I’m ribbing happily onwards with the vest. I should finish that phase today. Since I’m making this up as I go along, I can stop ribbing whenever I like. Nice feeling.

While I was looking at people’s Sky Scarves on Ravelry yesterday, I found someone who was doing hers in “swing knitting”. I did a bit of Googling, but the inventor of swing knitting seems to have a stranglehold on the system. It comes in three “workshops” costing respectively $11.90, $11.90, and $15.90. That’s a lot.

I don’t begrudge money where knitting is concerned, as you know. The real problem is that I simply don’t want a 40-page PDF, let alone two more. It’s too much (a) for my computer (b) for my printer and (c) for me. I’m sure it could be explained in two pages. That’s more my style.

I knit something roughly along those lines many years ago, a sweater for Thomas the Elder when he was a toddler. In those days, a quarter of a century ago, there was still an abundance of patterns in weekly women’s magazines, often very interesting patterns. My vague theory was that they were supplied to the magazines by the spinners and were patterns that hadn’t made the cut and wouldn’t be published as a leaflet, but were too good to bin.

Most knitting 25-30 years ago was done from the leaflets sold in yarn stores. Goodness, I haven’t bought one for years, nor even looked at the albums in which they are contained. I have a fair collection in my archives.

Anyway, I downsized several interesting ideas that year and knit them for a small boy. The only one I remember, and that but vaguely, is that jazzy short-row effort. I suppose I could work it out for myself, if I put my mind to it.

Non-knit

We’re hoping to go to Strathardle tomorrow. Scottish weather for the last fortnight has been vernal, while England was seized by cold and snow. Not particularly pleasant, but vernal, grey and damp. But I remained too scared-y to attempt Strathardle while the weather forecaster kept referring to sn*w, even if he was talking of areas hundreds of miles south of us.

But now the word is “becoming milder” all round, and it’s time to make a move. All the more so because next week, and the week after, are full of what passes for Event in the lives of the elderly, whereas this one is clear. And I need to harvest the Jerusalem artichokes before they start growing for ’12.

I’ll trust to the camera for the Sky Scarf this time.

My husband’s hand is perhaps slightly better. He hasn’t had a painful night since last Friday. Writer’s Cramp is an interesting thought, Tamar. We will see the dr next Wednesday because the dr wants to talk about whether my husband needs to have oxygen at home. We think not, at least not yet. But then my husband, for his part, has various symptoms to discuss including the hand. I read yesterday that some surgeries have notices up to say that patients are allowed only one symptom per consultation. The writer of the article (in the Telegraph), himself a dr, thought that ridiculous, and so do I.