Centre patterning finished.


There are still 11 rows of garter stitch and simple “break” patterns to be done before the edging starts – and decisions to be made about whether to try some short-rowing to get the edging up and around the initial corner (Cynthia has sent me an interesting chart which may help). But it’s undoubtedly progress.

Vaster than empires and more slow.

Tamar said in a comment the other day that Princess-progress made cricket seem hasty – and that reminded me of a book which turns up on some days (but not this morning) as a sponsor of Knitty, called “Knitting and Tea”. Has anyone looked inside it?

On the cover is a handsome cricketer holding a tea cup and wearing a very handsome cricket sweater. I think I looked into the book electronically once when it turned up on Knitty, and decided that the other patterns were not for me and I couldn’t buy a whole book for one pattern. This morning something has gone wrong with internet access and I can’t even get that far.

Or post this, until things improve.

I have often reflected that cricket sweaters deserve to be included at least in the second rank of traditional knitting. Their history goes well back into the 19th century. (I must have a look at Rutt.) For a moment, when I first saw “Knitting and Tea”, I thought maybe this was the book to fill the gap – not so, I gather. But the few reader-reviews I have found are enthusiastic, even though cricket appears only the once, and connectivity has been restored: maybe I’ll have it for the sake of that one pattern and the handsome model, after all. I think Thomas-the-Elder still plays cricket.