I finished Swirly 2. It came out much shorter -- much swirlier, in fact -- than 1. Maybe it'll relax.

There's a Swirly pattern in the new issue of Knitter's mentioned yesterday. But it's crochet.

I got back to work on the Communion Veil last night, as hoped, and found I was further on than I thought I was, which was nice. Like everyone else, including Joe, recently, I get confused about "lace knitting" and "knitted lace". Was it Margaret Stove herself who first applied the terms? There's a real distinction; the difficulty lies in remembering which term to apply to which. Anyway, the veil is what I think is called "lace knitting" -- every other row plain -- which speeds things along a bit. The Princess Shawl is very much the other, therefore if I'm right, "knitted lace", with excitement in every row.

Non-Knit

My website does seem to be visible, despite a brief disappearance. (www.jeanmile.demon.co.uk) Thanks to all who reassured me. The difficulty -- if there is one -- is as you perceived it, Mar: what will happen now? The old domain name, jeanmile, is defunct, isn't it? Will it expire at the end of the year when my dial-up connection was due to be up? Can I get in with the old password? I could always try, of course, but I think I'd better ring them up. I must have some web space somewhere, and all the stuff is here on my home computer, so we'll be all right in the end.

The last of my internet-ordered Christmas presents turned up yesterday, and as with all the previous ones, these were at least as good as I had hoped for from the catalogue description. Next year I'll start earlier and get more catalogues. The Science Museum is a good one which I didn't have this year, and I'll try the V&A. Now all I've got to do is write a million Christmas cards, and wrap up a huge pile of presents and (worst) consign many of them to the post, and I feel so smug about the present-buying that it's hard to take these responsibilities seriously.