Elaine, thank you. That’s a brilliant article on pooling in the Twist Collective (now safely stashed in Evernote). It comes at a particularly opportune moment, too, because yesterday dear old Amazon delivered Laura Militzer Bryant’s book, “Artful Color Mindful Knits” on the same subject, which I have been reading with some interest.

Stuebing’s article gets to the point faster – almost always a good thing – and offers an easier way to calculate the Magic Number, i.e. the number of stitches you need (at chosen needle size) to knit around one repeat of the colour sequence of your yarn. But the book has a lot to offer, too, and I would recommend.

AX’s photography continues to grate with me, but I am hard put to figure out why. He’s good. His style is recognisable as his, surely a mark of distinction for a photographer. Maybe it’s that I don’t like his models. Maybe it’s that he hasn’t solved the problem, like many artists before him in the top of the second rank, of what to do with models’ hands.

I finished the ribbing of the new Pakokku socks last night, and hesitated for a moment. The colours are manly. Should I go on ribbing and turn these into gents’ socks? The three ladies on my Sock List who have big feet – Pakokku seems to need 64 stitches to go into its act – are inundated with socks. But decided against, and went on. He’d say thank you (whoever he was) and never wear them.

I also printed out Kate Davies’ birthday present to me, her Rams and Yowes pattern. (Not bragging, or anything) Has there ever been such an evocative paragraph under “Materials”? “The blanket uses all 9 natural sheep-shades of Jamieson & Smith Shetland Supreme. You will need…black, moorit,…yuglet,…white, gaulmogot, katmollet, mooskit, sholmit, and shaela.”

And in about a month, I should be in a position to buy them over the counter.

Big Party

Rachel sent some pictures yesterday.

Three Helens:

Two Jameses:

Two Thomases:

Lizzie with her Mind the Gap socks – and the unidentified but helpful finger of a Londoner pointing to the stripe of a favourite line.

And this one:

It puzzled me for several minutes. Who were those people? And then I got it: that’s ME with  Hellie’s wonderful boyfriend Matt. I got to sit next to him at lunch, too. We’re down the commonty, having just taken the annual tree picture with Rachel’s children, who didn’t turn up in force until the morning of the party.