I’ve had a very pleasant Fat Tuesday, sipping cider and thinking about Fair Isle colours.

In the Fair Isle phase of my middle years, which didn’t involve much in the way of colour theory, I used to separate the chosen yarns into two piles, Background and Foreground, each arranged with nice graduations. Today it occurred to me that if one is knitting a banded sweater, as opposed to an all-over pattern, there is no real need to keep the piles separate.

I don’t think either the Feral Knitter or Knitsonic address this question head-on. I started by looking closely at KD’s Machrihanish pattern, and sure enough, colours seem to move from one role to the other, in different bands. I think it is probably a good idea not to have too many different colours altogether. And clearly each band, although differing somewhat in pattern from its fellows, must have the same colour arrangement – although the intervening band will be differently arranged, colour-wise.

You’re right, essentially, Shandy, that I must knit this vest for Alexander while I still can, whatever the fortunes of Scottish rugby. I had it in mind when I bought some of their Heritage yarn, or whatever it’s called, that happy day in Jamieson & Smith – not recently. Perhaps the solution this year, if we lose on the 11^th, will be to knit the swatch. A hat is too small, and has the disadvantage that you have to think about a pattern for the crown shaping, which is completely extraneous to the central problem.

But a scarf…

Mrs Hunter’s shawl has advanced to the second half of the final repeat of the centre pattern. I should finish tomorrow. I like Kitchener’ing; that final side holds no fears. Except that it’s garter stitch: a) I must remind myself how to graft garter stitch; and b) I remember that one needs to have the two rows to be grafted at the proper stage of development. Since garter stitch involves turning the stitches first this way and then that (hence the difficulty in laddering down to correct a mistake), it is important to have the two rows either this way or that, before embarking upon Kitchener.

That much I remember, but memory needs to be refreshed.

Non-knit

Alexander is coming to see us tomorrow, as often on a Wednesday, but briefly, this time. He is involved in a complicated difficulty about his passports. He keeps explaining, and I keep forgetting. The essence is, I think, that his American passport and his British one give his name in slightly different forms. No one has ever objected before.

I have been able to find (good for me!) his birth certificate, and also a document which shows that his birth was registered with the American consulate in Glasgow. He is going to sweep in tomorrow to collect these precious papers and go straight on to the consulate here.

I have been concerned about the existential problem. The papers undoubtedly show that someone named GADM was born at 34 Hillhead Street in Glasgow on the 27^th of February, 1960. But how will the American consul in Edinburgh know, tomorrow, that Alexander is that man? Maybe he just found all that stuff in a tip? I know, of course, but nobody’s asking me.