The computer is being slow this morning, just when I need to rally the troops to go to Strathardle. We vaguely plan to come back on Monday – maybe sooner, if the ground is still rock-hard.

Yesterday was frustrating on the knitting front. I tried to swatch Koigu. Here is some of it, laid out for deployment. The orange balls are Rowan 4-ply soft, which I think would fit in thickness-wise. There are a couple of odd-balls of Louet Gems Merino, too, which is very similar to Koigu.

I found that the wavy stripe file Theresa had sent me, won’t load on my older machine. I found that I don’t have Barbara Walker’s afghan book, in which she does a wavy stripe. All the others, but not that one. That left the Lizard Ridge afghan pattern from Knitty which Anonymous pointed me to.

That one has a 14-stitch repeat. I thought I would probably prefer a longer one – Theresa said her pattern was a 32-stitch repeat. But I thought I’d try the Knitty pattern to get the idea, and I didn’t like it -- all that short-rowing and turning around and trying to find the wrap to knit with the stitch.

So I retreated to an earlier thot, and tried just knitting ribbon stripes, fancy Koigu interleaved with plain, narrower stripes. I thot I would do the latter in reversed st st, expecting them to recede like the purl stitches in a rib, thereby revealing on my part a pretty basic ignorance of the fundamentals of knitting – reversed st st stripes balloon outward, forming a welt.

It’s just as well we’re going away. The whole problem can marinate in my subconscious for a while.

The decision on the country front is to go on with the Strathardle sweater -- the dusty pink Araucania -- this time, thinking hard. It’s a Sweater Wizard pattern, only slightly tweaked from Ketki’s ’08 Calcutta Cup sweater. Here she is in it, with her sons in Scotland rugby gear. Do I want such a sweater?

[While we're at it, here are my other two Calcutta Cup knittings -- Alexander's Fair Isle sweater for '06, now a bit snug, and the centre of Kirsty's Christening shawl, from '00.]

Helen C.K.S.’ Post-Knitting Disappointment Disorder, mutatis mutandis, is my own this morning.

Nothing from the Schoolhouse, either. Very odd. Staff problems?

Back here Tuesday, insh’Allah.