Yesterday’s big excitement was that I have almost finished the Tokyo shawl – I am halfway across the “bind off loosely” row. This is particularly gratifying because of the danger involved in laying anything aside (in this case, the counter-attraction was the Dunfallandy blankie) and having it slide into UFO territory. And the Tokyo shawl is particularly precious because of its being your gift to me.

It’ll take a while to deal with those ends, as I’ve said. There is no real front and back to this thing – the bands keep turning, first st st and then reversed st st. So the ends will have to be dealt with, with unusual neatness, for me. And then there’s blocking. Still, I’m getting there.

And once that end has been achieved, and the Sous Sous resumed, I can begin thinking of fitting my half-brioche sweater (madtosh Whiskey Barrel and Roast Hatch Chillis in vertical stripes) into the weekly knitting sequence. This is exciting.

But all will be swept aside in an instant when news arrives of the baby, in favour of Milo Bambino and the graduated skeins from the Pigeonroof. The yarn has arrived from Loop, and it’s very good.

Anonymous: “Authenticity in Culturally-Based Knitting” (the conference at the Museum in Lerwick) sounded too heavy for me, but the idea of the “19^th Century Pattern Book Project”, whatever is involved, sounds very exciting and I hope time and strength will allow me to follow up the link you provide (comment, yesterday).

In response to a comment – I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten whom I’m replying to, and if I am to post this before doomsday I’d better not take time to look: I had intended to say myself that Susan Crawford’s track record, as author of A Stitch in Time, assures me that the Vintage Shetland Project will soon be published. And then all the delay will be forgiven and forgotten.

But I still think the appropriate way to proceed, when cloud-funding produced so much more money than she expected, was to sit down calmly and work out what she wanted to do and how long it would take (factoring in the danger of bad weather in the winter – it is not uncommon). And then to determine a production schedule, and stick to it. 

And make a serious, formal announcement to us all at the beginning, apologizing for missing the original publication date and Christmas: and telling us when it would be published.

It’s the succession of promises that annoys: including the one about having the book ready for the EYF. Which it won’t be.

And her remark about the “huge task” of sending out books to the cloud-funders, sounds to me like a grumble we could have done without. Perhaps I am taking it amiss.