Progress.

One thing I have learned in a long life, is that it is no use simply and happily picking up stitches as they seem to present themselves –I won’t wind up with the same number on each side. Of s sleeve opening or a v-neck, for instance.

So I set out yesterday keeping careful track – so many picked up from garter stitch ridges, one-for-one; so many from st st, 2 for 3. Got to the bottom, started up the other side – and grasped, belatedly, that it was more complicated than that.

The back is raised slightly, by knitting the st st fill-in a bit longer, thus forcing the neckline forward. Rather neatly, I think. It means that there will be more stocking stitch stitches to pick up, and fewer garter stitch ribs, on the back than on the front. But it will remain necessary to have the same number of stitches on each side of the sleeve hole.

Got it in the end. And I have kept a careful note of how it was done, for use on the second sleeve.

I’ve finished the first sleeve cap, and am now knitting cheerfully along decreasing every so often at the underarm. The cap worried me a bit – I am getting 5 ½ stitches to the inch, instead of Glover’s 6. That should mean that in the few places where I am actually obeying an instruction involving stitch numbers, my work should be looser and therefore larger than hers.

I wound up with two stitches more around the sleeve hole than she mentions. That was good. I decreased for the cap as  instructed (I thought) – but reached the stitch-number she mentioned for proceeding down the sleeve before the cap was as big as she said it should have been. Did I misunderstand about the decreasing? The wrap-and-turn bit came out all right, although the line where the sleeve joins the body isn't quite as elegantly smooth as other joins.

However, the cap looks at least reasonable, and I am forging on.

Meanwhile you can admire the grafting of the body to the upper garter stitch band in the back. I am thoroughly pleased with that.

Miscellany

Shandy, Lynne has sent us a couple of suggestions of places we might lunch on November 18, after Franklin’s morning class. Her daughter used to work at Loop.

Soon it will have to be decided whether Rachel is to stay in Streatham and entertain me and my husband that weekend, or come up here while I go to London alone. I don’t really think my husband is up to London, but he does want to see those bronzes at the RA. And Rachel does work hard – her weekend is going to be busy whichever way we slice it, but it’ll be tougher for her here.

On the other hand, my husband would enjoy having Rachel here, apart from the disappointment about the bronzes, and Alexander and Ketki and their boys would come,  and that would be nice, and Rachel’s husband (unlike some) is a great help on the domesticity front, as are Alexander and Ketki both.

So we shall see