Guess what? I blocked the Tokyo shawl!

What a rush of joy and energy one feels, doing something at last which one might – indeed, should -- have done a fortnight ago. I’m terribly pleased with the way it looks. Now all I need is for the equinoctial weather to turn sour, so that I can huddle in it.

Perdita is interested in the bright heads of the pins, and pulls them out, greatly endangering herself and distressing me,

This means that I’m free to add another project to my weekly schedule – it’ll be my half-brioche sweater of madtosh Whiskey Barrel and Roast Hatch Chillies. I won’t do it, though, just at the moment. I’m decreasing for the deep v-neck of the Sous Sous. I am engaged with a six-row sequence which must be repeated five times, two of the six rows being decrease rows. All is well, the count is right, my beloved Sirka counter is earning its keep. But I think I had better keep my eye on the ball until the front of the Sous Sous is finished.

That will leave two small sleeves to do, and lots of mattress stitch. Another project wouldn’t hurt at that stage.

The half-brioche (if that is the correct term) produces a vertical striped effect, with one colour very much in the ascendancy over the other. The pattern picture shows a bright colour peeping out from a dark one, and I think I’ll go with that – Whiskey Barrel (it feels as if I have been knitting with it since the dawn of history) as the predominant colour, the Chillies peeping out.

I had a good day yesterday doing nothing much, except blocking that shawl and tidying away my purchases and class handouts from the EYF. What a glorious event it was! I took taxis both ways every day – there was always one dropping off a knitter or two, when I wanted to go home. By day three, the drivers were asking me what was going on.

I took presumption in both hands just now, and emailed Franklin to tell him that he should book a gig here for next year. Did I get the idiom right?

One small thing – and I’m sure there’ll be lots more in the next few days. Carol Feller told us, that when one is knitting chevrons – one of those patterns where increases and decreases alternate across the row, but never next to each other – when you’re doing that, the effect of an increase is to draw the knitting up, of a decrease to let it down. This seems a bit counter-intuitive, and Feller herself clearly had to stop and think it through whenever the situation arose.

It’s what’s happening with the Sous Sous, all right (pictures soon) – on the back, the pattern (double moss stitch with a central cable pattern) is knit straight across. On the front, there are decreases just inside each selvedge, and corresponding increases to the right and left of the central panel. With the result that the edges droop down, and the centre is scooped out.

Interesting.