If I’m still functioning when the Calcutta Cup next returns to Edinburgh, I’ve decided on generous-fitting Scotland-blue sleeveless v-necks for the Little Boys – who may be grown men by then – with the cup and date in white somewhere. Easy wearing for the non-wool-wearer. And I am determined, with the same proviso, to contrive to see the cup when it next resides north of the border.

The commentators made much, the other day, of how rare it is for Scotland and England to play each other on neutral ground. I find myself wondering if it has ever happened before except in Calcutta. The whole thing started in the 19^th century as an annual match between British civil servants there. When the Rugby Club broke up, they used the money remaining in their bank account to have the cup made. It’s got serpents for handles and an elephant on top and wonderful surface patterning – well worth seeing.

Yesterday I had an email from Interweave about their e-magazine ColorKnit. This time, it is available for an iPad, and I got it.

It is a whole new experience, not at all like reading Piecework or the New Yorker on one’s iPad. It’s a genuine interactive magazine full of hyperlinks and audio clips and perhaps even some video ones, although if so I haven’t come across them yet. I find it not entirely congenial –  broken-up and bitty and hard to navigate. And I’ll have to figure out how to get rid of it eventually: it’s very demanding of memory.

Actual knitting

I am now embarked on the blissful uninterrupted st st part of the body of the Brownstone sweater. It will all end too soon, with stitches cast off centre front for the eventual shawl collar. From then on I must work back and forth and excitements will accumulate – some short-row’ing in the back, the incorporation of the sleeves, the raglan shaping.

I am about to attempt a picture of it on the front step, incorporating some of your advice. I got the old, superior camera out and am, at the moment, boosting its battery a bit. I will have to remind myself how to turn the flash off and how to get the results into the computer. I’ll take the pictures on the front step (as is my wont, in the months when it is light at this time in the morning, and not raining) with a pillowcase or something similar from the ironing pile for background. The sun, if available at all, doesn’t reach the step until later.

I had a look at Picnik yesterday, and liked what I saw, although I think it was rather an effort for my not-at-all-new computer. But I couldn’t make any progress with those orange photographs – increasing the saturation made things redder, but obliterated all detail (such as stitches) in the process. I’ll be back. 

Vast improvement. The upper picture was taken, without flash, on the "auto" setting. Too pink, but that's better than orange. The bottom one is getting pretty close to the truth -- for that, I twiddled the controls around to a setting which seemed to suggest night-time. I'll now have to go back to the instruction book and see what I did.