I’ve reached row 120, one of my little landmarks. I’ve got to go to a Drummond Place committee meeting this evening, which will cut badly into knitting time. (I’ll take a sock along, but it’s not the same.) Still, I ought to be able to finish 120 and then perhaps it’ll be time to take another picture, tomorrow.

Alexander’s Fair Isle Sweater

The Woolgathering in which Meg does the flowing-pattern trick is no. 72, March ’05. The sweater shewn there is probably the same one Franklin saw at Camp (comment, day before yesterday).

I started looking for a pattern, and was surprised to find that Argyle-looking ones, both in McGregor and in Starmore, appear to be both vertically and horizontally symmetrical but aren’t – there are more stitches than rows in a pattern repeat. I wonder if modification is possible. There would be a certain appropriateness, as Alexander lives in Argyle-shire when he isn’t camped out on Lavender Hill.

Meg says of her pattern, “Re-sizing is easy, since it matters not where the color pattern hits the armhole.”

That worries me. I am notoriously no good at thinking, and Meg is brilliant at it, but it seems to me that it does matter. It is only if a pattern repeat is complete, or exactly half, at the armhole, that it can go around the body, lower down, without interruption. Have I missed something? No –the answer must be that Meg’s version of this idea doesn’t go around the body, lower down. Mine does, or will.

I began to wonder about the shoulder line. Do you think it would be possible to Kitchener in a two-colour pattern? Meg does the final round at the shoulder in solid MC, and continues the solid line down the sleeve. It looks nice, but I would prefer a perfect flow, if I can get it. Even if Kitchener’ing didn’t come out quite perfect, it might pass the Galloping Horse test.

And it was only in writing the above, just now, that I started a whole new worry: the armhole shaping. In my tentative Sweater Wizard version, I’ve shaped the armhole. But that’s not going to work, is it? It would break the pattern? The pattern I’m tentatively fumbling with is an 18 stitch repeat. If one shaped the armhole by decreasing nine stitches all at once, would it work then? The armhole would have to come at a complete or half pattern repeat, but if that could be arranged, I think it might work.

Miscellaneous, including Non-knit

Sharon wrote again to the Heirloom Knitting list to say that she and Mike aren’t taking pre-orders for the new book. They’re going to wait to see if they get something respectable-looking back from the printers, as I am sure they will. So Maureen and Franklin and I will have to take blankets and tents and plenty of cider and be prepared for a long wait.

Blogger’s opening page suggests Blogs you might want to look at. That’s how I met Swapna and the Farmgirl, now old friends. Well: take a look at The McVlog.

My weight isn’t going anywhere. I was delighted when the indulgences of August turned out not to have added any. But the subsequent three weeks of strict adherence to the Regime, haven’t taken any more off, either. So maybe this is where we stay. It’ll do, but I’d prefer to drop another half-stone. However, the only alternative would be to start counting calories and cutting back on avocadoes, and there I draw the line.