I added not-playing-Freecell to my list of Lenten austerities, just for today. That proved to be the one which required the highest pitch of iron self-discipline. Not-knitting-Fair-Isle was the one I thought about the most, while slogging on with the middle passage of the second Tannehill sleeve. Not-drinking-cider was easy by comparison with both the others, but will probably be the one to afford the most pleasure from noon tomorrow.

The sleeve progresses well. Presumably the next time I assign a wadge of days to it – and that presumably will happen next week – I’ll finish the principal knitting of this sweater altogether. That will still leave half a mile of seaming, and the v-neck ribbing.

Shandy, I found the passage about the original lozenge sweater in Jen A-C’s blog again, not without difficulty. I think when she says “side seam”, as she certainly does, she is just referring in an economical way to the point at the side where colour changes are made. A paragraph or so before that she says that she hasn’t made any change in the construction of the original sweater, and surely the pattern she produced for J&S is knit in the round? Maybe we’ll have to ask her.

I have had two thoughts over the last few days which I keep forgetting to tell you about:

             1)   The pattern for the Tannehill is of course a print-out from the Sweater Wizard. I am greatly enjoying the freedom to write all over it, and have resolved, now that technology has put a copying machine in every home, to copy future patterns from book or magazine, so that I can go on writing. You've probably all been doing that for years.

              2)  I am greatly tempted by Jen A-C’s “Year of Techniques”. I love subscribing to things, but know from experience that it burdens me with more than I can possibly knit. Countess Ablaze and her Classics Society offer  a similar temptation – I was nearly overwhelmed by it, looking up the link for you just now.