Yesterday was a stressful and unsatisfactory one, quite apart from the non-arrival of the cleaning woman. Thank God for knitting. I'm now just beyond half-way in the 60^th round (that sounds good) of the border of the Unst shawl. Here is an attempt at a photograph. The centre-outward technique makes it harder and harder to smooth out a little bit for the camera. Edging-in means that the piece always has a top and bottom edge, at least until you begin attaching the centre.

But I like the way the undifferentiated cloud of knitting looks by now, just lying there waiting for me to go on. I have established the next round of motifs – easy-peasy, so far.

I forgot to tell you that I did tear myself away from this delightful occupation recently, long enough to attempt to fix the bad patch on the cast-off edge of my sister's shawl, Amedro's Cobweb Lace Wrap. I made a mess of it. I should have done it your way, Mary Lou, and just fixed the raw bit, which was only three or four inches long.

Instead I tried to take out the whole cast-off edge. The yarn stuck to itself. Things didn't go well. I have got as far as recovering the stitches, more or less, and am currently trying to knit across the row before casting off again.

It's not going to look good.

Maybe I'll have to knit her another one.

I've knit that Amedro shawl four times, with different laces. It's an elongated triangle, a good shape for wearing and for showing off lace. The trouble with anything designated as a stole – i.e., a rectangle – is that it tends to get scrunched up and worn as a scarf. At least it does in my family. I'll look around for another show-off shawl (suggestions welcome) but maybe there's nothing better than another Amedro. There's plenty of scope for changing the lace in the centre panels. She's got an interesting edging with points of different sizes which is rather effective, too.

Comment

Leslie, it was wonderful to hear from you. She it was who found me in the rec>craft>textiles>yarn mailing list, sometime in the 90's, and suggested that I join the Knitlist. Remembering that happy event reminded me of my excitement, meeting the community of on-line knitters after a lifetime knitting alone. And of all the flesh-and-blood friends and happy days that discovery has led to, including, most recently, Shetland.

And I thought again – I say this every time the subject comes up – of how remarkable it was that EZ was able to achieve all she did without any such community. Determinedly knitting in the round when the editors were equally determined to have everything flat, to begin with.

Non-knit

Here are a couple more Easter pictures. Some of us in the garden after Mass, while Alexander toiled over his lunch:

Skyping Lizzie in Kansas, after lunch. Notice the bottle of Weston's Vintage Cider:

Skyping is better than it was – less of a delay. The means, here, was that Microsoft tablet thing called Surface (I think) which I got for my husband, Christmas '12, and which he completely failed to master. It had other, serious limitations for our purposes, too. I passed it on to grandson Joe (standing behind his brother Thomas) and they are living happily ever after.