The computer is excelling itself for slowth, this morning.

I've reached the ribbing of the second sock. So today I get to wind the Pakokku, and maybe even cast it on.  And I must spend a calm ten minutes with the instructions for the stretchy bind-off before I get that far.

Cat and Provisional Kitchener, the question of whether madelinetosh sock yarn is reliable for socks is close to my heart at the moment, as I have enough of beautiful Cosmos left over from the Relax which is too-small-for-anyone-but-Hellie,  for a generous pair of gent's socks. I tried a natural-language question to Google yesterday -- "Is madelinetosh sock yarn hard-wearing?" without successful result, and have started a thread on the subject in the madtosh Ravelry group. I suspect from the answers so far that it's pretty good, but not as good as those German yarns which are 25% something-phoney-and-strong, but feel like wool.

My most interesting experience on that front was a pair of bedsocks for my husband a few years ago, made of pure wool DK leftovers. He wore them only in bed, and for padding back and forth to the bathroom at night. They wore out immediately, in weeks -- didn't even make it to the first wash.

Today's excitement, surpassing even the finishing of those socks, is Amy Herzog's "Knitting to Flatter" class on Craftsy. Sue gave it to me, out of simple kindness. I am overwhelmed.

You have been exceeding kind to me lately, and in getting excited about Craftsy I don't mean for a moment to downplay other gifts . The Pakokku itself; the snood that Joe's girlfriend's mother knit me, comfort in this cold, cold spring; Kaffe's "Dreaming in Colour" which I am reading with great interest; and now this. Nor do I mean to hint for more. Heaven forfend. You reward me more than you can know, by logging on and sometimes commenting. By being here.

I've watched the first Herzog lesson (and ordered her book) -- I was impressed. She's pleasant, and confidence-inspiring, and perhaps best of all, was wearing an unfastened, shaped cardigan which sat perfectly on her shoulders. My attempts tend not to.

Rachel sent four pictures from our Easter weekend. Three of them you have already seen -- Ed in his Gardening Sweater and the panoramic view which currently forms my header. Here's the fourth:

That's Rachel herself, cutting the Easter cake, wearing her Adult Surprise and watched by my husband in his Georgia O'Keefe sleeveless vest (and by Ketki). And it's slipping off her left shoulder.

Can Herzog teach me how not to have that happen? I have my anxieties: my copy of Evelyn Waugh's "Men at Arms" falls open to the page on which we meet Major Erskine who "...was strangely dishevelled in appearance. His uniform was correct and clean but it never seemed to fit him, not through any fault of the tailor's, but rather because the major seemed to change shape from time to time during the day."

I am also, on this topic, looking forward to Sally Melville's new book "Knitting Pattern Essentials", not yet published here. I'm a fan of hers -- she is perhaps my most-admired designer whose designs I've never knit. Her book "Styles" had just come out when I was at Camp Stitches on Lake George in '99 (oh! happy memory). I was walking along one afternoon behind two women who were talking about it -- I think one was holding a copy -- and I butted in to say, That's a great book. And only then realised that one of the women was Sally Melville.