What happened yesterday was that I composed at home in Microsoft Word as usual, pasted the result into Blogger as usual, and it looked fine. Then I added some pictures and when I got back from that occupation to the Blogger “Compose” screen, the paragraph breaks were gone. Later, when they had been re-instated, I published the day’s work – and found it stripped of paragraph breaks again.

As far as I know, I’m using the most up-to-date version of Blogger. Could this have anything to do with my out-of-date browser?

I've spotted a typo in yesterday's work. Do I dare retrieve and correct it?

It’s irritating, all this, but it has nothing to do with knitting. I have passed the half-way point on the fourth side of the mourning shawl edging. Things should get exciting this very week.

A curious thing about this pattern is that the border decreases don’t begin until the 39th row, and when they do, they are distributed through the work rather than forming a mitre-line at the corners. The result is that the border pattern flows around the corners, rather attractively – a strong argument for doing the whole thing in the round, the Fleegle way.

It’s a new technique to me. The pattern is from Margaret Stove’s new book, “Wrapped in Lace”. It is based on an antique Shetland shawl whose owners asked Stove to restore it. It was full of what appear to be m**h holes. The original was knit in the late 19th century by an émigré from Shetland, of New Zealand wool.

Later this week – on Thursday, in fact – we hope to go visit an old friend who lives near St Andrews. He is younger than we are, recently retired from the Art History department there. Can he be tempted into some indiscretions about Miss Middleton? (She did a full Art History course; the Prince started Art History, but switched to Geography after the first year.) Our friend’s partner is a passionate gardener, and we want to take them a Royal Wedding gnome, but the B&Q website this morning [scroll down] says that they are sold out, and Google strongly suggests that they are a B&Q exclusive.

We’ll stay two nights, and my plan is to finish Joe’s first sock and get well started on the ribbing of the second. Then the very next week is Holy Week when I will press the project forward on the shores of Loch Fyne.

Comments

Ruth (yesterday) that sounds like a good tip, about slip-stitching the sleeves of that pink Strathardle sweater into place. I will try it. It also occurred to me that if the seam looks bad, and maybe even if it doesn’t, I could cover it with applied i-cord since the collar and neck placket are already edged with i-cord, and I mean to use an i-cord bind-off for the shoulders.

Ted, thanks for the background on EZ’s “New Zealand sweater”. That sounds rather likely. One of the most frustrating tidbits of knitting history that I know is that EZ was puzzled by the phrase “Kitchener stitch” when she first came to America. (Until quite recently, when the internet made us all one, it was used by North American knitters only.) She enquired, and was told that it derives from a pattern Kitchener submitted to a Red Cross leaflet in WWI. Did she press her informant for the details which would get “Kitchener stitch” into the OED today? No.

KristieinBC (Saturday), thanks for the suggestion that I get a Macbook. Alexander made the big switch a year or so ago – I’ll ask him about it over Easter. Also, he and Ketki can tell me what one does with a new computer these days. The last time I bought one, all one had to do was walk across the room with a fistful of disks and re-install them. Now, one’s entire life has to be transferred.

Janet, what is WSD? Please come to Scotland, whatever it is!