The sun shone. It was pleasantly cool. I didn’t get out — my hip seems  to have given up walking, and I didn’t like bothering staff  to push me, although they would have done it cheerfully. What I did achieve, however, was knitting.

   The yarn still looked a bit funny in the morning, so I fished the two ball bands out of the waste paper basket. If anything is wrong it’s not my fault and presumably not KD’s. The dyelot numbers match up as they should.

   So I cast on. No swatching or anything like that. The instructions say to choose the size above your actual measurements “with the amount of ease required”. I’ve been generous and it looks huge. We shall see.

   It’s knit bottom-up, p1, k1b. I turned around, after casting on, and ribbed back to the beginning. If I had been doing plain-vanilla rib I would then have knit 3 or4 more rows in that fashion, before joining into a round. However, k1b changes the story somewhat. If I turn the work a second time, I am k1b’ing into stitches which were purled in the row before. Meaning that every stitch is twisted, in one row or the other. Whereas if I go steadily on around from the beginning, purls are always purled and (twisted) knits are twisted.

   And I’m not enough of a Zimmerman to judge whether it makes any difference.

   So, taking no chances, I joined into a circle for the second pattern row. If anyone has a secret method for getting that right, I would be beyond grateful to learn it. In the old days I knit many an Amedeo shawl. She often begins with the edging, then you pick up stitches for the four borders, then join into a circle. And it’s difficult because of the great quantity of stitches. I got it wrong once, and only realised it for sure after a couple of inches. 

   I took a pair of scissors to that corner. Nobody ever complained. And I think I’ve got it right this time.

    But if anybody has a twist-proof system…

   Wordle: another dismal six for me, starting with one brown vowel from my two starters. Ketki and Alexander had twos; Thomas, Theo, Mark, and Rachel scored three. No one else was as feeble as I was, but at least Roger (the other oldie in our little group) needed four..