Fat Tuesday

It has been an unexciting but fairly profitable day. My beloved cleaning woman and (to a lesser extent) I began clearing kitchen cupboards for the Great Excitement to come (when my new kitchen is installed). She was very firm about throwing away everything with a use-by date of 2016 or before. I managed to cling on to some unopened miso.

The soon-to-expire Ball Five has managed two more repeats of the eight-row pattern in the centre of the baby shawl, and will get me some way forward with the next one. The pattern doesn’t seem to be showing up very clearly – Amedro does it in st st; I’m doing the whole thing in garter. That may have some effect. But blocking works wonders with lace.

And today is Fruity Knitting day! It’s another good episode. We’ve had an interview with a Swedish expert in twinned knitting – where you knit with both ends of a ball of yarn, twisting them around each other stitch by stitch. I have heard of the procedure, and am not in the remotest degree tempted by it, but it’s always interesting to learn of another traditional technique. Is there a book?

The episode ends with an interview with a shepherdess from the north of England. The Fruities do an awfully good job of varying their interviews. I haven’t watched that bit yet, but it promises well.

Just at the moment the Mindful Chef recipes seem awfully fancy, and I long for a potato.

                   When you have nothing else to wear

                   But cloth of gold and satins rare,

                   For cloth of gold you cease to care –

                   Up goes the price of shoddy.