One sleeve attached, fairly successfully. It’s agonizingly slow work. The stitching for the other side is done, although I haven’t made the cut yet. I should hope to get that sleeve stuck on today. The rest should be downhill. There will have to be tidying done on the inside, herringbone-stitch, as well as attaching the straps and general tidying. I won’t get it all done before the Beijing Mileses arrive on Sunday.

Then there will be the collar to knit, a final treat. My sister has a phrase – I always remember it wrong, so it’s probably not “King Olaf’s soup” – for the final, left-behind half glass of wine you get to drink after the pudding, after the meal is finished. That’s how I feel about that last little bit of actual knitting, after the ordeal of making-up.

Meanwhile, as I’ve discovered before, if all you want is a relatively small ladies’ sock, just cast on with a KF self-striping yarn and it’ll knit itself.


I am beginning to wonder seriously if we will get to London next month. The days are rolling forward – we’ve got to face up to it, one way or the other.

My husband is even slower than he was. Getting to things in Edinburgh involves more and more careful forward planning and calculating of distances-to-be-walked. How on earth will he manage London? There’s lots to see there, as always, but I don’t think there are any mustn’t-miss exhibitions just now. We’ll be tired before we even set out, after the Mileses’ visit. Rachel won’t be there – she is most uncharacteristically weekending in Toulouse while KnitNation is on. Is it worth the trouble and expense of going to London without seeing Rachel?

We must talk about this, he and I, today or tomorrow.

Comments

Kristie, I did some Googling on “Cascade 220”. It looks promising, and easy to get. They offer a shade called “Christmas red” which could probably be trusted for electricity, sight-unseen. I am always slightly alarmed when a yarn boasts that it’s ideal for felting – does that mean that the rest of us don’t dare allow it anywhere near water? I’ll get the Brownstone pattern out today and see what sort of gauge Jared expects.

Thanks for the comments about magazines, with special reference to Knitter’s. Shandy, I think, at least for the moment, that VK is in a class by itself, and shouldn’t be abandoned if one wants to see Where Knitting is Going. You’re probably right that the rest don't matter. But you can’t read a computer in the bath.

Rebecca, I’m delighted to “meet” someone who, like me, tried to knit all the Socka yarns. I wish now that I had kept track of my Kaffe socks in those terms – made a note of the shade numbers. I suspect I’ve knit most of them, but not quite all.

I’m glad to meet a fellow-enthusiast for commonplace books, too. (Follow the link) I’ve got one, rarely augmented, but what is there is mostly rather choice. “Mostly” – a few things that seem brilliant at the time, pale with the years.