I must be quick this morning, insofar as this dinosaur of a computer will let me. No links, no polished prose, no checking of statements. I’m going for a walk with our niece. I hope I don’t disgrace myself by flagging – I am aware of myself as older and feebler by the day.

The v-neck vest is blocked. Again, the madeleinetosh yarn has relaxed a lot when wet. I’ll carefully note the gauge I’ve now got, since I know I will never attain to the state of perfection required to wet and block a swatch. But (as Ron and I agree) what’s the use? The vest, as I promised a while ago, has been blocked for a bit of extra-width and less-length. So the gauge is scarcely set in stone. Still, worth noting.

And I’m nearly finished with my first Sweet Tomato Heel. All my instincts rose up to protest – can’t I just do it the usual way? But I persevered. There was some frogging – what one does is knit to the point where the heel is to be, then purl back to the other edge of the section designated for heel, then start short-rowing.

Cat designates that first purl row as short-row, although it isn’t. The instructions, however, are crystal clear. But I muffed it, and short-rowed the purl row, and fairly soon realised that that wouldn’t work, because one needs to be poised for a knit row when the shaping is done and all the little gaps have to be closed.

I used Eye of the Partridge for that first attempt. But since I had to start again anyway, I seized the chance to abandon it as too much for my weary intelligence. I’ll come back to it in another sock when I’m not all agitated about heel-shaping. I’m using my usual heel flap k1 p1 on the right side rows, purl the reverse.

Miscellaneous

I wandered around Meadow Yarns for a while (link yesterday) and found a nice sock yarn, can’t remember whether Opal or (I rather think) Regia, based on national flags. I want some Italian socks. I also want all the rest of KF’s Random Stripe range for Regia, now that I’ve knit two of them; and all the rest of Opal’s Van Gogh range now that I’m knitting one. Lots of socks.

Not Zite but my email in-box had two interesting items this morning:

1)      Madelinetosh merino light. For my snood?

2)      An IK pattern called en pointe which is remarkably like the VK twisted-front pullover I have my eye on. The IK one precedes – it’s from the Spring, ’11, magazine which I will now have to find and examine.

Construction is different. The IK one is a Moebius tube with sleeves inserted. The VK one is two rectangles, one longer than the other to allow for the twist, partially sewn together along one long edge to form shoulder seams. All st st – the edges must curl. You can’t really see in the picture. No sleeves, just overhang.

I must have turned right past the IK version a year ago. Another triumph for photography? More on this tomorrow if I can find the IK pattern.