Wednesday, January 09, 2019


Little to report. The Stronachlachar is 10 ½ inches,  carelessly measured on the kitchen table. I need 16, to qualify for the underarm shaping. I’ve finished the third pattern repeat, and have nearly finished the third of seven skeins.

I wouldn’t quite call it a resolution, but I think perhaps if I huddle in the kitchen watching Netflix on my iPad, I can knit at the same time. When I try to watch television in the sitting room in the evening, the needles tend to drop from my nerveless fingers. Perhaps the chair is too comfortable.

I also mean to read slightly more serious books, fewer “yellows” as we call them in Italian. I read a lot. I have embarked on “Enthusiasm” (church history) by R.A. Knox, which is a flesh and blood book from my own shelves; and “The Egoist” on the iPad (it was free).

We shall see.

Thank you, as ever, for your help with my various problems. I think maybe “Rock Island” will do as it stands, at least to offer to Jenna. It’s a good size. And thank you, Mary Lou, for “Orvus Paste”. It’s available here, and I am interested to see that it is used for whitening horses.

And Helen (anon) – what you say about “candidatus” awakens dim memories of my own long-forgotten education. I actually saw the apparatus for suspending a newly-knit shawl over burning sulphur when I went to Shetland with Kristie and Kath that happy time.  But how, exactly, was the necessary whiteness for “candidatus” achieved? I doubt if the answer would help much with Hellie’s shawl.

Now I’m going to go watch a cookery programme, while I knit. My husband abhorred the genre, and often said that he regarded cookery programmes as pornography. Tonight it’s Tom Kerridge, teaching people how to cook from scratch.

11 comments:

  1. I saw a little of the first Tom Kerridge. I am always amazed. A quite sensible woman, not young, looked at a swede in the basket and had no idea what it was. Imagine that.

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    1. Ah swede - cut into pieces like potato chops in size, simmered until meltingly tender and anointed with melted butter and grated nutmeg - as my Dutch mother cooked it. Wonderful. What's that asked my husband? That's not food, that's what we give to the sheep.' He was a
      farmer from Northern Ireland.

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    2. chips. Not chops.

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  2. Just looked at Rock Island. What a lovely shawl - very bride-like, I think.

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  3. Hilde in Germany4:47 AM

    Your mentioning of sulphur brought back a long forgotten memory: When my mother made dumplings from raw potatoes, she used a kind of candlewick coated in sulphur to prevent the dumplings from becoming grey. Tt must have been common practice because you could buy the sulphur thread in every grocery shop.

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    1. That is fascinating. My husband's German grandmother held a kitchen match in her teeth the sulphur, I can't remember what for.

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    2. Mary Lou, I think the match between the teeth was meant to prevent tears when cutting onions.
      Genie

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  4. Anonymous12:51 PM

    What a beautiful choice, Rock Island. Seems to look good in every color. Chloe

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  5. Jean, I thought of you last night when browsing the cartoons in the new New Yorker. There is an article on the pleasures of the Greek alphabet.

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  6. 10 1/2” is well over halfway, so hooray for progress! I am so short that 16” before the underarm would approach ‘short-tunic’ length for me.
    And I find the TV or a book or travel to be essential company while knitting. Or travel in a car, ferry, etc.
    Do you find memories of those shows, scenery, or books become a part of the knitting? I lifted out a gansey I made for my husband long ago and remembered all at once, the hills of West Virginia we were traveling through as I knit the yoke. Some memories are too strong. I can still hardly bear to see my sister wearing the sweater I knitted her many years ago now while I sat by my mom’s bed in the hospital.

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  7. Along with Orvus, blueing was also used to help whiten/brighten yellowed horse tails on palaminos.

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