Wednesday, April 14, 2021

 

Tamar: Mrs Norris??? Witchcraft?? And Fanny knew?? Please tell all. I thought I knew that book well. I am impressed by how much information you have been able to glean from family trees.

 

It has been another cold, bright, beautiful day. One good thing about such weather is that it makes spring last a bit longer. I did my solitary walk – 2768 steps. That’s a bit better. And I got some, not all, of the things on today’s list done. Water (for the front step) is awfully heavy.

 

One of my assignments today was to find the pattern for Carol Sunday’s two-colour brioche cowl which I bought, along with the wool, a year ago, in preparation for the first of our cancelled cruises. I found it. I’m not sure I feel up to it. The beginning sounds awfully difficult. I had a look at Marchant’s two-colour brioche book. So many of her stitch patterns are so interesting that I don’t see why I don’t just use the yarn to knit one of her scarves. The cast-on doesn’t sound quite as daunting, either (although I would still have to devote a few days to it before the cruise, just to be sure I was well started). And that would avoid the decision Sunday starts off with: whether to give everything a Moebius twist as soon as it has been cast on, to create an “eternity cowl”, or just knit a tube.

 

The Calcutta Cup has advanced a bit, but seems slow. I’m sure things will speed up as soon as this band is finished. Fair Isle is easy and pleasant to knit, but I don’t want to encumber myself with all the colours, on the cruise.

 

If Mrs Sturgeon lets us go. I wouldn’t say it’s yet in the bag.

 

Miscellaneous

 

I move forward with “I Vicere”. The author has finished introducing all of the late Princess’s children, and moved on to her in-laws – the brothers and sister of her late husband. I’m beginning to get the hang of it. Again -- this is not a first attempt.

 

The newspaper announces today that all the adults on Fair Isle have been vaccinated.

 

Does anyone know anything about an app called KnitCompanion? Somehow or other you feed your pattern into your iPad and it keeps your place on the chart and tells you when to increase or decrease. It might be too complicated for me – technical mastery is slipping away, along with physical strength.

 

I had our new scam this week – a text message to my telephone to say that my package was being held at the depot because I needed to pay a small sum, which was named. Like everybody else in the world I am expecting a package, some more bedding plants for the front step, but I feel safe in disregarding this message.

7 comments:

  1. Jean, I use knitCompanion all the time and I love it! The learning curve was a bit steep when I first started using it at least 8 years ago. They’ve upgraded it quite a bit since the early version to make it a bit more intuitive and have lots of instructional videos. I don’t use anyway near all the functionality available but it’s great for keeping track of rows and increases or decreases which is what I use it for mostly. And building large charts for Arans, Ganseys or Panel Fair Isles.

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  2. Anonymous11:55 PM

    A fantastic but simple two color brioche sweater just appeared. Lohtu by Anna Johanna. Beautiful and clean lines.

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  3. I think I’d better reread Mansfield Park! Jean, the one caution I have re. brioche is that it is a devil to fix mistakes. I would groan inwardly when students showed up with two- color brioche errors. I don’t find it soothing and pleasant the way I find stranded colorwork. It might not be relaxing cruise knitting.

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  4. =Tamar4:44 PM

    Mansfield Park, ch.10 (pg.92 in my edition) Near the end of the visit to Mr Rushworth's estate, Fanny, Edmund, and Miss Crawford return to the house and meet Mrs Rushworth and Mrs Norris. the narrator tells us that Mrs Norris has received a plant cutting of an unusual heather from the gardener in exchange for the promise of a _charm_ for his ailing grandson. I assumed that it came out in conversation, as it is part of the description of what Mrs Norris had been doing while the others were in the wilderness. However, I suppose it might have been just in the narration and not known to Fanny or Edmund.

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  5. Every year groups of vaguely intimidating Women suddenly arrive on the main streets in our town thrusting little bits of heather in your path and pressing you to 'buy a bit of luck'. So maybe one charm was exchanged for another!

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  6. I, too, have depended on Knit Companion for many, many years. I use the Android version, though. Recently I have been downloading cross stitch charts on it, too (it only knows a PDF has been added). I'm able to greatly enlarge the chart by dragging my fingers apart on the screen. The underline function really helps, too.

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    1. Barbara-Kay, if I bite the bullet and get Knit Companion for Android, I'll post here and beg for your assistance! I have been putting it off too long so your post has encouraged me.

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