So, Scotland lost.

They played with a certain oomph, which perhaps promises well for the rest of the Six Nations tournament. They didn’t give up, even when the case was hopeless at the end. And there was a very brief passage at the beginning, when they were actually in the lead. England are terribly good. It was all a bit “Fight fiercely, Harvard”, if you’re old enough to remember that one.

While it was going on, I managed to graft the shoulder of the Gardening Sweater, and start the neck ribbing, which I finished in the evening. Then I started to retrieve the first set of underarm stitches to graft them together, when I remembered that I was going to run the centre one down and hook it up again in order to make an attractive fake seam. This is an idea of Meg’s from the first of her four EPS articles in Knitter’s, 2000.

The Tempter whispered, Let’s not bother. But I am made of sterner stuff, and anyway I had taken the trouble to leave behind an odd number of stitches so that there would be a centre one. I ran it down – that was fun – and secured it. Now I have to remind myself exactly what it is Meg wants me to do, and also find a crochet hook.

Franklin has a brilliant post – when is any post of his ever less than that? – about 50’s-vintage British knitting patterns. I wonder if I have any he might be interested in? I couldn’t dump the whole lot on him, he doesn’t have room for them any more than I have, but there might be a few choice ones I could send on. Somebody has created greetings cards from some of the funniest of them.

And what is “Tumblr”? New to me.

So now it’s on to thinking about the tee-shirt. Shandy and Catdownunder, you have sold me on the idea of introducing a very occasional bright stripe. I’ll have another look at the Loop list any minute now. Lime-green-ish, I think. Kristie, if there’s one thing better than buying new yarn, it’s finding a sudden excuse like this for buying still more.

Thank you for yesterday’s comments. I didn’t mean to scold you, for the silence the day before; just to express my fear that having comments moderated had put everybody off commenting. The attack seems to have subsided. I’m sure you’re right, Theresa, that it was a concerted attack on Blogger, nothing really to do with Jean’s Knitting. And I agree, Shandy, that the sliminess of the wording is particularly distressing.

Mostly they are highly complimentary, but I did have one – I should have saved it – which complained of my spelling.

I think there were two yesterday addressed to the current post. All the rest were ancient and therefore easily dealt with under the rule that everything attaching to a post older than a fortnight is to be moderated. If even one gets through and remains, a Google search will turn it up: that’s what they’re aiming at and that’s what I’m afraid of.

But I’ve reverted to the old system – no more moderation for you guys.