Here we are. I think the red centres and the lighter grey brighten the whole effect quite a bit.

In the top band, with two red rows, the red has replaced the darker shade; it’s the other way around in the lower band, where there is only one red row. I like the top effect better. Next time I’ll do the same thing – one band with one red row, one with two. But I’ll replace the darker shade with red each time. The result may depend on the pattern in the lozenge, so I’ll go on changing that.

I’ll need to see if I’ve got the new yarns right, too. I’ve tried to keep ball bands, but there is a certain amount of confusion. Some of the yarns I am using are the ones I bought at Jamieson & Smith my own self, that happy day with Kristie and Kath. Others are from the EYF quite recently – and they are Jamieson’s, not J&S.

And I still need to practice corrugated ribbing. Maybe I’ll wind up with a scarf after all.

The picture I took of the side seam doesn’t seem to illustrate much of anything. I’ll try again tomorrow. Kirsten (comment yesterday): I have got three steek stitches at each side, I don’t know why – I have no intention of cutting this thing open. Some book told me to, and I am nothing if not a blind follower. But it does give me somewhere to join in the new yarns, and it does have the effect you mention, of keeping the non-continuous patterns apart from each other.

I bought Heart on My Sleeve yesterday. It’s a good cause, attacking malaria – although I thought Gates had that one covered, financially. And a couple of the patterns, including the cover one, are real possibilities for my yoke sweater with gradient yarns employed in the yoke pattern. The basic pattern in the book is DK, and I’m 4-ply, but I ought to be able to finesse that.

Mary Lou, yes, “Knitting” – not “Knitter”, as I said yesterday -- is a British monthly magazine. I think I have subscribed from the beginning. It’s not terribly good. I have never been tempted to knit anything from it. But it’s young and cheerful and the woman who answers readers’ letters and reviews new yarns used to keep an LYS here in Edinburgh.