The (in)famous scarf, so far 

My Calcutta Cup mug 

Yesterday

     A whole blog-entry vanished into the ether yesterday, when I tried to publish it, so all we were left with was the photograph, published separately, of progress made on Rachel's striped Koigu when we were in the country last week. As light and warmth increase, less time will be spent huddled by the fire when we are there, and progress will be slower.

The Calcutta Cup

The international rugby season ended yesterday. France beat Italy of course, Wales beat Ireland (making this season a clean sweet for Wales) and England beat Scotland. The England-Scotland match always comes at the end, and has a trophy of its own, one of the oldest in the sporting world. The cup certainly appears to be of Indian manufacture, and is said to have been competed for originally  by teams of British civil servants in India, who melted down the sixpences in their pockets to have it made.

Be that as it may, England almost always win. The victory commemorated on my mug was the most recent Scotttish one, a true miracle. We had been beaten by everybody that year, including even Italy. England, contrariwise, had beaten everybody and came up here on that last day to complete their clean sweep. I drink my morning coffee from it in Calcutta Cup week, and on Laetare Sunday in mid-Lent. The word means "rejoice" and it was on that liturgical day in 1990 that the great victory occurred. Now I have hung it up for another year.

One of our grandchildren was born in 2000. I knit the Cup into her Christening shawl. http://www.jeanmile.demon.co.uk/gown.htm

The Scarf

progresses. Tedium is now the enemy. I have knit nearly three feet -- and will have enough yarn to proceed as far as necessary. So that's a relief. My shape-it scarf is six and a half feet. I may reduce that a bit here, but not much.

Jamieson 3

What a standard they maintain. There are severak things in this latest book that make me want to down tools and start knitting now. Namely, the big Bressay jacket at the end, the Patchwork jacket, the Trellis jacket, and the Islander pullover. Plus there are good Fair Isle's and cables. The Trellis jacket is one of those mitred-garter-stitch-stripes affairs. It is a seam they have mined before, but this one is a lulu.

I now read Mary Morrison's blog every morning (http://morcatknits.typepad.com/), and am inspired by her beautiful cable work to go back to that area of life. But I don't need even Jamieson 3 for that: I want to consider knitting Elizabeth Lavold, whom I love but have never attempted, or even perhaps devising something with travelling stitch patterns. I took a day-course on that from Candace Eisner Strick at Camp Stitches in '99. It was fascinating, but I have never used the technique since. Nor has she written the book about it which I keep nagging her to attempt.

 

 

Rachel's Koigu Stripes, again 

Not much change... 

Richness

We got back yesterday to find the package from Meg -- The Opinionated Knitter, Jamieson 3, and "Knitting With a Smile" by Inger Fredholm. Wow! Sometimes books one has been waiting for are a disappointment -- I am afraid Martha Waterman's Shawls and Scarves comes to mind in that category, and more recently Hoxbro's "Shadow Knitting" although I may warm to that one once I start knitting the famous alien scarf from Stitch n' Bitch. Not her pattern, of course, but the same technique.

But all three of these new books are simply sensational, in their different ways, making one regret anew the shortness of life.

Country Life

Above (I hope) is the promised picture of my kitchen garden, to be published every time we come back from Strathardle. Despite the caption, there is a change. The previous one shows a winter scene, this one, spring.

In fact, it happened while we were there. On Monday when we arrived it was so cold that the refrigerator wouldn't go on until the kitchen had warmed up a bit. It snowed that night, and Tuesday was bitter cold (although the birds, recognising equinoctial light when they see it, tweeted away regardless). Wednesday was spring, warm, grey, damp and drippy. Yesterday as we were leaving, there was sunshine to boot. We'll be back in Easter week, DV.

Nothing is happening, so far, with my seed potatoes. Why is that? Supermarket potatoes, this time of year, develop strong and healthy sprouts within days. The kitchen is warmer than an upstairs bedroom at Burnside, of course.

The Scarf

More about the new books, and about Burnside knitting, in days to come. For now, back to the alpaca scarf. I am beginning to think the project is cursed.

I decided last night that there was no hope of achieving the length I want with the yarn available if I persevere with brioche stitch (which is hungry for yarn). I have been wearing all winter the "Shape-It" scarf from Sally Melville's (excellent) book "The Knit Stitch" -- I want something long and narrow like that.

So why not just knit a Shape-It with the alpaca? Because it's in garter stitch, which is also hungry of yarn, and because it's knit sideways, with the whole length of the scarf on the needles at once, so it's awkward to break off if you run out of yarn.

I've started again with fewer stitches and the "Italian Chain Ribbing" pattern from Walter I, p. 47. Success, I think. Picture soon.

The Scarf, and other matters

We're going to the country today -- back Thur or Fri. Winter is putting up some spirited resistance in its retreat, but the forecast this morning predicts that spring is about to join us.

My sister sounds well. She had been afraid she would have to cancel the work scheduled for this week, but she is able to go ahead.

The scarf is under way --

The Alpaca Scarf


The picture is terrible. The colours are in fact dark, rich reds.

The beginning proved a dreadful struggle. At the point where we left off yesterday, I had decided to switch to fisherman's rib. I didn't like the effect and there was a technical problem, too boring to describe, about my plan of starting with a few inches of the main shade and then switching to shadow stripes.

So I ripped it out yet again and thought I'd return to brioche stitch, with shadow stripes from the start. I followed the directions in IK precisely, and came to grief again. The two-colour instructions are not as elaborate as the basic ones, and don't include an illustration. I may have been doing it wrong. If I was right, the "brioche purl" is not as easy a manoeuvre as the knit stitch in plain brioche.

By this time I was feeling panic-y, as when one has chosen the wrong question to attempt on an examination, and time is running short.

I ripped again and tried pure one-colour brioche from the IK instructions. Another failure.

I hurled IK away (not really) and got out KWT, remembering that I had knit some watchcaps in brioche stitch from its pages. EZ was, as ever, a great comfort as well as a faithful guide. Brioche stitch is not easy -- "[It] is written on my heart like Calais on Mary Tudor's," she says. She describes it as a "richer and fruitier" rib than fisherman's. "Fruitier" is perfect. The instructions can be found in the index under "H" for "hat".

Maybe when this is over I will do myself a swatch of brioche and fisherman's -- there are various ways to do that -- and anything else in their group, and try to figure out the structure. My knitting knowledge is pretty limited in that respect.

Rugby

Most of the interest is gone now. At the beginning of the weekend, both Wales and Ireland were still unbeaten, and we were looking forward to next weekend when they play each other. But France spoiled the fun by beating Ireland on Saturday, in a good game. The other two were dull -- England beat Italy (everybody beats Italy) and Wales beat Scotland (everybody except Italy beats Scotland).

Vicissitudes

My sister, who is a doctor, is working in Africa. It was she who brought the alpaca to London recently, on her way out. She has been helpful and sympathetic about my eye questions this week, as about many family medical crises and anxieties in the past.

On Friday she woke up with the very symptoms of retinal detachment she had been describing to me. She told herself not to be ridiculous, but the symptoms persisted. Her husband drove her for six hours to Pretoria (they started from Maputo in Mozambique, I assume) where it was put right. Not retinal detachment, just a tear. An unnerving experience for all, especially for her, and one which proves that God is watching us and that He has a black sense of humour. Which I think we knew already, although we sometimes forget.

My sister is younger than I am, and not so near-sighted.

Knitting

No picture of the alpaca scarf after all, I'm afraid. It's lovely to knit, like knitting the cat, and brioche stitch is pleasant and easy. BUT I failed, after several attempts, to master the two-colour version. I hope I would be able to get it in the end if I stuck at it, but I'm not going to. I've frogged it, and I'll switch to the similar two-colour fisherman's rib, which I knowI can do. So maybe there'll be a picture tomorrow. Both brioche stitch and fisherman's rib involve, effectively, doing two rows' work for each one row forward, so it's slowish.

Here instead, for today, is a picture of some

Peas

Peas


The smarter supermarkets are selling little growing pea plants this year for consumption whole in salads. (They are not to be found in our local Sainsbury's, however -- Edinburgh must be deemed not chic enough, or too conservative.) So I thought I'd try, using last year's left-over seed, and here you see the result. I harvested this first sttempt yesterday, after taking the photograph. They were delicious, but there weren't enough of them. I must sow more thickly next time.

On to the Alpaca

I finished the first jacket sleeve last night, and started the alpaca scarf which I have been asked to knit as a graduation-from-law-school present for my nephew Theo's girlfriend Kristin. I'm doing it in brioche stitch, as per the current issue of VK. Casting on was something of a struggle -- I was doing it very loosely, over two needles, and the whole thing kept dissolving as I subsequently tried to knit the foundation row. But I'm past that difficulty, and this is clearly going to be a just-one-more-row'er. There should be enough for a picture by tomorrow.

I continue to enjoy Mary Morrison's blog, and the links she provides. It's regularly updated, which is a great thing in a blog.

Non-knit

I have been over-kind to myself the last few days, on account of eyes and things, and am determined to toughen up today. Our newspapers have started publishing a puzzle called Su-Doku by which I am obsessed. It is a nine-by-nine grid, with the 81 squares divided internally in the obvious way into nine three-by-three squares. When the puzzle is solved, each row, each column, and each three-by-three square will contain all the digits from 1 to 9. You start off with a few numbers provided. I can usually solve them up through level "difficult", but only very occasionally manage "friendish" or "diabolical", and waste far too much time trying. The next-day solutions are useless. If you get it right, you know it's right; and if you're stuck, you need someone to explain what number to put in next, and why it's got to be there.

Socks for Thomas-the-Elder 

Relief

The oculist has been phoned, the operation postponed -- my tatties are safe! We'll probably celebrate by going to the country next week. Thank you, everybody, for messages on the subject.

You'll have heard of the goings-on in Parliament. I'm on the side of habeas corpus and our ancient liberties, myself. One gratifying tidbit: a radio journalist remarked yesterday that the situation might resolve itself during the night because the members of the House of Lords were mostly old, and would want to go home to their Ovaltine. I thought he was wrong, and sure enough -- this morning the radio tells me that the House of Lords was almost as crowded and obstreperous at 5 a.m. as it had been previously.

I learned yesterday that Parliament can deem Thursday to go on as long as necessary, and that is what is happening. Gilbert and Sullivan live!

Knitting

Above is a picture of Thomas-the-Elder's socks. The photography is, for some reason, the opposite of washed-out. Those stripes are far less conspicuous in real life.

There is a real oddity about the yarn, too. I am using Lang Jawoll, which is put up in 45 gram balls which claim 190 metres. Socka, my old friend, comes in 50 gram balls of 210 metres. Thomas' socks are done on exactly the pattern of other gents to whom he is related -- 64 stitches on 1's, 50 rounds of 2x2 ribbing, 90 rounds of st st, heel, foot. In Socka, the first ball runs out somewhere maybe 2/3rds of the way along the foot (and I've knit lots of gents' socks with Socka). This yarn, as you see, lasted until the toe-decreases were under way. I only had two balls of it, so I knew I would have to put in something else for the end of the foot, and I am particularly pleased with the effect, which really does look like a design feature. The young are so conservative -- I had been a bit worried about changing colour in mid-foot.

But the geometry of it (if that's the right word) mystifies me. Could I have done fewer than 90 rounds in the leg? I'd better count.

Do you think I'll get my books from Meg today?

ready for wrist ribbing 

Decision

A nice note from Mary, and one from my sister, confirm in their different ways my preference for postponing the eye-replacement until the Work's All Done This Fall. I'll phone the oculist today if husband agrees.

The jacket is ready for its wrist-ribbing. The sleeve looks a bit short, and I may cut the front steek and try it on before I proceed. Or maybe not. The twirling-around-in-lap thing, as one knits the sleeve, would be worse if the front were open. Twirling isn't too bad, if I take care to keep the working yarns up and away from the sweater. Entwining is the enemy here.

The picture is washed-out, again. I'll take one in natural light soon, now that we've got some natural light.

"Knitting" magazine

The new British magazine, now monthly. As usual, there is no pattern I have any interest in knitting. There never has been, since the beginning. But they are not repellent, and the articles are interesting, and above all, there are the ads. And it's a two-way thing, of course -- now that there is somewhere to advertise, it's worth a supplier's trouble to risk the fancier yarns. Koigu, Cherry Tree Hill, and Lorna's Laces -- all favourites of mine -- are now available here.

On the other hand, there are a couple of ads for alpaca in the current issue. I followed them up, in pursuit of my idea of a Fair Isle alpaca sweater. I could get round the too-hot difficulty by knitting another jacket, of course. The websites were disappointing. One offered a very limited range of dull colours, the other didn't show colour at all, just invited me to write for a shade card.

And I vaguely hoped that the cheap dollar (to which the Chinese yuan is pegged) might have inspired someone to venture on a good range of cashmere. But no dice there.

Eyes

I saw the Great Man. After eyedrops and many machines, he told me that I have unusually long eyes (a factor in my life-long short-sightedness) which involves an increased risk of a detached retina. This risk, I gather, operates at all times, even as I sit here, and is also a complicating factor in cataract surgery.  If the retina does detach, it will need further surgery to put it right and will never be as good as before.

 

I had thought that I had committed myself to a conveyor-belt leading to eye-replacement surgery soon, but he lobbed the ball back into my court. It's my decision.

 

If all goes swimmingly well, he still thinks that six weeks without driving is about right. Putting drops in my eyes every day -- will I be capable of that? -- and having follow-up examinations.

 

I have pretty well decided, if my husband will let me, to postpone it all until October. The worry, of course, is our little house in the country.  By then we could have celebrated the Games, dug the potatoes, battened down the house for the winter, and would be ready to face the worst that fate could produce for us. It would be taking a bit of a chance on my current driving, but the decision is hedged with risks on all sides. If it happens right away, even if all goes well, we would spend April aching for Strathardle. And if it didn't go well, the thought of the daffodils blooming unseen and the grass growing uncat and the seed potatoes rotting in their trays, would make it far worse.

 

When I got home from all this, I found a message from Meg about the books I just ordered. I had stoically asked for them to be sent surface mail:

 

"OK Jean - your books all went off yesterday - together - and Air Mail was
only a few $ more that Surface - so we deducted the $4 for your early order
of O.K. and you should have the parcel in 8-12 biz days...?"

There's a woman to do business with!

Knitting

I got nicely forward with the ribbing of the second sock for Thomas-the-elder during the intervals of eye testing, and the second sleeve of the jacket has inched forward. That project  is going to take a lot of finishing, when the knitting is done -- the sort of thing it's best not to think about, like eye surgery.

Mary Morrison's URL (recommended yesterday) is http://morcatknits.typepad.com/. The first link in her "Bloggin' Along" list, also mentioned yesterday -- the one that connects to the page of the Shetland lace designer whose work is beyond imagining in its beauty -- is http://members.shaw.ca/wool-garden/studio/studio.html#robes

 

Too Much To Say

The oculist rang up yesterday. I have an appointment this evening to meet the man who is going to do my eye-replacement operation, and have some tests. I had begun to hope they would forget all about it.

Yesterday I visited Mary Morrison's blog, inspired by her comment here. It has been added to my Blog list, and I will visit often. Apart from the interest of her own writing, she provides a list of links to knitterly sites -- I've only followed the first one, so far, although I plan to work my way conscientiously through them all. The first is for a Shetland lace site, a Canadian woman, whose work is of simply breathtaking beauty, and I knew nothing about it. I find I can't leave this text behind and go get Mary's URL for you, so I'll put it in tomorrow. But it can easily be found in her comment here, a couple of days ago.

Mary rightly aaid that the Elizabeth Lavold pattern was the only thing of interest in the current Knitter's. I have EL's first book, and admire it extravagantly, although I have yet to knit anything from it. I'm interested in her yarn, of which I have read great things. It looks dull, in the photograph in Knitter's and in the Patternworks catalogue. But I don't believe it.

Here is how I keep yarn when I am doing a multi-coloured project:

The Fair Isle jacket


I think the container was intended for butlers to keep silver knives and forks in, in their butler's pantries. My husband bought it for me many years ago, and I find it very useful.

The new British magazine Knitting, now monthly, turned up yesterday. And I have knit 11 inches of the first jacket sleeve -- I need 14, and then the wrist-ribbing. So the end is in sight. Of that, and of my eye appointment, more to come...

The Kitchen at Rhuba Beag 

Laetare Sunday

After today, we'll revert to pictures of knitting. The Fair Isle jacket sleeve is sizzling along -- I'll have to switch to two circulars today, and start adding the unfortunate colours which I eliminated early on, so that the bottom of the sleeve will echo the bottom of the jacket and make the whole look, I hope, unified.

And while we were away last week, I finished the first of a pair of socks for Thomas the Elder. We will have a picture of that soon, too.

But for today, here are Alexander and Ketki and Jamie (in his Scotland rugby shirt) in their kitchen. It's a wonderful house (we hadn't seen it before), designed by the local laird (who is an architect) for his sister when she married 15 years ago. The marriage failed promptly.

I am about to order The Opinionated Knitter and a couple of other books from Schoolhouse.

Googling about yesterday, I found a good range of fairly fine-gauge alpaca: Blue Sky Alpaca at the Yarn Co. An alpaca sweater would be terribly hot, but still it's tempting. One of the great attractions of knitting, I feel, is the way one's desires are always so much more extensive than the time available between cradle and grave for actually knitting. One solution is multiple-WIPs. I used to do that. But it doesn't really solve the problem.

Thomas the Younger 

Where To Begin?

Blogger threatened its old trick just now, of removing a photograph when I try to surroud it with text, so I shall leave today's one un-implanted. That's Thomas the Younger, as the caption indeed asserts, and he is as aimiable a baby as the photograph suggests.

We had a grand time with Alexander and Ketki and their sons in Argyll. More photographs will follow.

Just as we were leaving here on Wednesday -- in a state of some nervous tension, as there is effectively only one bus a day, and the taxi was late -- the mail came with no fewer than three knit items: the alpaca yarn my sister had imported, a Patternworks catalogue, and the new Knitters' , only six weeks after the arrival of the last one.

Except for the yarn, the excitement is less than it sounds. I hadn't seen a Patternworks catalogue since the great move from Ploughkeepsie. Is it somewhat less wonderful than it once was? Or has the Internet made me blase? And nothing siezes me by the throat in the magazine, either.

A few days ago I posted a picture of Ketki wearing a colourful alpaca sweater, store-boughten in NY. I only once knit a sweater in alpaca, deliciousness itself to do, but the thing immediately stretched to knee-length. I abandoned it before it reached my ankles. But it occurred to me, after posting that picture, that maybe the Fair Isle technique would solidify the yarn. There is nothing in the Patternworks catalogue (which runs too heavily to Bulky and Super=Bulky for my taste) which might do, but I am about to explore Elann alpaca-and-silk on-line.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I am whizzing along with the first sleeve of the Fair Isle jacket. I didn't get much done last night, after our return, but I did manage the arithmetic for the decreases (I hope I did). My current plan is to finish the first sleeve before I interrupt things to knit the newly-arrived alpaca into a skinny scarf.

Modern Technology

Daughter Rachel's computer has gone off to some shop, to rectify whatever it was my brother-in-law did to it while trying to set up a wireless network. Meanwhile my sister has discovered that there is another wireless network somewhere so near that she can log on in mid-air from her laptop. It's all too much for me.

I am making pretty good progress with my website, except that I have hit the problem, encountered before, that I upload things, and can see that the file is there on my server's computer, and they don't show up when I log on to my own website. And who knows why? I have learned through painful experience that browsers, at least mine, can't read files with capital letters in their names. But that's not the difficulty this time. And there are no friendly XP-type error messages to help.

Back to Knitting

The jacket sleeve is proceeding swimmingly. Twirling it around in my lap is not as bad as expected (although of course it will get worse) and is more than offset by the sheer joy of completing a round so quickly, after all those weeks of circumnavigating the torso. I even found myself last night wondering if I should carry straight on and knit another Fair Isle, now that I've got the parameters back in my head.

My smart granddaughter Hellie had a look at the Clapotis on-line yesterday, and likes it a lot. Here's (a rather washed-out photograph of) the yarn I have in mind:

Cherry Tree Hill DK


Since there are clearly far fewer mills in the world than dye-ers, this may even be the precise yarn specified, under a different name. But this will have to wait until the jacket is finished. I will interrupt it to knit a skinny rib scarf in the alpaca when it arrives -- I think I'll go for brioche stitch, as in the latest IK. But that's because there's a deadline. Hellie's Clapotis is under no such compulsion and I will force myself, with difficulty, to wait.

Plans

We're going to Argyll tomorrow to visit Alexander and Ketki (and Jamie and Thomas-the-Younger) on the shores of Loch Fyne. Another Blog hiatus, until Friday or Saturday. What a restless pair we are.