

There is a full-page ad for Vogue itself. It came out fortnightly in those days, and included a knitting or crochet design in every issue. “Vogue is a life saver for the smartly poor.”

Non-knit

Here is a picture which turned up yesterday of grandson Fergus of Thessaloniki on holiday in Egypt last Christmas.

I think I have decided to go for steeking, on that neckline. I’ll have to take action today or tomorrow.

It’s interesting what you say about shaping, Xmasberry. In fact, EZ does exactly what you suggest (great minds…) in the neckline of the Seamless Yoke Sweater, in KWT: that is, build up the back neck by short-rowing in the neckband itself. A yoke sweater is the same as a raglan until the point where sleeves and body are joined. After that, the decreases are clustered in their own rows, with a couple of inches of plain knitting between each. It reduces to about 40% K for the neck, just like the raglan.

So, couldn’t one use that technique for the raglan? But she doesn’t mention the possibility, and the raglan is in the very next chapter, so I’m wary.

The one comfort is that frogging is not impossible, and now that we’re talking about only a neckline’s-worth of stitches, it’s not even too daunting a prospect. I’m determined to get a decent-looking neckline one way or another.

VKB’s

Our treasures – Sunday’s expensive purchases -- arrived safely yesterday. My friend Helen has the two earlier ones, Nos. 2 and 5. We’re certainly not going to trust the Royal Mail a second time. I will wait patiently and cheerfully until she next happens to be passing.

Meanwhile she has copied out these two delicious paragraphs for us:

From No. 2, spring 1933:

"Practically all the garments in this book are new and really original designs. We hope you will like them, but if you have a weakness for classic cardigans and pullovers, you will find some interesting interpretations in Vogue's 1st Book of Knitting and Crochet. A few copies of this magazine are still on sale at good bookstalls, price 1/6 or 1/9 post paid from Vogue, 1 New Bond Street, London, W.1."


Helen adds, “If only…” At least we now know that the first VKB is labelled “1st”. I had often wondered if I’d recognise it – they might have published something and only later decided to make it the first of a series.

We’re often on New Bond Street when we’re in London, cruising the art dealers. I must have a reverent look at that address next time. Vogue was there right through the war.

Here’s the other, from No. 5:

"£50 or a thrilling holiday abroad this winter! Plan a charming original outfit for yourself or your baby. Choose your colour scheme from Viyella's 100 lovely shades..." 1st prize could be a Cook's Winter Sports holiday, 15 days for two people, value £63.00. 2nd prize could be a Cook's Tour to Italy, 14 days for two people, or £15 in cash. Most interestingly, "If the winner is a blind worker, 5 guineas will be added to each 1st, 2nd or 3rd prize."

Janet (comment yesterday), it would be wonderful if your friend could find some 40’s VKBs. I will happily pay her an average eBay price (that’s a lot, I’m afraid) for any I don’t have, and we could help her offer the others on eBay herself. She could be in for a very pleasant surprise.

Swapna, welcome home!

I’ve been thinking about the neckline of the Calcutta Cup ’06 sweater.

In the original text for the EPS seamless sweater, in Knitting Without Tears, EZ says to leave some of the stitches of the front on a holder about 2” short of the final length, and work the last decreases back and forth on the remaining stitches. Now, if there’s one thing that’s horrible, it’s purling Fair Isle. I read somewhere once that knitters on the northern islands will cut the yarn at the end of every row and go back and re-attach it at the other end, rather than purl.

I could do that. I think I have done it, at some point in my Fair Isle past. I could set my jaw and suffer 2” of working back and forth. I could steek the neck – I’ll get Feitelson and Starmore out today and read about that. I could knit on up and cut out a neckline afterwards, without steeking. I’ve done that too.

Meg doesn’t have much of anything to say about this in her re-workings of the EPS, in Woolgathering and the Knitter’s Magazine series. But she does raise the back with short rows, which I can’t do because of the pattern.

In the chapter on colour knitting, in KWT, the chapter with the famous account of cutting a steek and then going to lie down in a darkened room, the neck is initially straight, and EZ suggests various ways of building it up, including the Norwegian neck by which I am rather struck.

In the new Woolgathering, Meg says of her gansey, “A boat-neck is all very well, and simple, but it usually catches the wearer across the Adam’s Apple, so shaping is a kindness.”

Maybe I should put all the stitches on a thread and try the Calcutta Cup sweater on myself. Alexander and I aren’t grotesquely different in size.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

My friend and agent Helen came for coffee yesterday. We haven’t got our hands on Sunday’s purchases yet, but had plenty to talk about anyway. She has furnished me with a delicious list of knitting blogs and, as if I needed them, yarn sources. I’ll report when I’ve had a browse.

She also brought and left behind her father’s glorious gansey, pictured here recently. More about that later, too. It’s a wonderful garment.

And, a propos of nothing much, I do like the beret pattern Grumperina has posted. It might be just the thing for a future Yarn Yard club offering. I love berets.

I felt sort of uneasy about how much money I had spent on knitting on Sunday, so yesterday I eased my conscience by spending even more.

In the morning I ordered Solveig Hisdal’s “Poetry in Stitches” and the Bohn “Norwegian Knitting Designs” book we were talking about, through Abebooks. I did it before I had seen your comments, Brigid, offering another source for the latter. I’m afraid to compare prices.

At midday the new Wool Gathering arrived, always an event. I ordered some more books from Meg.

Best of all, I wrote to Natalie at The Yarn Yard to ask if she had any more yarn like the March Club offering, so that I could knit a sweater for a little Miles boy – and she has dyed some for me specially! I’ve just had an email from her saying that it’s drying in front of the Aga.

My plan, when the Calcutta Cup ’06 sweater (above) is finished, is to spend a couple of weeks settling back into the saddle with Princess knitting, and then divide the week between that and the little-boy sweater. There’ll still be plenty of time to get Barak elected. Maybe Theo’s cashmere Koigu could follow on after Ketki’s gansey as Strathardle knitting. If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans for tomorrow.

Woolgathering

The project this time is a gansey. It’s rather interesting, to line Meg’s instructions up against Ketki’s gansey.

Don’t choose a vertical pattern, she says. They tend to pull in like ribbing, and be unflattering. Well, I’ve used a vertical pattern.

Keep the gussets in reverse st st, she says (brilliant!) so that they recede. “This keeps them out of the way visually, but they’re there when needed for flailing about.” Well, I haven’t done that.

Perpendicular shoulder straps are handsome, she says. I’m about to embark on mine.

And she likes the Channel Island cast on and split garter-stitch welt. I’ve done that.

I’ll take the booklet to Strathardle next time, for help in sloping the shoulder.

Comments

Judith, have you approached the Knitting and Crochet Guild about your Monarch books? They have a library as well as a museum of knitted things. Another possibility might be a library in Lerwick. I feel, perhaps sentimentally, that they take things more seriously up there. I’ve left all my stuff in my will to a knitting lawyer friend, postponing the problem.

Ron, yes, I’m trying to stick with EZ’s percentage system for the sweater. Meg says 35-40% of K for the top of the sleeve – I read somewhere that she altered her mother’s proportions slightly. I’ve got 39%; I fiddled around a bit to ensure that both body and sleeve, at that point, had a complete set of 18-stitch pattern repeats.

Super Sunday

There won’t be another day like that for awhile.

I bought four VKB’s yesterday, and a copy of “Vogue Service Woolies”. Strictly speaking, I bought two VKB’s, and my friend and agent Helen secured the other two, while we were at Mass.

I am very much poorer this morning, and rather bemused. Two of the VKB’s went for solid but not unreasonable prices; for the other two we were bidding as if they were black tulips. The Service Woolies was rather cheap, perhaps because “Vogue” had been misspelled in its listing and it failed to turn up on collectors’ search lists. It’s easily done. My sister recently gave me an equivalent American WW2 publication: it will be interesting to compare them.

The ones I bought yesterday were nos. 2, 5, 9 and 22. I have been at this VKB-eBay caper for nine months now. Only once before has a single-digit VKB been offered for sale – no. 6 came up last June; I was outbid in the last-minute scramble.

It’s not hard to figure out that people who were knitting during the war are of an age to be dropping off the perch right now, and thanks to eBay, their knitting magazines are no longer shovelled straight into the skip. It is pleasant to think how many VKB’s eBay must have saved from extinction. When I began buying on eBay, my highest ambition was to own a wartime VKB. I’ve now got eight of the twelve.

But people who were knitting in the 30’s are rather rarer. Their attics have already been swept out. That’s why yesterday was so extraordinary, and probably won’t happen again.

I would have been glad of an email from the seller last night, thanking me for prompt payment and promising to send my purchases today. That sometimes happens. It didn’t, this time. Instead, she spent the evening -- in a state of astonishment and delight, I am sure -- listing some more of her mother’s old knitting magazines. I don’t want any of them, fortunately for my bank balance. She is tia18ch, if you want to have a look.

There were a couple of Stitchcraft magazines from the ‘30’s in yesterday’s lot. They made solid but not Vogue-like prices.

A full report will follow, needless to say, when I’ve actually got my hands on my treasures.

Meanwhile, knitting

Sure enough, I didn’t need any of the new yarn for the Calcutta Cup ’06 sweater last night. I certainly will today. It should be about right for another picture tomorrow.

Janet, to double back, I don’t know the book "Norwegian Knitting Designs" by Annichen Sibbern Bohn which you mention in your comment for Saturday. I’ll have a go at Abebooks. Thank you.

And the eclipse…

Lene, it must have been especially wonderful to see it from the countryside. My husband kept saying all day yesterday how wonderful it would have been in Kirkmichael. I’m sorry to hear you missed it in Baltimore, rosesmama. If it’s any comfort, James couldn’t see it in Peking, either. He’s keen on astronomy these days, and had even thought of checking into a high-rise hotel for a good view, but in the end it rained.

Non-knit

We had an absolutely stunning lunar eclipse last night. I’ve never seen anything like it – and the whole show was on offer from our doorstep in Drummond Place. One of the newspaper articles in advance of the event said that the Crucifixion can be dated from such an event in Judea in 32 or 33 AD (authorities differ). I couldn’t find any mention of such a thing by flipping through a bible, or looking up “moon” in Cruden’s Concordance, but good old Google had no trouble: the reference is to Acts Chapter 2, St Peter’s sermon in which he quotes the prophet Joel about the moon turning to blood. There it was – I saw it last night.

Back to business…

Both packages of yarn turned up in the post.

After yesterday’s panic, it will be mildly interesting to see how long I can in fact knit on, on the Calcutta Cup ’06 sweater, before I have to tie in some new yarn. Two colours are down to their last few yards, but as it happens, neither of them is in play at the moment.

However, the big excitement of the day was the other package, the The Yarn Yard club March offering. It’s stunning – springtime expressed in yarn. My camera is probably capable of much better than this, but my photographic abilities don’t match.

What I want to do is get hold of some more, if I can – maybe some other club member is getting snowed under with unknit socks – and knit a Wallaby-type sweater for one of the little Miles boys, with the ribbing and the wallaby pouch in the solid colour. I measured the boys when we were last in London, and asked them what their favourite colours were.

Alas, I didn’t record the answers. One said “blue” and the other said “green”, in the tone of people producing any-old-answer under duress. I can’t remember which was which, but with this yarn it wouldn’t matter.

I can use the pattern I worked out for Fergus Drake of Thessaloniki a year or so ago. Fergus is five today – Happy Birthday, boy! The original was knit in Rowan 4ply Soft, and I think would translate perfectly.

So when are you going to have time to do that, Jean?

Other…

Jayne sent me this URL this morning: http://greatwarfiction.wordpress.com/2007/02/27/knitting/. Don’t miss.

Odds and ends, today.

No yarn from Jamieson & Smith yesterday (no post yet today) – I didn’t expect it to take even this long, and I am going to grind to a halt on the Calcutta Cup '06 sweater soon if it doesn't arrive (to coin a phrase).

Well spotted on my stitch-markers, Moorecat! My husband is much given to recycling. I have a little shot-glass on the coffee table containing markers – some real ones (I like the rubber ones Patternworks used to sell, maybe still does); some re-cycled, which he contributes; some curtain rings.

And, yes, quite a few stitches have been left behind at the underarm, to be grafted later. I’m working to Elizabeth’s Percentage System, first fully expressed in Knitting Without Tears. The number of stitches in the body is the basic number (“K”, for some reason) and the rule is to leave 8-10% of K behind at the underarm, on both body and sleeve of course. It’s quite a lot.

In my First Fair Isle Stage, in the 70’s, I worked out seamless-sweater-knitting for myself without having even heard of Elizabeth Zimmermann. I used to leave far fewer stitches behind at the underarm – or could it have been, none at all? The result was that the first couple of inches of the yoke were agonisingly tight to knit as one went around the sleeve. EZ’s way turns out to be perfectly comfortable. There’ll be quite a bit of grafting, but I positively enjoy grafting.

I got out Mrs Gaugain’s “Lady’s Knitting, Netting and Crochet Book” in pursuit of the discussion of the last couple of days, about old knitting terms. Again (as with Therese de Dillmont), she explains her abbreviations, and I don’t think it would be at all hard to follow them if one buckled down to it. Bishop Rutt says, by the way, that the abbreviations now in use were devised for Weldon’s Practical Needlework in 1906. The more I look things up in Rutt’s book, the more I admire it.

I looked up the Shetland shawl pattern I mentioned yesterday, in Mrs Gaugain's book. It’s the construction I wonder about here. It seems to be knitted from side to side, in one piece. It is edged with garter stitch – six rows to begin, and then six stitches at each edge as one proceeds; another six rows at the end. Finally, you’re meant to fringe it. The author says, most engagingly, “I shall endeavour to give a description of a knotted fringe…in the next following receipt; though I am doubtful I can explain it so as to be clearly understood by all knitters.”

Plus ca change…

It would be fun to try. I wonder if Sowerby has ever had a go at it. I might at least try to chart it one day.

Change of subject…

I had an email from Leigh Witchel this morning: very in-the-swim-of-things, me! He sought help with some articles he is writing, which I couldn’t provide, but the quest sent me to my Scandinavian shelf, and I was glad to be reminded again of Britt-Marie Christofferson’s “Swedish Sweaters”. It’s absolutely stuffed with interesting historical stuff, and sweaters I’d like to knit. One day.

Here’s the current state of play of the Calcutta Cup ’06 sweater, with an attempted close-up of the raglan shaping. I’ve elected to dedicate only one stitch each from body and sleeve to serve as the decrease points and to be knit in the background colour every round.

The Nesting Shawl pattern turned up yesterday. It’s stunning, and most unusual. Now all I need is a great-grandchild.

No yarn yet. I’m waiting for the order from Jamieson & Smith, to keep me going on the sweater; and for The Yarn Yard club March offering. In the latter case, waiting is a good deal of the fun.

Comments

Sarah, one gets nowhere by clicking on the “knittingand” link that came with your comment yesterday – but the URL you actually provided in the comment works fine. What a lot of work you’ve done, and what a valuable resource you have created!

Therese de Dillmont provides an explanation of her terms at the beginning of the booklet I mentioned yesterday. I’m sure you’re right about “1 purl intake”.

Bishop Rutt says that Mrs Gaugain, in the 1840’s, was the first to publish a Shetland shawl pattern. I think I’ve got it, and will try to have a look today when I should be doing something else – just to see if I can follow the general idea. Sowerby in “Victorian Lace Today” is good and interesting on Mrs Gaugain.

While I was wandering around your site, Sarah, I found your Kids Knit book which I think I’ll have to get for my grandson Alistair. He got started knitting when he was with us in Kirkmichael last summer, and he was seriously good at it – just like the St-Paul-on-the-Road-to-Damascus pupil whom Franklin describes in Wednesday’s post. But he didn’t bring his knitting along when they came for Christmas, and seemed rather evasive on the subject. I’m rather afraid that gender stereotypes may be submerging him. I’ll try again. His sister Rachel also knits but so far doesn’t show Alistair’s ability.

Jean, I will hold you to your promise of an account of the LYS’s in suburban Surrey, the very first time I visit Carshalton.

Full speed ahead with the Calcutta Cup ’06 yoke. The rounds are lengthy, but nothing like a row of Princess-border-knitting – and they’re getting shorter, by eight stitches every two rounds. The difference will be sensible soon. I continue pleased both with progress and with the anticipated result.

I had a moment, the other day, of imagining a future when it’s finished which would consist of months divided between Princess-knitting and The Yarn Yard club offering. But where would that leave cashmere Koigu – the Shapely Shawlette, and Theo’s Barak-electing sweater? Life is too short.

My friend the Socklady recently sent me, out of sheer kindness, a substantial booklet by Therese de Dillmont (called “Knitting IIIrd Series”). It consists of lace edgings and insertions, and it’s seriously good.

For de Dillmont, see Bishop Rutt’s History of Hand Knitting. The booklet is undated, but he says that she died in 1890, which makes it somewhat earlier than I would have guessed. I have tried, rather gingerly, to scan a page without straining the binding.

The instructions seem very lucid, although not framed in the language we are used to. “1 over, 1 purled intake, knit 2, 1 purled intake, 2 overs…” I think I could do it if I set myself to it, but reading through the instructions filled me with renewed admiration for Jane Sowerby, who struggled with far worse when she was working on Victorian Lace Today – and with such magnificent results.

De Dillmont isn’t included in that book. Her work was early translated into English, but Sowerby restricts herself (wisely, I think) to actual English sources. Therese de Dillmont’s magnum opus is her Encyclopedia of Needlework. I’ve got it – in fact, it was one of my husband’s family books and came to our shelves with marriage many decades ago.

Place and Nationality

Yes, Dawn, I feel American, perhaps increasingly with age. There are days at a stretch when it doesn’t occur to me, and when I forget that (as you say, Janet) I identify myself whenever I open my mouth. I haven’t been to America for more than four years now: I find it confusing. I don’t understand, any longer, how to do things there. But that’s another matter. At least both you and I have taken rugby on board, Janet. I fear Ireland is going to make mincemeat of Scotland this year.

Jean, where is Carshalton? Is that suburban Surrey? James and Cathy have just bought a house there, although they don’t have much ides when they will leave Beijing and come and live in it. So perhaps one day I will be familiar with that part of the world.

I had the feeling you mention, about Celticness, very strongly when granddaughter Kirsty, James and Cathy’s daughter, was baptised in Gulval, a village near Penzance. Cathy’s father is a Cornishman, and lots of family remains in the vicinity. I left Edinburgh on a bonny, sunny day, travelled through frost and ice through England, and felt at the end not only that I had travelled through winter back into spring, but also through a different land, and I that I was back among Celts. Some of Cathy’s cousins are market gardeners. I talked at the party about potato-growing, and I remember that one does not mention Jersey Royals to a Cornish potato farmer.

I’ve done a half-pattern-repeat, nine rows, on the Calcutta Cup sweater yoke, and have embarked on the first decrease round. All seems to be going well. Picture soon. I ordered the needful extra yarn from Jamieson and Smith.

My new copy of VKB 36, complete with cover, turned up promptly and has been given its place in the archives.

Thank you for the suggestion about backing faulty VKB’s, Anonymous. I’ll look into it. There are only two or three I’d really like to replace. Most eBay sellers send them out in nice plastic sleeves, which of course I retain.

Most VKB’s are undated, and most eBay sellers (except for the few who are in on the system) guess a later date than the correct one as they offer one for sale, -- a compliment to Vogue’s style, I think. But the Coronation makes an appearance in some of the advertisements in what must therefore be the Spring, ’53 issue, and it is possible to count forward and back from there. Since discovering that, I have bought a couple of immediate-post-war issues which actually have a date on the cover, and confirm my calculations.

(As far as I can remember, 9/11 is the only other contemporary event to intrude on those pages, in the modern incarnation of the magazine. The war is ever-present in the wartime issues, in the form of rationing and the need to keep warm, but there is no reference to Dunkirk or Pearl Harbour or el Alamein.)

I have just worked out, contemplating my VKB Desiderata List, that its life began when mine did, if one counts one’s intrauterine months as I believe the Chinese do. If it was published regularly twice a year from beginning to end – which I am now sure it was, right through the war – the first issue must have come out in the autumn of 1932. I was born in August, ’33. So there’s a factoid for you.

Moving on…

Some weeks ago I mentioned a stunning gansey, from Eriskay, which belonged to a friend’s father. She has now photographed it for me – for us all, as I have her permission to share these pictures. I love those silver buttons.

These pictures are all of the same sweater. I am sorry to throw them at you higgelty-piggelty, but I think you'll be happiest seeing them all. The pattern is concentrated on the upper yoke, as you see. The craftsmanship and attention to detail are breathtaking.

Jean, if you go out in the rain this morning and cut an armful of that Cornish forsythia, I guarantee that you’ll have a better vase-ful than mine this time next week. Nothing forces so wonderfully as forsythia. My mother always loved to do it. It lights up the winter.

Tamar, you may be right about fertiliser. In its early years, our bush lived in my vegetable garden, to protect it from rabbits. And therefore was exposed to the manure I spread, and that’s highly nitrogenous, I think. Now we have banished the forsythia to a conspicuous but hard-to-reach spot in the wilderness, where it seems to be doing better.

Anyway, knitting

I joined the Calcutta Cup ’06 sweater into one piece yesterday and, sure enough, it’s fun. My husband admired it last night: a rare compliment. I finished a skein of yarn, so today I’ll have to get in touch with Jamieson & Smith in Lerwick, making a strenuous effort not to order too much to-be-on-the-safe-side. The ball I polished off was one of the four background browns. I’m using them at random, so I can go on without it for a while.

Alexander, for whom it is destined, is 47 today. Happy Birthday, Alexander. He was born in 1960, as some simple arithmetic will reveal, so that from February 27th onward every year, his age ends with the same digit as the current year. When I have to remember how old anyone else is, I count forward or back from Alexander.

And I ordered Sharon’s Nesting Shawl, at least partly for its lovely name. I can’t see life being long enough to let me get around to knitting it, but you never know.

VKB No. 41, autumn ’52 I think, sold for £22 on eBay yesterday. I wasn’t involved. That’s three times what I paid for No. 36 the day before. There seems to be little or no rhyme or reason to the prices, as far as I can see. It turns out that my No. 41 has its cover, anyway – I’d like to replace it because it’s in bad shape, held together with dried-out and yellowed Sellotape, but at least it’s complete. And I’m only here for the knitting.

Janet (comment yesterday), I don’t think I’ve ever attempted a top-down design. I’m wary of them, for some reason, although I’ve got Barbara Walker’s book. It’s not an absolute no-no, like bobbles. Maybe one day.

I finished the second sleeve, to the very last stitch, but got no further. Insh’Allah, a picture tomorrow of the whole thing put together. I did the arithmetic; it all seems to work out rather well. Elizabeth’s Percentage System must somehow resonate with the universe.

To be specific, leaving 8% of K unattached at the underarms on each sleeve and at the corresponding points on the body (32% K abandoned altogether) leaves enough stitches that if you then decrease 8 of them every other row, as instructed, until 40%K are left for the neck – the yoke comes out quite a reasonable size! I want it a little longer, so I’ll do half a dozen plain rows first. All the instructions are terribly keen on some short-rowing at this point, but the pattern forbids that.

The only other news on the knitting front concerns VKB on eBay.

We’ve had a long lull lately. Last night I bought, for what seemed to me a very reasonable price, No. 36, spring 1950, because my copy lacks its cover and this one was described as being in good condition, including a cover. I may even, for the first time, have reaped the benefit of late bidding and steady nerves.

I wasn’t going to put in my nuclear bid just for a cover, and I wasn’t too agitated about whether I got it or not. My bid, by good fortune, was 30p higher than the underbidder’s one. You can’t tell how high the opposition is willing to go, in eBay, until you enter a bid. Then, the maximum the opposition has specified will either outbid you at once with no further action on their part, or you’ll be top and their maximum will be revealed.

The latter scenario was what happened in this case, and I may have moved so late that she didn’t have time to re-think and re-group. Another of my coverless ones is coming up this afternoon, but that's already too expensive, I fear.

Comments

That’s interesting, Gwen, about KnitPicks needles being heavy. The one I’m using for the Princess – I got it from Sharon, I’m pretty sure – is wonderfully light. Part of the pleasure is the glorious lightness of the whole thing, lying in one’s lap like a misplaced cloud.

In having a quick look at the Heirloom Knitting site just now, to make sure I had the right URL for the link, I saw that there’s a new pattern, the Nesting Shawl. Hmmm.

Non-knit

Hozzat? as I gather we say in cricket.



We have a forsythia bush in Strathardle which we put in at least 10 years ago. It grows and flourishes, but doesn’t go in much for flowering. The only suggestion the books can make is that you’re pruning too hard, if that happens. Certainly not our problem. Last week, before we left, I cut a few branches to bring home for forcing – and look what we’ve got! It can be hard to tell the difference between a leaf bud and a flower bud, with forsythia, so all this golden delight has unfolded before our delighted eyes since the return.

We might as well get it out of the way first…

Scotland disgraced themselves. It was the first time in the five? years that Italy have been playing in the Six Nations championship, that they won a match away from Rome. They haven’t won all that many in Rome, either. They won yesterday, here in Edinburgh.

Then came Dublin. By that time, it was tea-time. My husband doesn’t enjoy watching rugby, and doesn’t entirely approve of it, so I didn’t see much of that match. The anthem-singing bit went off in a perfectly grown-up fashion, and then Ireland won by an even larger margin than Italy’s over Scotland. I’m happy for you, Janet.

I am sorry my remark yesterday was interpreted by some commenters to mean that I didn’t like Ireland or the Irish. I didn’t mean that at all. I love 'em. What I don’t like is nationalism (off the rugby field). I am sad when the British Isles behave like the Balkans.

That remark will no doubt get me into worse trouble. I am sure Bulgaria is a very nice place.

Lace Knitting

Many thanks for the helpful comments on that subject. I will defer without hesitation to the unanimous opinion, expressed first by Laritza (whose work I know), and stick with my present 2.25mm needle for the rest of the Princess.

But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t try a 2.5’er for a future project. I was especially glad to hear from you, koigu-courier, because my latest message to you (not important) has bounced twice. At least we can communicate this way. The trouble seems to be with googlemail – a message to Rachel in London bounced last night.

I’d love to have a look at the KnitPick lace needles when you’re here. In fact, why don’t I commission you here and now to bring me a long 2.5mm one? I followed the link you provided in yesterday’s comment, Moorecat, and was seriously impressed.

Knitting knitting

I think I may finish the second sleeve today. Then comes the fun bit.

Mostly I’m relying on Meg’s re-stating of EPS in the four issues of Knitter’s in 2000, but yesterday I had another look at The Source (Knitting Without Tears) and today I must also consult the issue of Woolgathering – I’ve used it before – where Meg treats of the subject.

I’ll have to do some arithmetic, too.

At the moment, I’m rather taken with the Norwegian Collar which I found in KWT.

Big excitement yesterday, then disillusion, then renewed interest…

I learned from Grumperina (whose blog I regularly read) that Skacel, the Addi Turbo people, have been induced to bring out a lace needle. It’s got to be wonderful, with that matchless Addi Turbo join – one spends an awful lot of time, in lace knitting, easing the stitches over the join. I don’t entirely mind, but it takes time.

The new Addi laces have got a sharper point than other Addi Turbo’s, too, but not so sharp, apparently, that they draw blood. That’s important, too.

Hence, big excitement.

Then I examined the Skacel page carefully, and discovered that the smallest gauge for the new needles is 2.5mm. My dear Princess is being knit on a 2.25. Would the difference matter? It’s less than a needle size. But I simply wouldn’t dare take the chance, would I?

Hence, disillusion.

But I feel stouter-hearted this morning. Perhaps I’ll pose the question to the Heirloom Knitting group.

Meanwhile the Calcutta Cup ’06 sleeve progressed. A couple more evenings should see it done.

Non-knit

I should have introduced before now the new websites in the “Who’s Who in the Family” section over there in the sidebar.

My nephew Theo, one of my most faithful readers, has started a “family blog” to which he and his parents contribute. I hope it prospers, and I expect to learn a lot.

My daughter-in-law Catherine Sampson has launched her own website. As I remember it, James rushed out and secured the URL catherinesampson.com as soon as she signed her first contract with Macmillan’s. That was three or four years ago: this is its first appearance in action, heralding the publication of her third thriller this coming summer. The website is full of interesting things, and good pictures. Have a look.

Even Less Knit

Today is a big rugby day, with all six nations playing. That means that one of the more interesting matches, France v. Wales, will be played entirely at night, kickoff 8 p.m. GMT which is presumably even later in France. I deeply disapprove.

Italy are here in Edinburgh. Scotland ought to win. The best match of the day could turn out to be Ireland v. England in Dublin. Because the rugby stadium is being revamped, they will play in “Croke Park”, a place with a nationalist history. There could be protests before people with long memories let “God Save the Queen” be sung there. The match itself could be good. Ireland have a real chance. Normally, I’m happy to see England beaten at anything, but I have Feelings about Irish nationalism which weigh on the other side today.

As I thought – that sleeve, on one circular, fairly hums along. It won’t be long now…and then I must start some serious thinking about necklines.

What is it about spring? The knitting magazines are all utterly blah, or approaching that state, and here we are wanting to buy all the yarn there is, and knit everything we can imagine. Franklin even wants to learn to crochet granny squares. (It’s a stunning scarf, Franklin, and granny squares are easy and fun. Crede expertae.) It’s something about reading blogs and seeing what everyone is doing and wanting to do it all oneself. It's something about spring.

Comments

If the worst comes to the worst and I have to knit a toy as my Games entry this year, I’ll look first for a pattern for a mermaid which I knit for granddaughter Hellie a good many years ago. She loved it, and eventually it sort of wore out; I’m sure she’d like another one. Hellie always seems to be the one who winds up with my Games entry.

And, Kate, that’s a good idea, about trying to get onto the Home Industries Tent committee myself. I doubt if it would work, because our visits are so irregular. And it would also mean, of course, that I would have to think of things for the knitting section. There is always a choice of two things: one daft, like a lavatory roll cover, and one fairly sensible, if we’re lucky. Thinking of things is harder than complaining about what the committee comes up with: but hey! we haven’t been asked for a scarf in any recent year that I can remember. There’s an idea, for free.

I hope your pregnancy goes forward without further incident, after that grim beginning. And no, shamefully, I’ve never seen the Falkirk Wheel. It does indeed look fascinating. If it’s any comfort, we have some prospect of taking the boat out to the ruins of Inchcolm Abbey, on an island in the Firth of Forth. Every year since we moved to Edinburgh, we say, we really must… and every year we don’t get around to it. But next month some old friends from Boston are coming to see us, and this could be the moment.

One year at the Festival they did Macbeth there, starting with the witches moving among the passengers on the boat. Boy am I sorry I missed that.

Deb, I learned “insh’Allah” from my daughter, too. She and her family – this is Helen we're talking about, in Thessaloniki – went back to Cairo for Christmas. She and her husband met and married there, and hadn’t been back for 10 years or more, and found it sadly changed, rich and poor segregated from each other, everybody hostile.

Odds and Ends

I got the 2nd sleeve of the Calcutta Cup ’06 sweater onto one needle last night – it’s a bit of a stretch, which doesn’t matter and will soon ease. Things should go much faster now. Pic tomorrow, insh’Allah. I’m perhaps half-way up, measured vertically.

“Knitting” (which I never got around to cancelling) and IK were waiting when we got back from the country. Nothing I’d knit in either, as usual for spring. It’s fun in IK, though, to find contributions from people whose blogs I read.

Three skeins of cashmere Koigu – destined for a Shapely Shawlette, and as the outriders for nephew Theo’s get-Barak-elected sweater – have arrived in North Dakota at the home of the kind friend who will carry them to Edinburgh next month. She reports well of them.

The programme for the ’07 Strathardle Highland Gathering Home Industries Tent still hasn’t been published, but Mary in the shop (who is on the committee) thinks that the main knitting item is going to be a children’s toy. Gloom.

I’ll have to have the Calcutta Cup sweater finished in time for Alexander to wear it on the 4th Saturday in August. That shouldn’t be difficult.

Here’s the ritual picture of my vegetable plot, as it appeared day before yesterday, with the rhubarb-forcing pot in place. It doesn’t look very promising, but some years at this season it looks as if it had gone out of cultivation altogether.

Comments

Mhairi, I love “Helen’s Lace”, in the Lorna’s Laces range, for coloured lace. In my slow-paced reconstruction of my website in its new home, I’ve got a few lace items in place: they were all done with that yarn. Not that the colour photography is very reliable. I think there are British sources for at least some of the range.

Southern Gal, I know about knitting-back-backwards, and have laboriously succeeded in doing it, but I don’t enjoy it, so I don’t persevere. Maybe if I ever get to Meg’s Camp…dream on.

Donice, what fun that sounds, to audit some Latin classes!

Here we are, and it’s Lent again.

I have of late regarded it as all right to drink cider on weekdays (a) when one has a broken arm; (b) at Christmastide; (c) in London; (d) when one isn’t feeling very well; and (e) at Carnival time – so there’s plenty to give up.

We had a good time in Kirkmichael, with good weather. Spring is pushing hard at the door. I am mildly working on the putting together of a Burnside calendar. Here is the February picture. Those are snowdrops in the foreground, my husband working on his beech hedge behind.

I didn’t get much done in general, and in particular, not much knitting. The gansey is at a difficult stage, as alternate rows have to be knit on the wrong side which means flipping the whole pattern over in one’s mind. It isn’t just a matter of knit-the-knits and purl-the-purls: the pattern, and it’s a rather difficult one in its unobtrusive way, has to be advanced.

However, there is now only one more motif to do, and then the problems become different and I hope more interesting.

The Calcutta Cup ’06 sleeve went swimmingly last night; with luck, I should soon really get somewhere with that.

Comments

Thanks to everybody for straightening out the Danish royal family. I am particularly glad to learn that the smallest girl is Anne-Marie. That will add a lot to my already considerable pleasure in that picture (previous post).

In our early married days in Glasgow, we lived next door to a Frenchwoman who used to pass on her copies of Paris Match. The magazine was in those days (perhaps still is) particularly interested in the doings of royalty. I vividly remember the courtship of Constantine of Greece and Anne-Marie of Denmark (she was very young, I believe) and have felt ever since, when they crop up for one reason or another, that we are almost acquainted.

Donice, everybody thinks Oberlin must mean I’m musical, but alas no. I was at the college, not the conservatory; majored in Latin. Class of ’54.

Carlarey, that is simply astonishing, that you met Swapna through me. I have some dear flesh-and-blood friends whose acquaintance I first made here in cyberspace, but I think this must be the first time I actually introduced anybody to anybody.

Speaking of which, Franklin met Leigh Witchel the other day: that’s less remarkable, but still amuses. I knew Leigh (=have actually met him in the real world) back in the Knit List days.

I continue to feel good, as if recently released from prison. We’re planning to go to Strathardle today, back probably on Fat Tuesday.

I was briefly in John Lewis' yarn dept. yesterday, where I looked at the new Rowan magazine. I had heard that Sharon Miller's shawl was wrongly attributed, but they seem to have straightened that out. On the other hand, one of the designers listed on the cover was "Kaffe Fasette". Incredible!

Here’s today’s progress-picture of the second sleeve. I’m going to need more yarn at some point pretty soon. I am determined not to buy more than is strictly required – my whole Shetland stash, which is considerable, was formed by buying an extra skein or two to-be-on-the-safe-side. And it’s much harder to get it right now that the yarn is put up in 25 gram balls instead of two-ounce skeins. But service from Lerwick is good, and I’ll just have to stop-and-start, if need be.

Thank you for yesterday’s references to URL's where the Danish prince can be seen, wrapped in his hand-knit shawl. It looks very simple and homely, and prompts me to risk the wrath of the Thought Police by scanning in this picture from Vibeke Lind’s “Knitting in the Nordic Tradition.” It shows the D*nish R*yal F*mily on a visit to Greenland in 1952 and is right up there among my favourite knitting pictures of all time. Presumably one of the boys pictured is the new prince’s grandfather.


Non-knit and Pretty Pointless

On the ship which brought me back from Britain to America at the end of the summer of 1953, we must have had some sort of Talent Evening at which I remember a little boy, wearing a kilt, who sang “Bonnie Dundee.” I was electrified, and got myself a record of it which I often played during the ensuing year at Oberlin.

And I often think of it, as we drive out of Edinburgh towards the Bridge, as we will this morning, and see Fife on the other side: “And it’s Ho! for the west coast, and let us gae free…”

Last night I looked it up and discovered after all these years, that I had it wrong. Not “west coast” but “west port” – which is just down the way. Graham of Claverhouse was himself leaving Edinburgh, and glad to be going. He died at Killiekrankie which is not all that far from Kirkmichael as highland distances go. I have visited his grave at Blair Atholl.

Definitely a good day yesterday. Speaking of which, don’t miss Franklin's valentine to us all. Love that boy.

For the first time since this thing started, I stayed on my feet all day – and feel even peppier this morning. In the afternoon we walked up to the Royal Academy and saw the student show. Much youthful angst.

I finished The Yarn Yard socks, and hope to dispatch them to London this afternoon.

I re-started the Calcutta Cup ’06 sleeve. There’s a long way to go, but I’m back in the saddle.

I ordered three skeins of cashmere Koigu (!) to be sent to a cyber-friend who will visit Edinburgh next month. I read through the Shapely Shawlette pattern and I think I have at least the general idea. Thank you all for comments relating to its construction, which I will certainly refer back to when the time comes.

And I got some work done on my website (see sidebar). There are still plenty of loose ends and blind alleys, but some of the lace stuff is now up.

My friend and sometime eBay agent Helen sent me this link yesterday (which she got from you, Kathy in Juneau):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65449462@N00/255512558/

It’s delicious. Don’t miss.

I referred it to my sources in Beijing, wondering which of the characters displayed actually said “knitting”, and have had this slightly dampening reply:

“The three characters directly above the word ‘knitting’. The characters say ‘knitted products’. It appears to be a list of things on sale in a shop. The English words don't cover the entire range of products advertised in Chinese. There are also shoes, hats, water and ice-cream.”

Politics

Carlarey, I’ve been racking my brains for the “other brown candidate” you mention. Richardson? Condi? But neither has declared yet, have they? Guiliani isn’t exactly a WASP either, but again, he isn’t officially in (and he wouldn’t count as brown).

Thanks for Barak’s middle initial. I think in fact I had already heard it. Clearly, his parents weren’t looking ahead to the presidency when they named their little baby. It seems to me that a certain familiarity with Islam couldn’t do a world leader much harm these days.

Comment

knititch, could you possibly send us an URL for a picture of your Crown Princess with her baby in the shawl knit by her mother? And I meant to say to you yesterday, I find written instructions – rather than pictures – the easiest way to get to grips with grafting. Now that I knit Travel Socks, I have finally, in the last decade, learned to do it, at least for st st, without having to look it up every time.