I feel honoured, Aine, to have you here – you who knit for Interweave. And I was very interested in what you say about the Feller capelet. I don’t know Baa Ram Ewe except for being vaguely aware of them out of the corner of my eye – in an issue like this one, I think I assumed the yarn would be American. But it’s not, it’s English, right here on my doorstep, no duty to pay and beautiful colours. Those long rows at the end hold few fears for one just graduated from the circumference of the Dunfallandy blankie. Firmly on my HALFPINT list.

 All well here. My husband continues to improve, is off oxygen and impatient to get home. They say they have to wean him of his nebuliser yet, and, of course, get the care package started again.

I’ve turned the heel of the Arne&Carlos sock and picked up the stitches along the heel flap and am ready to start the instep decreases. And it hasn’t even been a week yet! I hope I didn’t discard the Sock Odd Ball Bag in that recent purge – I’m going to need something to finish off the toe. 50 grams isn’t quite enough, the way I do men’s socks.

One of you wrote to tell me that Loveknitting has the Regia “Istanbul Mosaic” sock yarn. I ordered it at once; it might even turn up today. I think it is an all-over melange of mosaic-y colours, rather than those self-patterning stripes that keep luring the knitter on. I’ve been browsing both Regia and Opal – you’re right, KnitWit, that the artists’ yarns I was thinking of are the latter. There are some wonderful stripes in both camps.

I got back to the poor old Sous Sous last night, but almost at once had to wind a new skein. Perdita insisted on helping, with the result that all my time got used up and the skein is wound into three separate balls.

Am I interested in Ann Budd’s “New Directions in Sock Knitting”? I had a phase, a couple of years ago, when I knit socks every which way, including toe-up with that fiendish cast-on. But I have happily reverted to same-old same-old. Is it time to rock the boat again?

On my permanent bucket list – is that the phrase I want? – are Debbie New’s “Swirl Socks” on the cover of the XRX “Socks Socks Socks” book. I’ve just got the pattern out again and find it as opaque as ever. It calls for seven colours of a worsted weight cotton, unspecified. Not a good start. I could practice, perhaps, with a single sock yarn until I figure out how the swirls are done.

Non-knit

A friend got me a unchewable iPad cord – quite likely to be one of the ones you mention, Southern Gal and Tamar. It looks sort of braided and also sort of steel-reinforced. My friend thinks it may deliver the charge more slowly than the Apple cord. Too soon to say. That’s terrible news about your hacked account, Southern Gal. Starbucks, of all people. I live in terror of the day the bad guys get through to PayPal. I had a “phishing” email purportedly from PayPal a couple of days ago, but it was easy to resist.