A pathetic appeal for socks arrived from Thessaloniki yesterday, in the form of a comment on Thursday’s post.

I am re-thinking the immediate knitting future. I finished the right arm of Theo’s gansey last night – husband appreciably better, sat up for television all evening. I’ve ripped out the neck and started again. I had 32 stitches too many, if the neck was to be 40% of the original body number – this time I abandoned fancy thoughts of mitering and took Meg’s advice to decrease them all at once in the first round of ribbing, by purling two together as often as necessary.

It’s looking pretty good. And I may finish today!

It does seem rather perverse not to devote a few weeks to sock-knitting. I used to get six or seven pairs done a year, when my mother was alive and I made twice-yearly trips to the US to see her. Now it’s down to three or four. Not enough for all these people.

I had supposed that there wasn’t all that much demand from the ladies – Rachel wears socks a lot, I know, but I thought maybe the others didn’t. Ketki often goes barefoot around the house in the evening. She’s got beautiful feet. But the holes in the socks of hers which I have brought back from Loch Fyne to darn, testify to hard use.

If I were to sit down and knit socks for a while, I could actually use some of the beautiful yarn which is piling up around here from my membership in the Yarn Yard Sock Club. I could knit some more KF’s – ladies offer real scope for fun sock-knitting, as well as having smaller feet. I’ll do it!

I figure I’ll need to start the dinosaur sweater for my Games entry someone around the beginning of June – I hate to hurry. Thomas-the-Elder, for whom the original was knit, remembers it fondly and is pleased to hear that it is going to be reconstructed.

I appreciate the comments from people who have actually knit with the new Noro sock yarn. For the moment, I’m going to hold off.