Tuesday, February 16, 2021

 

Kirsten, comment yesterday, my answer would be essentially, yes. I feel I ought to be able to point you to a pattern that you could use to guide your steps, but I can’t think of one exactly. Fair Isle is firmer than plain st st, and I think that makes it more important to get gauge right. I did a neckline once on a finished sweater by first basting a line and then simply cutting a v,  but I think the better idea is to steek that, too. I hope somebody else will answer you.

 

The nasty weather is gone, at least for the moment. Archie came today, and we walked in the garden for the first time in a week, on what amounted to a beautiful spring day. 2211 steps. I felt very feeble, perhaps because he comes later in the morning than my other walkers, and I have already run out of steam. “Maybe it’s the beginning of the final decline,” he said. Who knows?

 

For knitting, I set about lengthening the Evendoon. Frogging the waist-ribbing wasn’t as easy as I expected. (A further answer to your earlier question, Kirsten, about steeking in general, might be that any pure wool yarn which isn’t machine washable, will be pretty suitable.) Picking up the stitches and proceeding downwards, however, was simplicity itself.




 

I am, of course, continuing in the pre-set stripe sequence, so that the first stripe I am adding is in the green shade which was previously ribbing. That means that I won’t (also of course) get back to green in time for the final ribbing. After puzzling over this briefly, I decided that the only possible course is to jettison the sequence and finish with black, which will at least match the cuffs.

 

Reading

 

None, except a bit of “Fontamara” in Italian. I have never seen the film of “Sense and Sensibility”, and clearly must. Apart from anything else, it would help me straighten the characters out. I found them confusing – and just as I felt I was beginning to get to grips with the subject, the author would begin referring to them by their place of residence, a street in London or a village in the country or a country house.

 

We oughtn’t to leave the subject without mentioning that the first page of “Persuasion” is the best first page in English literature.

 

 

8 comments:

  1. When I read your comments on "S and S" I feel that we must have been reading different books...
    However, did you catch the obituary to Lord McPherson of Cluny in today's "Times"? Born in Newton Castle, Blairgowrie. I enjoy a really good obituary - of someone aged 94.

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  2. =Tamar9:17 PM

    Ordinarily, taking notes as I go along helps me to keep track of characters. With Austen, sometimes I have to go back and check to be sure I haven't confused the hero with the villain. Drawing family trees helps, too.

    Could you do an out-of-sequence green ribbing?

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  3. Oops - perhaps comment for Kirsten should have gone here. It's in Monday's post.

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  4. So is there any relationship between the days you feel exceptionally feeble and the days you are having (or had the day before) cider? Any other patterns?

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  5. Meg Swansen has an excellent basic steeked fair isle vest as a wool gathering, and perhaps in a book. It's a good intro.

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    1. Thank you. I shall look that up.

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  6. And I just spent $2.99 on the complete works of Jane Austen for kindle, so I can go back and read them all!

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  7. When I lengthened mine I finished it with the ochre — and a picot edge because I dislike the way ribbing looks on my mumsy figure.

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