It started with 316 stitches – I’m down to 260, just at that delicious cusp when the long rows begin to feel shorter. If all continues well, I should reach the v-neck shaping today and things will go even faster.

I was right – the 6^th skein is dark, like the 5^th, so there is no second line across the work. That means it is essential either that this current skein be enough to finish the body, or that I find another dark one.

And there’s good news on the Effortless front, although not-so-good for my poor sister. She broke her left wrist a month ago. It had to be surgically repaired. It is not making the progress she had hoped for (she’s younger than I am, but still, in her 70’s) and she has decided against her original carry-on-luggage-only plan for her trip to Britain next month.

That means she’ll have room for some yarn.

So I spent a very happy hour yesterday with the Jimmy Bean website. They didn’t have Byzantine or Tart or Smoky Orchid or Thoreau, but I decided to look on that merely as a slight simplification of the choice. I wound up with Dried Rose. Golden Hickory and Rosewood were strong contenders, Duchess a temptation.

But after all this needn’t be the last madelinetosh DK I ever knit. Who would like a sweater?

Non-knit

Thank you for the bean report, catdownunder. I have trouble with “clockwise” and “anticlockwise” but I think the answer is that Australian beans behave just like British ones. Something of a disappointment.

This morning’s ambition is to go to the Edinburgh Farmer’s Market, which happens every Saturday in the shadow of the Castle. Often intended, rarely achieved, for me. I want some mutton, a favourite of my husband’s, and some rare-breed pork chops which won’t taste like cardboard. It’s not (entirely) the butcher’s fault – the Modern Pig is bred for leanness.

So I’ll leave it there.