We’re going back to Strathardle today. Everybody else is going out for Drinks (dress: smart casual) this evening while my husband and I entertain six children. We’ll be there through the Games weekend, the fourth Saturday in August as ever, and for a couple of days thereafter, when everyone has gone, making the kitchen mouse-proof again. It’s full of Ready-Brek and packets of chick peas, at the moment.

Now that we’ve got a connection up there, I’ll report in from time to time, but not daily.

Kitchener Stitch

Thank you for the information about how Kitchener, Ont., got its name, Katherine. I had long wondered.

Jayne suggested that I get in touch with Shirl the Purl, historian of Canadian knitting. I couldn’t find a contact point on Google, so I have written to theYarn Harlot, asking if she can help, on the theory that all Canadian knitters must be in touch with each other. I haven’t yet written to the Canadian Red Cross, but am mentally drafting something. Their website is resolutely Now, with no reference to archives.

Can anyone help: I have in the past corresponded with a woman who regards herself as the doyenne of the Kitchener Stitch Question, just as I regard myself. Now I can’t remember her name. Double-barrelled, possibly. She used to – maybe still does – maintain a website of yarn comparisons and reviews. Her address was left behind on my old computer. Memory keeps promising to come up with it, but produces only “Annie Modesitt”, and it’s not her.

Knitting

Guess what? I finished knitting the Long Shawl last night – it doesn’t count as an FO, of course, until it’s been blocked – and picked up the Princess again.

It was an exciting moment. I had laid it aside five months ago, to knit a birthday shawl for my sister and then a shrug to enter in the Home Industries Tent at the Games next week. I meant to resume it after that, but was swept forward into the Long Shawl. I was sort of afraid I had abandoned the Princess for too long, and that it might have segue’d from a WIP to a UFO.

But no! I knit border rows 67 and 68 last night, and made a start on 69. (I told you it would make riveting blog material.) It’s easy. It’s fun. I love it. I plan to go on for a couple of months at least, before I lay it aside again for Alexander’s Fair Isle sweater, which must be started in Ought Six for reasons which will become clear. I’m intermittently at work on the design in my new, improved copy of the Sweater Wizard.

I found this amusing blog about the Wedding Ring Shawl, which I plan to follow, since the Princess bloggers seem stalled.

VKB

No. 24, spring 1944, turned up on eBay yesterday. Now that we’re wired up to the nostrils in Strathardle, I’ll have to do the bidding myself.

Other

Here are some country pictures from last week.


On the left, James and his daughters working on the Annual Bonfire. My husband saves combustible materials for them. Sausages were subsequently cooked, and marshmallows roasted. On the right, Rachel and Kirsty climbing the gate into the Stubble Field.