All’s well.

At my current point in the insertion (row 5) it’s nothing but YO, k2tog all the way across. Slow but not stressful, once row 3 has been correctly aligned with the peculiarities of row 2. It’ll carry on like that for a bit. The oddities in this pattern occur at the beginning, middle, and end, with the beginning the oddest.

That I have put successfully behind me, and should at least get the middle (rows 10 and 11) done this week. That will be enough for a picture.

A single helix? I’ve been pawing around in Wikipedia and the OED, Kate, and I think I see what you mean. What an exciting idea!

I hope you get your BSJ straightened out. I’ve knit it half a dozen times, and it never ceases to astonish. I usually keep count by writing down the number of stitches at the end of every row – if I add 4 and in the same row decrease 2, there must be xxxx at the end of the row.

My current plan, Princess-wise, is to carry on until the insertion is finished and the centre started, before laying it aside again. When the insertion is done, one puts the whole thing on hold -- Sharon even suggests casting off, but I'm not going to do that. Then one starts again in the absolute centre (got to get that right) on five stitches, and works back and forth, taking in one more stitch from the border at the end of every row. So the very early centre rows will feel like rapid progress. It sounds as if Kathy has just got to the point where forward movement seems to slow down and stop.

Sam & irrelevance

I don’t know about eyes. I’m sort of tired of sheep-knitting. But I’ll have a more critical look than usual next week at the woolly lumps in the field beyond my vegetable garden and try to decide how much eyes contribute to the general effect, as well looking for ear tags.

I heard on the radio this morning that they have been having 45 degree heat in Greece for some weeks now. I’m not really au fait with centigrade at that level, but I experienced 40 degrees for one day in southern Italy once, and it was a good deal hotter than I care for. The Thessalonikis may even welcome grey skies and rain.

Theo and Joe didn’t get to the Democratic debate after all, but will hear Hillary talk about pre-kindergarten education today. Theo promises to try to make Joe write home about it.