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A confusion to be cleared: Sue knit the big white Princess, Cynthia the remarkably small (given the pattern) turquoise one.[Yesterday’s post] I remembered Cynthia saying that the blocking process had left hers with what amounted to a codpiece towards the bottom of the triangle – but I remembered, wrongly, that she was talking about the white one. I saw the codpiece, but memory bleached it to white.

My own blocking is less than perfect in that area. By the time anyone is ready to get married in it, it will probably have to be washed and aired and blocked again to get rid of the smell of mothballs. (Sharon Miller says to use bars of lavender-scented soap. My husband doesn’t think they would be proof against the Edinburgh moth.) Next time, I’ll start at the bottom, with pins, spreading the “feathers” out from that central point, and probably finish much of the rest with wires.

Kate, I’m glad you liked the reference to “High Society” in my account of the wedding. [Thursday's post] That song kept singing itself in my head as it was all going on – “Next July we collide with Mars”. The link I’ve just given was easily found – and worth watching – but I didn’t give it before for the prissy reason that Sinatra is drunk (I mean, acting drunkenness), I had forgotten that, and at Jenni and Theo’s wedding, although wine flowed freely, nobody got beyond happy.

Now, back to the future.

I am assembling the Child’s Cardigan and about to add the finishing edges. It’s not as good as it looks; a Home Industries Tent judge will find imperfections. I’ve joined the shoulders and set in the sleeves with three-needle bindoffs which look well and complement the black garter ridges in the main pattern. The size looks good for the granddaughter I’m aiming at. However it fares on the Fourth Saturday, I think we’ve got a useful garment here.



I’m desperate to get it off my conscience and proceed to a jabot for James. He spoke of it when we met in CT, and sounded distinctly interested. After I got back, I made the trip to Kinloch Anderson at last. I have been approaching the problem all wrong.

I thought jabot-knitting would be done, essentially, on the vertical, starting at the neck-edge, knitting a trianguloid object, and then perhaps another one or two to overlap it. Not a bit of it.

One knits a rectangular strip, about 3” wide, and attaches it to a bib thing in zig-zag fashion, overlapping itself. I think maybe you understood this all along, Tamar. The ones I saw were smooth-edged but I don’t see that undulations must be ruled out, and I’m going to start, at least, with “Twin-holed diamond with small bead insertion” on p. 128 of Heirloom Knitting.

I am sure I was talking to Mr Kinloch Anderson himself. I could well imagine him advising Prince Charles on sartorial matters. He volunteered the information that when he wears a jabot, he doesn’t wear lace cuffs because they tend to drag in the soup. The job will be much quicker and easier if I don’t do cuffs.

The Kinloch Anderson website shows a jabot worn with some sort of jacket in a rather alarming blue. Before our conversation ended, Mr Kinloch A. got out a black Montrose jacket and held a jabot to the neck. My bones turned to jelly, as they say.