Nine Eleven

I've just looked back -- today is, as I thought, the anniversary of my sister-in-law's operation for colon cancer.

I made a good start yesterday on the conversion of my husband’s files. He wants me to concentrate on the ones he has recently revised, so I’m doing that. Holly, I don’t think the old Word Perfect can help – although at least I understand what you’re suggesting. It’s more than 20 years old, pre-Windows, and as I remember from my own days of using it, will save files only in its own format and as DOS text.

What I need is a macro in Word Perfect 12 which would invite me to type in the name of the next file I want loaded, and would then convert it to Word and invite me to put it away in its new place. It could save a lot of clicking.

Thank you, too, for the suggestion of Dropbox for cloud computing. As it happens, my sister wrote to me yesterday suggesting the same thing. I’ve signed up and made a start with it – and I'm sure it's going to work fine.

Yarn

Stash temptation comes crowding in. Thanks for yesterday’s suggestions, most of which I’d never even heard of. I’ve recently bought an on-line copy of The Knitter, and also downloaded a free one they had on offer. It is distinctly good, and distinctly pricy. Should I cancel “Knitting” and go for it? Reading it in bed last night with the subject on my mind, I found it absolutely full of pointers to wonderful-sounding yarns I don't know about.

Knitting

I seized an available half-hour yesterday and blocked the Brownstone – without even pausing to deal with loose ends, as you see. I can't give it its final percentage point in the sidebar until I've done that.

It looks enormous. Taking a tape measure to it, I find that the width is about right. Somehow both body and sleeves are a couple of inches longer than the measurements I was aiming at.

BUT – isn’t it wonderful how life sometimes fits together? – this morning’s edition of Knitting Daily, to which I subscribe, is devoted to the subject of shortening or lengthening a sweater! With a video demonstration from Eunny! I will see Big Thomas in the sweater on the shores of Loch Fyne at Christmas, insh'Allah, and will judge then what, if anything, needs to be done.

And here’s the little one, superimposed on the Strachur Primary School sweatshirt which is its template. So far so good.

Both Zite and an email from I Knit London tempt me with “55 Christmas Balls to Knit”. If that sounds like a title you could skip, have a look at Arne and Carlos on the cover. I could knit a bauble (our family word for them) to take along to Loch Fyne.