Tuesday, October 22, 2019


There is nothing left to do for the Calcutta Cup scarf except a few more ends to be dealt with – the first round of Pointless should be more than enough. I’ll need a moment to face up to the pocket square: wind the skein, re-find the pattern. Instead of that, I have fished the Shetland yarn out of the stash cupboard and found the Dathan hap pattern. I’ll cast that on.

It’s perfectly simple: a four row garter stitch pattern. Right-side rows have four increases each, one at each end and one at each side of the central 5-stitch panel. Alternate wrong side-rows increase at the outer edges only, or don’t increase at all.

I’ve done this very recently, and don’t remember having the slightest difficulty keeping my place. Viewed in the abstract, I wonder how I will know which type of wrong-side row comes next.

[Later: I knit the first few rows during Pointless, and still don’t see the answer to this question.]    

Mary Lou, the Dathan would do fine for mindless television knitting, but not for travel. It gets pretty bulky towards the end. Nothing beats a sock, for travel.

Reading

Yes, Shandy, Lucy’s sojourn with the Crawleys in Framley Parsonage is good, as is her courage before her prospective mother-in-law. But the bit I loved the most was the exchange of letters towards the end between Dr Thorne and Miss Dunstable (both of them revenants from earlier books). Trollope is dreadfully good at letters.

The final chapter is called “How They Were All Married, Had Two Children, and Lived Happy Ever After”.  You’ve got to love Trollope!

Today I have been re-reading “Olive Kitteredge”. I remember a lot about it, but had forgotten how dark it is. I will have to approach “Olive, Again” with caution.

Other

[See yesterday] I’ve emailed my tutor, cancelling Saturday’s Italian. It was hard work. (But I got in a subjunctive.) I’ve done a grocery order. If I go for the tray-bake, I’ll have to walk up the hill on Thursday to get salmon – I wouldn’t trust Tesco for that. I’m feeble enough these days that that’s a serious undertaking.

4 comments:

  1. =Tamar10:19 PM

    I think I would redefine which rows are 'right side'. As stated, all the right-side rows are the same - like wrong-side rows normally are. So call them the wrong side, and then you have two right-side row versions, one with two increases and one with four. It doesn't matter which one you begin with, so pick the version that makes it easier for you to remember: "inc 2 the first time, inc 4 the second time" might work.
    To check where you are after setting it aside, look at the increases next to the k5 panel. If increases are present, that was the inc-4 round.

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  2. Jean, I have made your tray baked salmon quite a few times. It's perfect when you want to look like you have fussed, but done very little. Other than walk up the hill. For reversible knits, I put a safety pin on the side where the RS rows begin, if I see the pin, I know I'm on the RS. Tamar's take is more accurate, and perhaps easier. I'll have to download the pattern. (Unless I already have it.) Cold weather mindless knitting so the hap increases and the weather gets colder sounds perfect!

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  3. Anonymous5:26 AM

    why couldn't one increase 3 stitches every row? always start with an increase, do the two in the middle, and none at the end. In that way, both sides are equal, and one does not have to remember till the end of the row what to do.

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  4. Perhaps the salmon store would deliver?

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