In lieu of the pictures you might have hoped for, of weeds and grandchildren, here at least is a picture of a sock:

Wren, your comment yesterday came at just the right moment. I google’d “tubular bind-off” and discovered that there is a description of a k2p2 bind off in “Knitting Tips and Trade Secrets” which I own and which, remarkably, I was able to find quickly.

(Knitting books have reached the stage where many are piled on the floor next to the shelves which no longer have room to deploy them. It makes retrieval difficult.)

But I couldn’t understand the instructions.

I went on google’ing and found this blogger and her utterly successful jacket. She says that the k2p2 bind-off is exactly the same – she italicizes the words – as the k1p1 one. So I just did that. I am not wholly persuaded, but the result is tidy and stretchy, if not very tubular.

I then cast on for the next sock…

…and I have achieved something, perhaps not quite what was intended. But the provisional stitches, such as they are, are undoubtedly on the circular needle. Candace starts at the point where toes join the foot, rather than at the very tip of the sock – if it turns out a bit untidy, I think it will be easier to fudge, there.

My conclusions, so far, are

(a)    that if I need a real provisional cast-on my only reliable resource is the crochet one – where you crochet the stitches onto the needle, not the crochet-chain one which I have yet to master. I learned it from Candace herself, in a mitered child’s-cardigan pattern which failed at the Games one year when “Child’s Cardigan” was one of the categories. My claque was indignant, but I think they were admiring Candace’ pattern whereas the judges were looking at the knitting.

(b)   that I must master Judy’s Magic cast-on. Magic it really is.

Life

We’ll go back to Strathardle tomorrow, insh’Allah. Helen and I have conferred on the cooking of tomorrow night’s supper. Her presence and support are beyond price.

I am grateful for your comments, Tamar, Anonymous and Shandy.  I don’t think my husband’s failure to sparkle in group conversation is related to hearing. So far, although we have accumulated a fair number of the possible afflictions of old age, we have both been spared significant hearing loss. That must be a very hard one to bear.

  

I think it is more that he can’t keep up (never having been very good at it) when thoughts and ideas are ping-pong’ing about. We plan to keep away from the group festivities in the village next weekend, and dine by ourselves at home. It may make the weekend less exhausting for him.