Freecell has beaten me, I’m afraid (but also rather
glad). In the Olden Days, when layouts were numbered, one could (cheat and) go
online and learn the solution. No longer. I won’t give up and go on without
cracking this one, but nibbling at its difficulties will become less and less
attractive. I fear I'm cured.
I finished knitting a swatch for the Polliwog, devoted
a good deal of mental energy to moving the disks on my Pony Knitting
Calculator, and wound up with the solution with I had thought of in the first
place, and which the designer – Mary Lou – endorses. Namely, knit the
instructions for the largest size, hoping to achieve the smallest.
However, I don’t have a right-length circular of the
necessary size; and I can’t find my
pack of beautiful wooden dp’s which I had only a day or so ago, casting on some
socks during a hospital visit. So the Polliwog will have to be suspended until
I can order what I need from Meadow Yarns.
Shandy, my plan, as far as there can be said to be
one, is to knit the Polliwog as a sort of palate-cleanser between courses, and
then plunge into real life: Alexander’s Museum-Sweater-Vest with perhaps
something else in alternation. Newspapers in this country often tell us how
many days into the tax year we have to work before we are working for ourselves
rather than the gov’t. I have much the same feeling at this moment, this year,
knitting-wise – and it leaves me spinning around in my place.
However, today’s main excitement on the knitting front
is completely other. I spend the first moments of the day hunched over the
kitchen table, checking my emails (and your dear comments) and then, usually,
moving on to the Times on-line. But today there was something in my “Promotions”
folder which led me to click onto a Youtube podcast
by Fruity Knitting.
Wow!
I have seen knitting podcasts before, and found them
rather languorous. This one was a delightful, varied magazine program, Andrea
and Andrew, both knitters. All the better because the episode I thus tumbled
into included the EYF. A&A had lunch with Hazel Tindall on the Saturday,
the day after I was there. The podcast included a brief view of her actually knitting.
Her fingers scarcely move. Ah! but what a wonderland lies behind that “scarcely”!
How does it work? YouTube is free. There was no sign
of any advertising. Do A&A do it for love of knitting, like my clumsy self?