A big day, yesterday.

Here’s Juliet, our great-granddaughter.

We have a little family tradition of coincident birthdays. I share one with Greek Helen’s husband David, and Archie shares another with Theo and Jenni’s son Ted. If Juliet had been born a day earlier, she would have coincided with Ketki. But it didn’t happen.

As promised, I stopped what I was doing (possibly in mid-row of the Sous Sous, I didn’t notice) and started the Milo Bambino. There were a couple of false starts, but I’m well on the way now. It’s knit from the top down, and I’m doing the gradient with the last and brightest colour at the top. Picture soon. A moment ago I was wondering whether to wind the mini-skeins before my class on gradient yarns next week. Now I may have a whole Milo Bambino to take along.

And, apart from that, not only did I find that old Paton’s shawl leaflet yesterday, I also found the other serious missing item: my own copy of Mrs Gaugain. There are lots of books in this house, and lots of untidiness, but Mrs Gaugain is simply not a book that gets mis-shelved. My little group of 19^th century knitting books sit by themselves. It’s not something I would lend, or even leave lying around.

In the event, after causing me several days’ anxiety, it turned out to be on the mantelpiece just beside that little group, lying flat, in a plastic envelope because the binding is loose.

Mrs G has a pattern for a Shetland shawl, quite different from the mid-19^th-century one I quoted the other day. In Mrs Gaugain’s book, you cast on 244 stitches and knit, apparently, from one side to the other, creating a lace edging as you go, Orenburg-fashion. I hope to read it through today and see how much I can figure out.

I was a bit disappointed to discover that the 19^th century patterns re-knit and on display at the Museum in Lerwick the other day were stitch patterns, swatches, and not whole shawls or scarves knit from old instructions, Franklin-fashion.