No bids yet on the early VKB – the seller, apparently a professional bookseller, has set the starting price rather high. It’s a perfectly reasonable price, he’ll probably get a lot more, but it seems to be discouraging the chickadees who usually hop about in the early stages, bidding pennies.

Fizz, thank you, I did as you said and eBay is writing to me about VKB’s again. My visit to your blog inspired me to join (I hope) the Scottish Knitters' Ring. I think you must be right, Maureen in Fargo (hi!), that I somehow missed the message from eBay about needing to renew.

A peaceful day’s hat-knitting yesterday, extraordinarily enough. I’m nearly back to the point where I had to rip out the first effort, and should sail beyond it today. It helps to have a grasp of what’s going on, as I think I now do.

Araucania & that felted swatch

How very interesting, Maureen, that your Ranco is differently labelled from mine. You say that yours says, “Dry cleaning is recommended Gently hand wash in cool water and mild soap.” Mine is, “Gentle machine wash…dry flat, do not sun dry, soak, spin, or tumble dry.” I’ve never heard of a yarn changing labels in mid-stream. One might imagine that your lot is more recent, and that they changed it because people complained of disasters. The labels on my recently-purchased lot are the same as those on other skeins which have been in stash for a year or so. Maybe the recently-purchased had been in the shop a long time.

There’s one potentially bright note here. My husband has long wanted a felted vest. I investigated the subject cautiously a while ago, without actually buying a book. It all sounded too complicated – and as if a top-loading washing machine was essential. I don’t have one.

But here I’ve got a splendidly felted swatch on which such a vest could be constructed – and in a yarn I love. I’ll add the project to my HALFPINT list, but it’ll have to wait until the Princess is finished.