I’ve lost a follower! I didn’t know such things happened until yesterday, when the same misfortune came to kristieinbc. I never expected all those people to go on reading, but I thought the defectors would just tiptoe away leaving the total apparently unchanged.

We’ll go to see C. today. Our niece thinks more ground was lost yesterday, and that we should keep things brief. All visitors are to be kept away tomorrow, in hopes of rallying some strength for the weekend when Greek Helen will be here (Friday) and then on Saturday Rachel and her husband Ed and Little C., C.’s beloved namesake granddaughter. Little C. is in her final weeks at Bristol university. She will go to London and join Rachel and Ed for the drive north.

Alexander drove over from Argyll yesterday to see his aunty. He had a good visit, tearful on both sides at the end. That’s a turn of the screw I hope we might be spared – as long as she’s there, we’ll obviously keep going back. Maybe we won’t have to know which is the final goodbye until afterwards.

Knitting

Anonymous, with the red Chinese “cashmere” I’m going to knit “Granny Cheyne’s Shetland Shawl” for our niece, from Margaret Stove’s new book “Wrapped in Lace”. In shape, it’s a bog-standard square Shetland, perhaps a bit awkward to wear formally – although it looks nice on the model in the book. But with square, I figure, you can drape it over a piece of furniture like a small afghan, or cosy up in it when watching television. And our niece should cut a dash in it at my funeral, when I want as many as possible to wear something I knit.

I have re-done the i-cord on Round-the-Bend, making loop buttonholes instead of Meg’s elegant figure-of-eights. This morning during my osteoporosis-pill-half-hour (no coffee allowed, nor going back to bed) I sewed the buttons on. I’m clumsy with buttons – worse with zips – and hate doing them, but I think the result will pass muster.

So today I should be able to finish tidying, and probably start the Japanese shirt swatch. Blocking tomorrow. My main problem with the Japanese shirt is to choose the existing garment to take the measurements from. I think the sleeve seams should be at the shoulder and not somewhere else.

Tamar, I couldn’t bear the fuss of selling yarn. What I need is a Deserving Cause on which I can dump some lace-weight. I figure the charity knitters in Alyth (who have received a fair amount of my general stash) wouldn’t want lace because they knit stout little garments for babies.

Speaking of which, a friend sent me this yesterday, for using up sock yarn. Isn’t it a sweetie? Patricia Arrotin’s cache Coeur (Ravelry link). Now all I need is a great-grandchild.