The yarn arrived and I have embarked on the edging of Gudrun’s Hansel hap. It was like waiting for Father Christmas. I’ve done six repeats so far. There are 14 on each side.

It was clumsy and awkward at first, getting easier now. Soon the danger will be thinking about something else and losing my place.

The edging could scarcely be simpler, but is rather wide. Eight stitches at the narrowest, rising to 16. I think it not unlikely that I’ll need more yarn. The thing is to move briskly forward, as I’ve said before, and see how long this first ball lasts. It looks very colourful, is all I can say so far. I’ll take a picture of it tomorrow, along with our Tuesday avocado tree.

Quinn, thank you for your comment, and for the pointer to your blog   I did find a couple of problems with the Craftsy pattern, although they don’t arise until the borders are finished. The pattern has been on Craftsy (or whatever it’s called these days) for years – how could mistakes have survived? Maybe I’ve got it wrong.

a)     When you finish the borders, the instructions say to leave the yarn attached. I didn’t see how that would work, since the next instruction is to cast on 8 stitches using the long-tail cast on, on a separate dp needle. And when you watch the Craftsy class, there is Gudrun breaking the yarn, plain as a pikestaff.

b)    When the borders are finished, before the decrease row, the pattern says that there are 132 stitches on each side. You then decrease with a rather nerve-wracking k1 *K5, k2tog, k4, k2tog* 10 times k1. When it came out wrong on the first side, I blamed myself. When it came out the same wrong on the second side, I went back and counted the squares on the pattern chart. There are 130 stitches, not 132. The decrease instructions don’t quite fit, for 130. But the result, however arrived at, is right: you want 112 stitches on each side. Each edging repeat eats 8 stitches: 14 repeats per side.

Non-knit

I walked around the garden again today, in order to take a picture of the fallen eucalyptus for you. The roots, if you can discern them in the distance, look to me as if they were broken off too short to provide any hope of resuscitation. The gardeners told me yesterday that they thought it had outgrown its strength, so to speak:

Things continue to go from bad to worse in “The Three Clerks”. You’re absolutely right, Shandy, there’s a mock novel in the middle – Charlie hoping to make his fortune with his pen. I speed-read it, this time.