I’m puzzled about books. The Japanese Knitting Stitch
Bible which we are all eagerly awaiting, seems to be tantalisingly just out of
reach. It can be ordered from the US. It can be downloaded. But – jam yesterday
and jam tomorrow – it can’t actually be bought.
And what about Bristol Ivy’s “Knitting Outside the Box”.
Amazon says “currently unavailable”. It
seems to be expensively available at LYS’s hither and yon.
And why can’t I find my Silk Road Sock book?
I had a peaceful day today, with no external engagements.
I got some things done, but not others. I am marking the lace edging of the
baby shawl with little safety pins every ten scallops (there will be 80 in
all). It got to be time for another pin today – I thought it would mark the
third corner, as I said yesterday, 60 scallops. I found that I was, in fact,
only half-way along the third side, 50 scallops.
Still, I got another 5 scallops done today, without
incident. I’ll reach that corner soon.
I have some homework to do before my Italian lesson on
Saturday morning. I meant to make a start on that today, but didn’t. I continue
to be grateful to you, Shandy, for putting me on to Duolingo. I keep up with
that conscientiously. It says that I am 63% proficient in Italian.
In fact, I think I am about at the level of a
three-year-old child. If someone speaks to me slowly and clearly (as my tutor
does) I can understand and make myself understood in response. But when the
grown-ups speak to each other at speed, I can only catch an occasional word.
A major problem here is my computer printer. It has
started smudging everything, and leaving lines out. It’s not terribly old, but
I suspect the answer is anyway to buy a new one. I urgently need to print a Christmas
round-robin letter and start addressing cards. I will soon need to print our
EasyJet tickets to and from Palermo.
Now I’ll go find some mindless television and knit
some Soutache. I really think I’ve got the hang of two-colour brioche.
What sort of printer is it? If it's inkjet then the heads may need cleaning (instructions are in the book if you have it) or may need ink. Good luck. If you can do two-colour brioche, you can deal with a printer!
ReplyDeleteIt is inkjet, and I've cleaned the heads. The result is vastly better than before -- it'll do for the Christmas letters. Two separate lines are smudged, but legible. Many, many thanks.
ReplyDeleteHurrah!
DeleteI know that Kate Davies chose not to sell her books through Amazon (just direct and through LYS) but Amazon automatically picks up new ISBNs and their descriptions and lists them on their website, saying unavailable if they are not actually selling it. So this could be the same?
ReplyDeleteNot only do inkjet printers need occasional head cleanings, but sometimes one also gets a faulty container of ink, which makes a mess of everything.
ReplyDeleteBristol Ivy’s book is not available on Amazon. I just found that out.
ReplyDeleteI would be happy to send you my copy of the Japanese Knitting Stitch Bible as I'm not planning to use it any time soon and can replace it later. Just send an address to docsamkd@yahoo.com
ReplyDeleteGosh, I am impressed by your Duolingo score.
ReplyDeleteI got to 20% fluent in German, which was useless for actually understanding German speakers. I did better on German Easy Readers, which were quite fun.
Barnes and Noble.com has The Japanese Knit Stitch Bible. I have also seen it on their shelves. Hope it's the same one you are thinking about.
ReplyDeleteI had two.years of Latin so I though I could "fake" Italian when I visited there. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. Either way it was fun trying. The Italians aren't sticklers about their language like the French used to be. You just have to be enthusiastic. Look at your upcoming immersion experience as 'fun'. Not a test. Plus a few years ago when I returned there were way too many people speaking English. No chance to practice! Chloe
Have you heard of News in Slow Italian?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.newsinslowitalian.com/
It may help with comprehending conversation.
The Japanese Knit Stitch Bible is awesome, so inspiring. It's gone right next to my Estonian stitch dictionaries in the "dangerous unless I want to start a new project" section of my knitting library!
ReplyDeleteI see one commenter has already offered to ship it to you, but if that falls through, I'll happily grab a copy and ship it out.
I'll second the news in slow Italian idea. I have a couple of friends who use the Spanish version and they say it really helps!