I’ve redeemed the shawl – that’s the knitting news. Picked up all those blasted stitches, one by one; then slid them back to the other end where the yarn was, also one by one, re-seating many and retrieving many others which had slipped back a row or two below the row I was picking up.

I’m now (I think) four long, long rows below the point where disaster struck, which was in turn two rows before the end of Clue 4. Three days’ work? However, having suffered through all this I now feel confident of finishing.

Mary Lou, I thought seriously about your hypothesis – had I carried the knitting to bed with me myself.  I really don’t think so. My practice, these days, is to huddle in the kitchen with my iPad, reading or watching foodie videos on Youtube, until it’s a reasonable hour for bed. And then I just go to bed – not even a book, these days.

Miraculously, the ball of yarn was carried in a sort of pouch created by the circular needle and the shawl – it didn’t unwind at all.

Last night, Paradox brought me the tee-shirt I had just taken off. She must be practising to be a dog.

Tamar, I very much like your idea of a cat-proof workbox. I’ve got a birthday on the horizon. I’ll spread the news.

I’m not tempted to join another MKAL, I’m afraid, although I will watch you guys’ adventures with interest.  I think I want an overview before I start, in the future – and anyway, at the moment, I have that EPS sweater to finish and that Orkney hat to knit.

Reading

I finished Barbara Pym, A Glass of Blessings or whatever it was called. Don’t know quite what to think. Don’t know at the moment where to turn next. Mary Lou, “Cold Comfort Farm” is a long way from “Love in a Cold Climate”. Will any of you recognise the allusion if I say that Massachusetts is a far cry from New York?