Sister Helen and Roger are safely back in CT. I had a brief message from them only 12 hours after the one from Heathrow, so things must have gone well. Helen didn't enjoy doing the driving home from the airport, but managed it perfectly well.

My computer, after a few halcyon days of impeccable behaviour, has now gone completely crazy – every click takes me somewhere I don't want to go. Will I be able to post this?

I made a bit more progress with Archie's sweater yesterday. Skeindalous, the Sirka Counter looks both simple and wonderful – and Meadow Yarns has it. So what I need to do is figure out what length and size and brand of beautiful wood circular needle I want, and order both. I've moved the knitting to a long metal needle and am getting on all right, but it is a shame to deprive oneself of the pleasure of knitting with absolutely the right needle.

I am spending all my time counting – the front, the sleeve, the back, the other sleeve, the other front. I don't think even the Sirka is going to help all that much with that problem. Once I've got it right, or more or less right, and have abandoned the sleeves and joined everything up into a cylinder, things should be much easier.

Ellen, I am sure you're right about trying-on. I've looked at the Yarn Harlot's blog – interesting, indeed. (This computer wouldn't even let me stay on the page when I was sitting there calmly reading it -- I had to retreat to the iPad.) Perhaps the thing to do here is to stop at the point where I have just abandoned the sleeves and wait until Archie can try it on. The book – “Knits Men Want” – is keen on this. It doesn't specify exactly when to do it, but the first try-on should be to check the chest size, it says, so it makes sense to do it when the chest circumference has just been fully established.

Zite has a quiz this morning, What Sort of Knitter Are You? But it's pretty useless because you can only choose one answer per question, and on most pages one wants more. I'm a raccoon, for what that's worth.