I’m sorry about yesterday. This is as far as I got:

“The yarn arrived; it looks splendid. I am knitting the sock with ever greater speed.

And I've ordered the Shetland Oo book.

I think that next year -- meaning next month -- I'll add an FO box to the sidebar.

It's been a remarkably tiring day. I hope to be back tomorrow in better fettle.”

And here I am, in at least slightly better fettle. KD says that the fancy edition of the Oo book sold out yesterday, the day of publication, which leads one safely to assume that sales in general are good and likely to continue so. And that’s good news.

I decided, lying in bed this morning, to go ahead and wind a skein of the lace wool. And I have successfully done so, no knots, no tangles, but what a task. You wind and wind and wind and wind before you even get to the point where you begin to think, maybe we’re getting somewhere. And then you wind a lot more. But it’s done, and it should last me until February at least.

In the peaceful afternoon, I cast on the edging (of Mrs Hunter of Unst's shawl -- see KD's chapter in the Haps book) and have knit seven or eight scallops. The pattern is simplicity itself – one of those edgings where you don’t have to do the decrease rows, always somehow slower and more depressing. You just knit up to the summit and then bind off (in this case) 5 stitches and start again. I have no memory at all, in my fingers, of knitting it for Rachel before she was born -- although I did so. 

I think I need 32 scallops per edge, judging from the number of stitches to be picked up for the border. And so when I have 32 scallops, I will also have the means to make a rough-and-ready guess at the finished size. And by the same token, when I have 16 I’ll be able to make an even rougher estimate. I’ll go on tomorrow at least until I reach that point.

My one anxiety so far is that the yarn is so nice, it might be hard to persuade then to use the shawl. I'll try to get a picture over the weekend.

Here’s the hat picture. Isn't that nice? 

Roobeedoo, I couldn’t find the hat kit at Deramores, despite searching their website for “hat kit” and “striped hat kit”. Can you zero me in?

I’m not abandoning that sock. I need it for Christmas.

Non-knit

The evening carers tell me that we’ve had a murder around the corner on Scotland Street. (What will Alexander McCall Smith have to say about that?) I saw a satellite van at the corner when I went out to shop at midday and assumed it was looking for people without television licenses.