Thank you for your help. I have ordered two balls of Jamieson and Smith’s “Heritage” jumper weight in what looks like a beautiful blue – and have heard from them that it has been dispatched. They don’t hang around, in Lerwick.

Will two be enough? I will have fully four balls of Main Colour left when I finish the borders. But (a) the specifications in the pattern – by length, not weight – are extremely generous; I already know that I have bought too much red and black and suspect that the same will prove true of green, the colour of my current stripe. And (b) I will know, as I get near the end of the first blue ball, whether one more will be enough to get the rest of the way around. If not, they can send me another – and if I continue knitting at the present fevered pace, they’ll probably have the same dye lot.

I will have almost enough leftovers to knit Chihiro Sato’s “Dream of Being a Princess” from “Enjoy Fair Isle Knitting”. I’m sure the “almost” could be brought up to scratch from stash. It’s a delicious little slipover for a child. But Shetland yarn wouldn’t be much use to a modern mother. Can the wool cycle of a modern washing machine cope? I doubt it.

I have sped onward with Gudrun’s shawl. I feel I deserve the rest of the day for myself, after a 7:30 Italian lesson.

Reading & Other Comments 

Shandy, I don’t remember spoof novels in the middle of “The Three Clerks” – but that doesn’t prove anything. I don’t remember knitting Gudrun’s hap in 2016. I’ll let you know if they turn up. I found the New Yorker article – Gopnik himself. He recommends Rachel Ray as well as The Three Clerks and Orley Farm. I’ve read that, but not RR.

Pom Pom, Willa Cather is a good idea. I don’t think I have any discoveries to make there, but it might well be time for a re-visit.

Mary Lou, I heard the end of (what must have been your) Catullus programme when I went to bed last night and turned the radio on, as always. I was sorry to have missed it. Maybe I’ll track it down.