A good day, yesterday.

The tour group had already reached Kathy’s Knits when I got there yesterday at the starting time. They were at the end of what had clearly been a very successful trip. All were resolved not to buy any more yarn, but Kathy’s brilliant stock was too much for them. I must spend more time there.

It was wonderful meeting Pattie, and seeing Maureen again. Remembering our earlier Edinburgh yarn crawl, some years ago (early ’07 is likely), I realised that she was the very woman who had suggested over coffee that I knit Sam the Ram as my entry in that year’s Strathardle Highland Gathering. The category was “knitted toy”, and she rightly said that Sam was a show-off piece who would catch the judges’ eyes. And I won not only the category, but the Glenisla Shield for the best handiwork in any category.

Patti had knitted a catnip mouse for Perdita, by which she was enchanted.

And Maureen (whose knitting, I am sure, had impressed them even at Jamieson & Smith) gave me a magnetic pin for use in Portuguese knitting and a beautiful Fair Isle cowl-neck warmer. She was wearing Meg’s cardigan from the cover of  “Knitting” and a vest by Joyce Williams from “Sweaters from Camp”. (Unaccountably I can’t find the latter book to verify.)

I don’t deserve such friends.

Amy thought she remembered me from Camp Stitches ’99. She said she is going to lead a group to Iceland next year. That’s one for everybody’s wish list.

Wedding

Greek Helen sent this picture of a pocket square close up. I think that’s probably my grandson Joe, the bride’s younger brother. Good — but the best pocket square wearers, including the bridegroom, achieved visible corners.

Knitting

I am well engaged with my first Dunfallandy square and having an absolutely wonderful time. It’s very fiddly and great fun. It’s getting a bit faster as I learn the code — I can now toss off a T4k2togR, for instance, without turning back to the glossary.

In the centre of the square, where I now am, there are some interesting horizontal cables. I wondered if this was a trick known to all Celtic cable knitters. I looked up the designer, Teresa de Roulet. I gather she invented them, or at the very least unvented. 

Google’s first offering, when I looked her up, was a family doctor in California, a pleasant-looking woman in early middle age. That can’t be the one, I thought, and looked on down the page.

But it was. Here’s her Ravelry page. Amongst other things, she offers a free tutorial on horizontal cables. I’ll have to have a look at that.

Non-knit

And Scotland beat Japan by a large score. As should happen — but Japan had beaten the once-mighty South Africa only a few days before. So we were all a bit nervous, and it was definitely a good day.