And here's 2014! One of my jobs for today is to make at least tentative plans for the sweaters I will knit when Scotland win the Calcutta Cup. I'll have to confine myself to the Little Boys (not Archie) if I am to progress with the Unst Bridal Shawl. And my resolution for 2014 is to see the Cup during its year in Edinburgh.

Thank you for all of your kind messages yesterday. It's good to be back. I missed you, just before Christmas. Who else would care how many presents I had wrapped?

I've now knit half of the edging for one side of the Unst shawl. It's a start. I've photographed it, but the process for importing pics into this new computer is still unfamiliar and I'm running late. Tomorrow, I hope.

I got the Princess pattern out of the archives. The Unst Bridal is almost – perhaps fully – as large, to my surprise (a 72” square, whereas the Princess is a mighty triangle, 64” from top to tip). This is an impossibly ambitious attempt.

It's much easier than the Princess – but will that speed things up? I have already mastered the edging, and can knit it without peering at the chart. That took much longer with the Princess, and I was younger then. The borders and the centre have lots of plain or near-plain rows. [I have learned which side of the Bosphorus Constantinople/Istanbul is on, and how to tell whether the moon is waxing or waning, but I've given up on “lace knitting” and “knitted lace”.]

I began to wonder, when we were on Shetland, how the knitters managed in the winter in the days before electricity. I can see how Fair Isle might be possible by firelight for a knitter very familiar with her pattern and yarns. But lace? There would always be three or four hours of decent light in the middle of the day – maybe that was enough? Or were the months from November through February devoted to spinning? That might be easy enough in the dark, to experienced fingers.

I haven't given any real thought yet as to how this absurdly ambitious project is to be reconciled with other knitting. For the moment, while enthusiasm is high, I'll just go on. But I want to finish the Milano this month – less than a week's work remains, I think. And I absolutely mustn't abandon Rams&Yowes. [A farmer near Dumfries – far from Shetland – was on the news last night because his farm had been flooded. He had lost three yowes, he said – and he clearly said that, not “ewes”.]

The other knitting news is that my Christmas present from Alexander and Ketki was two balls of mink yarn, from China where they were in October. It's called The Update Grows Hair Mink. The world will be a poorer place when the Chinese get better at English – it'll happen soon. It is 100% something, it says, although in the list that starts with 50gr and includes what must be washing temperatures, 15% is mentioned.

I have two 50 gram balls, grey and dark blue. The only possibility is a striped scarf or (better) cowl. When?

Non-knit

Our niece F. had her second round of breast cancer surgery on the 23^rd. She saw her consultant this week (they can apparently get results fast if they put their minds to it) and the news is entirely good – no more cancer in lymph nodes or tissue. We don't know yet what follow-up treatment, if any, there will be.