That was a more productive day on the knitting front. I have finished sewing the half-brioche sweater together and knitting the plackets. I am maybe half-way through the collar. There are a good many loose ends to tidy away when that is done. Even so, I might finish tomorrow.

Which reminds me of another tidbit from Hazel Tindall. When you knit Fair Isle, you wind up with a fringe of ends up one side seam (on the inside) where you have attached a new colour every couple of rows. She said that it is all right to tidy and secure the loose ends by knotting. That’s what I’ve always done and would have continued doing, whatever she said, but I am enormously gratified to have her approval.

She didn’t press her way of knitting on us, although she was happy to demonstrate. She did say at the beginning, though, when we were all casting on our mug haps, that it is easier to join the work without twisting if, at that point, the stitches are on only two needles. Quite true, it turns out. I have always changed direction after casting on a sock, and ribbed one or even two rows back and forth before joining, but perhaps henceforth I’ll do it her way.

I enjoyed the beginning of Meg’s Fair Isle video, and hope to watch some more this evening. I left her about to tell me how to cast on in a way that would stop corrugated rib from flaring outwards.

Non-knit

Alexander came to see us, as often on a Wednesday. He is as depressed as I am at the prospect of another independence referendum – two more years of anxiety and bad temper, and then ---

He thinks that so profound a change should require a bit more than a simple majority, like constitutional amendments in the US. I’m inclined to agree.

He and his family will be here for the match against Italy on Saturday, the last day of the Six Nations tournament. But he and I are both almost more interested in Ireland-England at the end of the afternoon. Can Ireland stop the juggernaut?