I sat down and wrote a couple of emails – and now look at the time!

Not much to report, either. The back of the mitered jacket is now grafted together, and looks well. Pic soon. I am poised to start picking up sleeve stitches. Sarah (day before yesterday), that was a most helpful comment. I’ve got both Gibson-Roberts, and Walker’s "Knitting From the Top". I have started with the former – that book is full of good things. I should have it out more often.

The first thing I realised, after reading a bit of it, is that “Knit One, Knit All” doesn’t include a schematic drawing of the sleeve at all. All the excitement is concentrated on that garter stitch border and its fill-in which I have now finished. My plan is to pick up stitches as instructed – one in every garter stitch rib, and 2-for-3 in the st st portions; see how many I’ve got; and draw myself a schematic.

The sleeves are ¾ length, relatively narrow, and finish with a wide garter stitch band.

Years ago – I shudder to think how many – there was a Christmas when I simply went down the list, knitting everybody a hat. Different sorts of hats. I can remember some of them, and, more sharply, I remember the dear departed heads for which they were destined. I remember worrying a bit that a knitted hat was perhaps a bit sporty for my husband’s elderly Cousin Jenny.

But not a bit of it – Cousin Jenny wrote back that it was just the thing for golf!

My mother’s was in Shetland wool with a deep ribbed edge, folded over, and then a tam-o-shanter type Fair Isle top. She wore it a lot.

But the point here is that, as a legacy of that Christmas, I have a collection of hat-sized circular needles in every imaginable gauge. Just what I need for these sleeves.

Miscellaneous non-knit

Patience, thank you for the long and most helpful comment yesterday about diabetic blood sugar control. My husband injects only twice a day – meaning that meals must progress in a predictable sequence. James, whose life as a journalist is much less regular, injects five or more times. We have a routine hospital appointment coming up in a fortnight – NHS cuts (I suspect) have meant that these are spaced further and further apart. I will ask about a pump.

My husband’s approach to life is much more like the Greeks you mention. James is in your mother’s camp.

FiberQat, Wodehouse is fine for reading to oneself at bedtime. It is reading him aloud that won’t do. One keeps breaking up with laughter.

And lest you think I am highbrow all day, I will tell you that I am currently reading “Breed” by Chase Novak on my iPad Kindle app. V. good, v. scary, a sort of  “Rosemary’s Baby” de nos jours. Novak is the pseudonym of a famous novelist I have never heard of – I’m not going to stop to look his other name up again. His real-name books don’t sound quite my cup of tea, and “Breed” is the only Novak one so far. Alas.