Progress on Gudrun’s hap. The rounds have (suddenly, it seems) become very long. The pattern rounds are interminable, but fortunately there is only one more of them ahead. I am currently doing the last ANC stripe, in gold (and I was right, I bought too much green). After that come four rounds of Main Colour, including a decrease round – and then the edging. I’m sure we are right to do that in blue.

The easy pattern continues difficult. It is not always possible to see whether a pattern row is precisely matching the one six rows below it. Big mistakes, yes, when one drifts off into auto-pilot. But I’m pretty sure there are places where I am one stitch out. There are two places in the 18-stitch pattern repeat where you can see a straight line of stitches below the needle, undistorted by increases or decreases. I have learned to keep a sharp eye on them, and mistakes are diminishing.

Andrew and Andrea turned up, at this unexpected time of the week. In the absence of an Edinburgh Yarn Festival, they are off to Vogue Knitting Live in NYC. Maybe they can interview Franklin! But, alas! for the EYF!

This time it was Nancy Marchant, of whom I am a great fan. They were talking about her book on Tuck Stitches, which I’ve got, and the one on Brioche Lace, which I don’t seem to have. (Although my shelves can’t be trusted these days. Where is Sharon Miller’s hap shawl book? And my signed copy of Glorious Knitting?)

It is, generally speaking, my policy to buy books on technique but to be more selective about pattern books. But do I want this one? I’m not the bloody Library of Congress. I’m not impressed by brioche lace, and am sure I will never knit it. The essential trouble is that lace doesn’t combine well with ribbing, which brioche essentially is. Marchant told us that she needed quite a long time to persuade herself that the technique was worth going ahead with.

Non-knit

Little to report. I am determined to keep Perdita out of the sitting-room so that she can’t pee on the repotted avocado tree. She is equally determined to get in, and hard to catch when she succeeds. And I am dubious about picking her up. She is a fairly heavy cat these days, and I fear falling.

She regularly  comes and sits with me when I compute: