I failed. I can’t graft ribbing.

I devoted all of yesterday’s knitting time to the attempt. I had Montse Stanley and Mary Thomas open in front of me. I unpicked it at least three times.

I need, somehow, to grasp the concept. Instructions-by-rote serve well enough for ordinary st st grafting, but not here. Next time I get to Camp Stitches, I’ll post an appeal for one-to-one instruction on the notice board. As if…

Meanwhile, here’s a surprisingly successful picture of the result. Perhaps because the camera battery is in a near-death state, and it didn’t flash. I don’t think it’s a fatal error. I don’t know what sheep’s tummies look like, and don’t ever intend to find out – do they have a visible seam, like pussy cats? Whether or not, I think this will more-or-less do. At least it’s obviously not sewn. But it’s not grafted ribbing.

I wonder how Ted got on at this point?

The other excitement was the arrival of the lace yarn from the Yarn Yard which Natalie has flattered me by asking me to test drive. Needless to say, it’s beautiful – I’ll attempt a picture tomorrow when I’ve beefed up the camera battery. Pink and yellow like the dawns one sometimes sees in Strathardle at the other solstice.

However, my job is not to admire the colours but to assess the yarn. It looks and feels not unlike Helen’s Lace, but that’s half silk and this is pure wool.

Yesterday’s dentistry went well. Today’s early-morning excitement is to take the car in for its MOT and a general sprucing-up. I’ll sign off with an incomplete gallery of some of my recent Koigu knitting.

An 8:30 dentist’s appointment forbids verbosity this morning, but much has been happening on the knitting front…

Today is the day I attempt to acquire the ability to graft ribbing. Here’s Sam, with the Strathardle wool which will be included in his stuffing for luck.

The Yarn Yard yarn for June came while we were away. It was inspired by “a large chocolate cake on a traditional blue willow-patterned plate. The skeins are not all identical…some of them have more of the cake eaten and hence more of the blue and white plate showing.” The letters from Natalie are not the least benefit of membership of the Yarn Yard sock club.

And the big one, yesterday, was a box of Koigu from my friend the Socklady. She has a friend who has so much of it that she is getting tired of paying the storage charges. I can see how that might happen.

So she is selling some of it off, and the Socklady and I have been the beneficiaries. I am told the seller has another 500 skeins in her stash.

The colours are as wonderful as if I had made the choice myself. I’ve knit quite a bit with Koigu in recent years – a sweater for grandson Mungo, one for nephew Theo, one each for the Little Miles Boys, one for Rachel, a Baby Surprise for a neighbour’s baby – and still my stash seems to increase.

I’m thinking maybe I should branch out into modular knitting. Has anyone looked at Maie’s recent book?

Comments

Catriona, I was thrilled to learn that you have finished that Amedro shawl, and enjoyed doing it. Never mind time – you’ve got a long life ahead of you. I knit my first Shetland shawl when I was pregnant with Rachel, and didn’t get back to lace for quite a while. At my age, the limitation of which one is ever aware, is death itself.

Rabbits. The great thing – one of many great things – about Beatrix Potter is that she sees country life with unsentimental eyes, even if she then dresses Peter in a little blue jacket with large buttons. His father, remember, was put in a pie by Mrs McGregor and I am looking forward to similar culinary experiments when James gets here in August. My husband won’t clean and skin them for me.

They’d be particularly tasty this time of year, too. I thought several times last week of Peter and his cousin Benjamin, seeing the young ones frisking about.

I have just re-read “The Tale of Peter Rabbit”. I had forgotten the wicked mouse, “carrying peas and beans to her family in the woods”. I had a lot of trouble with her last year. Mice – it must be mice – also nibble the shoulders of beetroot, when the nicely rounded bulbs begin to appear above ground.

But it would be no fun, gardening in the Garden of Eden.

Lots of vegetable-gardening, lots of rabbits, not much knitting…

Where to start?

Here’s my square-foot garden. Ted's interested, anyway.

It doesn’t look much like this, but it’s not a total failure, either. I blame a cold, wet May for much of the poor germination. I have filled the gaps in some squares, and re-sown others from scratch. The new seeds came up almost as soon as they hit the soil.

Rabbits had been tunnelling in to the fenced part of my garden. I tried blocking the mouth of the tunnel with stones, and found each morning that the stones had been disdainfully tossed aside. So I dug the tunnel back a few feet. I stopped when it began to go deeper (and when exhaustion supervened), and blocked the mouth with stones again. We never did find the other end of it.

Success! The stones were undisturbed the next morning. Joy turned to despair when my husband spotted a pair of young rabbits a couple of hours later, having a nice time giggling among my vegetables. I had succeeded only in shutting the rabbits in. He shot one of them. That evening, the other one was still there.

We tried to persuade it to take up a position from which it, too, could be shot, but it wasn’t interested. The next morning it was gone, as was half of the pea crop and most of the little runner bean plants just emerging into the light. So there must still be a rabbit-way in and out. But no one came back, in the remaining days we were there. I replanted the peas, although expert advice and my own notes from earlier years agree that it’s too late.

I love the solstice light. Maybe one day I’ll experience it in Lerwick, but for now, Strathardle is pretty good. We have got to spend the last week of this month in London looking at art, but I think I see a window of opportunity to get back to Strathardle for one night next week, at the solstice itself. We could eat spinach by then, I’m sure, from the squares in the middle column above.

Anyway, OK, knitting

I finished the second shoulder strap on Ketki’s gansey, picked up sleeve stitches, decreased the gusset away and am trudging down the arm. My notes clearly said to pick up 56 stitches on each side, but I couldn’t cover the ground with that few. I tried counting the completed sleeve, and it seemed, after repeated re-counts, to have 64 stitches on each side. Odd. So I picked up 64.

Last night, back at the ranch, I got Sam’s feet attached, and am ribbing his belly. I had a nice time wool-gathering on his behalf. The resulting generous handful yielded its dirt readily when soaked in a solution of washing-up liquid, and feels deliciously silky although the Scottish Blackface is supposed to be good for nothing but carpet-backing. It was awfully clever of someone a long time ago to conceive the idea of spinning such stuff.

Five Six Seven

Didn’t get as far as hoped with Sam. Here he is with three cuffs, but the Great Joining Round remains to be done when we get back. (He looks headless, but he isn't.)

We’re off to Strathardle today – the only June visit, as the last week of this month is to be devoted to art in London, with sinking of heart and anticipated tiredness of feet. But today, barring disaster, I will be reunited with my vegetables. We plan to come back a week today and blogging should resume on the 13th.

Odds and ends

Annie M has been to TNNA, whatever that is, teaching, signing books, having a nice time – and fondling yarn. She has an amazing list in today’s post which I have only begun to explore.

On the other hand, I did work all the way through the BritKnitCast list of independent UK dyers and spinners, and wound up liking our own dear Yarnyard best, although I also thought Posh Yarn rather nice.

And, oh, kristieinbc, I also had a look at Noro Cashmere Island! I am nearly finished with the bedsocks I am knitting from bison down and cashmere from Wild Geese Fibres. I got a few more rounds done in the dentist’s office yesterday, and nothing is more tempting at the moment than to go straight on to Noro. Bedsocks get a surprising amount of wear, but they don’t get washed nearly as often as everyday socks. Ten percent nylon is probably plenty…

A quick email from my brother-in-law yesterday to say that the cashmere yarn for Theo’s gansey has turned up safely in CT (from Handknitting.com). I haven’t had a eyeball-and-fondling report yet.

Natalie of the Yarnyard has honoured and flattered me by asking me to test drive some new merino laceweight yarn she is considering. It’s a good moment, with Sam nearly done and the Princess at an excellent stopping-place. I’ve chosen a pattern from Victorian Lace Today, and…

What a great day for comments, yesterday. Many thanks. I’m pretty sure I now see how to proceed in the matter of adding buttons to my sidebar – I learned what little I know in a different decade, and tend not to think of right-clicking. Donna, thank you for the code: that was really, really kind of you. I like the turtle-neck shrug, too. It’s gonna be gorgeous.

I finished Sam’s body yesterday – he looks not so much three-dimensional as eviscerated at the moment – and have also finished one of the four cuffs which come next. I’ll do my very best to polish off the other three and start attaching them this evening, and whatever happens will try to leave you with a picture before heading off to the country tomorrow.

But we may have to wait for the denouement until I get back next week. I promise a blow-by-blow when I get there, Jennifer. With pictures. I’ve now got Photoshop Elements, although I’ve been too scardy so far to install it. Maybe this will be the occasion – pictures of Sam’s feet with little arrows pointing to the exciting bits.

Donna W., I’m so glad to hear that you’ve bought “Heirloom Knitting”. I think it is the most important knitting book to be published in English for a long time. And the Spring Shawl is beautiful – I don’t have that one. I think I’d use Sharon’s own Merino lace yarn (slightly finer than Shetland cobweb), at least, I would if Sharon agreed. I am sure she will advise if asked.

And Charlotte, thank you for the advice about grafting ribbing. I’m not sure that flipping-over is going to be possible in this context, when I am joining up Sam’s tummy, but I will keep your splendid suggestion in mind when I commence battle. I’ve got shelves of books, too.

I forgot one piece of news yesterday – Natalie at The Yarn Yard has given up her day job – I didn’t know she had one – to concentrate fully on her beautiful yarn. She also provides a link to BritKnitCast - a UK knitting and crochet podcast, a new one to me and clearly a useful site, even before I’ve listened to any podcasts. The Yarn Yard appears on their list of independent UK yarn dyers. I’m going to explore the other members of that list when I’ve got a moment.

But now I’ve got to go off to an early dentist’s appointment…

Sam’s body is nearly finished. I should move on to knitting cuffs today. I don’t understand the instructions for attaching them, and can only hope they will become clear as I proceed. I see that one of the future excitements will be grafting ribbing: I’ve never done that.

A friend and blog-reader has offered to give me a bag of polyester filler that she was forced to buy in far greater quantity than she needed for some small knitted toys. So that takes care of that decision, and I’m very grateful. I’ll still go out wool-gathering in Strathardle later this week, in the hopes of adding some of that for luck.

Thank you, Vivienne and rosesmama, for your thoughts about the connection in meanings between the two sorts of wool-gathering. I particularly like the comparison with internet-browsing.

Today’s excitements:

1) I heard from handknitting.com yesterday that my order has been filled and dispatched to CT. That’s the denim-coloured cashmere for Theo’s gansey – my sister (his mother) will bring it when she comes for the Games and it will, I hope, be the Big Project here in Edinburgh in the fall.

2) I heard this morning of a long-hoped-for-and-by-now-unexpected baby due in December. I am so happy to have been given this small share in its parents’ joy and excitement. Franklin's touching post about his niece Abigail sort of sets the seal on things.

Non-knit

You guys know everything. How does one set about adding a button to one’s sidebar? I know that it isn’t OK to snatch buttons, but sometimes they’re offered for copying. What I don’t know is, how to do it. I have a vague grasp of HTML. I know that it will be a matter of adding a bit of code to my template (and I’ve done that successfully, to incorporate Google Analytics).

Start from scratch. Confronted with a button, how does one grab it?

I’ve got eight more circuits to do to finish Sam’s body – the weekend should see it done, barring disaster. Then come feet.

Some confusion, and much good advice, on the stuffing front. The confusion was entirely generated by my own confused thinking. Deidra, I knew that roving I bought would be clean and ready to use, but thinking about that led me on to thinking about the wool that lies around in the fields in Strathardle (for which I vaguely believe there is a special word, at least in Scots).

I like the idea that wool will make Sam warm and huggable. I don’t like the idea that it will make him heavy. I incline towards polyester because the designer used it and she has clearly expended a great deal of trouble on him. But she suggests roving as an alternative. I have found a source for roving without difficulty, by Googling. A donkey between two carrots.

But at least I think I will gather up some wool from the field next week and see how disgustingly dirty it is or isn’t. Whatever stuffing I use, I could put in a bit of real Strathardle wool for luck.

I wonder why “wool-gathering” means what it does. It must refer to the activity I am talking about. The OED gives both meanings – collecting wool from fences and hedges, and wandering-in-thought – without explaining why the first, which seems rather frugal and purposeful to me, should give rise to the second.

Little Boy Sweater

Alexander sent these pictures yesterday of little boys wearing the Little Boy sweater. As it happens, last Monday was James-the-Younger’s fourth birthday. I don’t on the whole knit to deadlines (the need to produce a Games entry being an exception), but sometimes things work out like that. This is James, with his mother Ketki.

I like the evidence that he appreciates the wallaby pocket.

Alexander thinks the sweater will have been passed to Thomas-the-Younger by winter. I wonder. It's clearly a bit big for him now. He will be three in November.

More Sam.

I did much better with polyester fibrefill when I stopped insisting on the exact phrase. This source sounds as if it would be fine. But first I’ll hike up to John Lewis and have a look.

Meg W. advises strongly in favour of wool. I could order roving (I'm no spinner myself, alas) but a certain amount of it lies about the fields in clumps, and hangs off the fences – the frugal gather it up and spin it, and I think such wool has a name of its own. It would be fun to stuff Sam with wool from the backs of real Strathardle sheep, but it would probably take more time than I care to spare from my vegetables to collect enough – and it would be filthy. How difficult would it be to wash?

Once, long ago, I saw a woman collecting it, and tried to speak to her. She turned out, however, to be French, and was fearful that I was an irate farmer’s wife telling her to desist. The best I could do was to reassure her and leave her to her occupation.

We’re going to Strathardle next week, I hope, and I will at least consider this solution.

I had hoped that our last visit to London, which seemed long and strenuous, would quench my husband’s enthusiasm for exhibitions until the autumn, but alas, no: we are going south again at the end of June.

My haircut was a success, unlike poor Annie's. I shouldn’t have let it get so long.

Here’s Sam, looking a good deal more three-dimensional. I’m now about half-way down his flanks. The tail-shaping is done; all I have to do is keep straight on with the Aran patterns – which are getting easier – until I get to the feet. He has turned out to be more fun than I expected.

And the Yahoo group, very quiet since I joined, has sprung into life with posts from people who shared my problems. That’s always a comfort.

I have started giving some thought to the filling. The designer used “polyester fibrefill”. I am on completely unfamiliar ground here. My Google search on this term, restricted to UK websites, took me into areas I didn't want to know about.

I could use roving, maybe.

Red (and grey) Squirrels

Thanks for the link to the article in the Scotsman, Dawn, and for the classification, yet-another-Ann.

I accidentally saw a television programme once about grey squirrels – they are astonishingly clever, just like rats. In one scene, two of them were operating a bird feeder that had to be opened from behind. They took turns, one of them holding it open so the other could feed, and then changing places.

I’m going to have my hair cut this morning, just like Annie Modesitt. High time, too.

I’ve just read Annie Modesitt's latest blog entry. I am appalled, yet again, by the precariousness of life and the capriciousness of fate. It’s nice to have an insurance company that insists on the Mayo Clinic, I suppose.

Today is sit-still-for-half-an-hour-after-taking-osteoporosis-pill day. I finished off Sam’s tail, and he’s looking rather well. Ted has pictures of his Sam in his latest post – he (Sam) can’t stand up and he (Ted) thinks it’s impossible without “some kind of armature”. So that’s something to think about. The designer says that fierce stuffing will do it. Ted's Sam looks rather comfortable, sitting down, but I want mine to stand.

Sarah, don’t worry, he’s getting more three-dimensional by the moment. I bought the whole kit from Blackberry Ridge. The yarns are their own, and I am delighted with them. The dark yarn is flecked, so that if a little bit of the (necessarily light) stuffing shows through, it won’t matter.

Ted’s Sam looks depressingly well-knit, in my present mood. I’m sure fierce stuffing is going to show up all sorts of flaws in mine.

Natural history

Sarah, I will pursue the Handbook of British Mammals. We need it for the flora and fauna shelves at Burnside. We’ve got a Collins hardback of roughly that title from the 60’s. I doubt if it was ever cutting edge.

That’s very interesting about the squirrels of Fargo, Maureen. (And thanks again for putting me on to Sam.) Here – I’m writing off the top of my head, without reference to Google – the grey squirrel was deliberately introduced, I believe, and has gradually pushed the red to the edge of extinction. I think strenuous steps are now being taken to try to protect the last few all-red habitats. I don’t remember why they can’t co-exist. The big greys get all the food? Or carry a virus harmless to them but fatal to reds? Something.

It is depressing that the people you asked didn’t know even that much. You’re unlikely to have seen a red; they’re very shy, unlike their rat-like cousins. They have big bushy eyebrows like Dennis Healey, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer. I would like to know whether the red squirrels you have at home are the same. I suspect they’re a different species – but maybe all that we need do is round up some Scottish red squirrels and send them off to Fargo for assertiveness training.

More Non-knit

Rachel rang up yesterday towards the end of what sounded, from background noise, like a fairly hilarious family Whit-Monday lunch. They were all making lists of five books. Is it all right to include children’s books, she asked? What about non-fiction? the gents wanted to know. I don’t know, I said – ask Hellie, she started it (and was the one family member who wasn’t there, being still in Newcastle).

But I told her to make sure that everybody wrote their lists down. Rachel would include “The Little Princess” on hers. I don’t think I’ve ever read it. I have glowing memories of “The Secret Garden”, although I can’t have looked it for 60 years, but Rachel finds it dull.

Thank you for being so forgiving about my non-performance on the thinking-blogger front, Mar, and for your endorsement of Middlemarch. For me, though, the first three books I listed yesterday – Brideshead, Mansfield Park, and The Leopard – are the ones that burst on the scene like fireworks, each in a different decade of my life. Middlemarch and A Suitable Boy, although richly enjoyed, and re-read, are there to make up five. I almost replaced one of them with Allingham’s “Tiger in the Smoke”.

Back to business…

Here’s Sam, coming along nicely. (Sorry about the loose end of yarn around his neck.) He remains difficult – there are so many different Aran panels. The sequence is KLNMEFGHFGENLKM, referring to charts in the back of the book, and then there are J and I to be worked in the tail area. Much anxious flipping back and forth. And things will get worse soon, as the charts are not all the same length and some will start repeating while others are still working themselves out for the first time.

And I suspect, looking at that middle bobble, that I may have lost count and done two extra rows there, before I closed the circle around it. Maybe they won’t notice.

Liz, thank you for your new comment on Saturday’s post. It’s good to meet another Sam-knitter. I did all right with the neck instruction that threw you, but had trouble on my first two or three attempts at the neck with “P then K TBL of next stitch”. It means to work the P and the K TBL in the same stitch; I did them, at first, in successive stitches.

The genius of this pattern is that it avoids the horror of toy-knitting, namely the knitting of a lot of little tiny oddly-shaped pieces and then laboriously sewing them together. There will be a bit of that, I think, when I get to Sam’s feet, but so far it’s entirely organic.

Rabbits

Thank you again for the scientific comments. Sarah, my husband had observed the behaviour-change you mention. Our local rabbits no longer seem to live in big warrens, interconnected underground, as they did 40 years ago, but to dig shallow separate holes for themselves. An example of a Darwinian adaptation?

Largely non-knit

I made good progress with Sam yesterday. I finished the back panel, and am half-way around picking up the stitches from it and adding them to the remaining neck stitches. After spending all that time on the Princess border, where 15 rows was a good week’s work, this sense of moving on from one thing to another is really rather welcome.

Our granddaughter Helen came up from Newcastle for the afternoon yesterday (or I might have knit even more), and we had a pleasant time lunching Italian and walking on Calton Hill. She has just finished her second year at Newcastle University, reading English and Classics. She and a friend have just written down their five favourite books and exchanged lists – each has got to read the others’ books.

The Curmudgeon nominated me recently for the Thinking Bloggers Award. I was deeply touched, but I find I can’t go on, as I am supposed to, and nominate five of my own. It would be like choosing among my friends, or my children. I read a good many more than the ones listed in the sidebar; each, obviously, has something to say to me, and I like and respect them all.

I think I promised Lorna once that I’d do a meme where I listed five things about myself that couldn’t be deduced from the blog (and which I didn’t mind having bruited about). I got stuck on that one, too, for different reasons.

But I can, easily, list my five book-of-books, my desert island choices, the novels that create worlds I can, and often do, live in:

1) Prince Tomasi di Lampedusa, Il Gattopardo
2) Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
3) Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
4) Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
5) George Eliot, Middlemarch

The MS Word spelling-checker has never heard of “Tomasi” “Lampedusa” “Gattopardo” “Brideshead” or “Vikram”, but somebody must have told them about Middlemarch.

Rabbits reprised

Helen, I remember those Chinese rabbits at the supermarket. I think they are probably the only rabbits I’ve ever eaten, and that’s when I discovered that my husband doesn’t like eating rabbit.

Moorecat, I read with interest the information in the link you provided about calicivirus. What I don’t understand is why it killed almost all the rabbits in Australia and yet seems to be having almost no effect here.

I feel another Rabbit Post coming on in response to yesterday’s wonderful comments, but again I had better put Sam first.

He went much better yesterday. The fourth attempt at the neck, or however many it was, finally clicked. It wasn’t exactly soothing, but he proved just as compulsive a just-one-more-row’er as any other project. Now I’ve progressed to a really easy section, a 12-stitch-wide Aran panel which will form his back. (I'll photograph him on a light-coloured background next time.)

The construction really is most ingenious, and should impress any judge who knows anything at all about knitting, if I can pull it off. And the Aran panels are there to impress a slightly less knowledgeable judge.

Phyllis, I really don’t think he’ll need dressing up. I remember one year when the category was “a 6-inch knitted square, to be donated”. (They were all going to be sewn together for an afghan for some charitable object.) I did something that looked not unlike a knitted wedding cake, based on Leigh Witchell’s square for the Great American Afghan in Knitter’s. It was unplaced – the winners were all plain garter stitch which in retrospect I think may have been implied in the word “knitted”.

Rabbits Reprised

Ann (yet another) – there are recipes for squirrel in my old copy of Joy of Cooking. We were plagued with them in Birmingham, and had a very effective live trap in which we then drowned them. Our neighbours were aghast, but approving. But we were never tempted to try eating them – although I am sure Parisians during the War exchanged recipes for rat. They are absent in Strathardle – we have beloved red squirrels, very rarely sighted. That trap is ready and waiting for the first sight of a grey.

Kate, we need to know more about the colesi virus. Miximatosis was I think imported deliberately from Australia as a form of rabbit control some decades ago. For a while it worked. They died unpleasantly and it wasn’t very nice. But then they developed immunity and they’re more abundant than ever and feeling fine, thanks. I wonder why colesi hasn’t been tried here?

Jamie Oliver agrees that farmed rabbit isn’t nearly as good. Simon Hopkinson says that French farmed rabbits are pretty tasty. They would be.

Sarah, I’ll look out that Grigson recipe. Funny that you and Kate, among yesterday’s commenters, should both be blocking lace in your own blog entries.

Sam the Ram

I don't have much to say about knitting, so I’ll get it out of the way before moving on to rabbits.

I finished Sam’s head, rather successfully if I do say so. I couldn’t figure out how to unzip my provisional cast-on, but that may have been my fault, and it unpicked easily.

Once he was grafted together under the chin, the next step was to pick up 63 stitches around the neck opening. That took me three go’s. At least I don’t have to worry about whether they’re evenly spaced, since they’re jammed in so tight.

The next task is to knit a sort of short-row’d wedge for the neck, Aran-patterned. I’ve got as far as row 7 of that. It has been ripped out twice, and it will have to go a third time. I forgave myself a couple of mistakes, but have just discovered a cable crossed the wrong way three rows back. Cumulatively, that’s too many errors.

For anything less than the Strathardle Highland Gathering, I’d give up.

Needless to say, this sort of knitting, even when successful, is far from soothing. Perhaps when Sam is well established – but will that ever happen? – I’ll add an ikat-effect hat (as previously discussed) for weekend knitting. Not a hat for Sam, of course: knitting to sooth and sustain me. Meanwhile I struggle on.

Rabbits

The sharp-eyed will have noticed that the picture I posted a couple of days ago, is gone.

Alexander spotted it yesterday, and feared that his father was using a gin trap. They have been illegal for more than half a century. I took the picture down, but then asked my husband about it. The traps he uses are perfectly humane and perfectly legal (in case anyone else was worried). Although they look like heirlooms which have been in the family since, well, Ought Six, they were in fact bought from a reputable local ironmonger well after the anti-gin-trap legislation was passed.

My husband was apprenticed to a poacher in Sussex as a lad (Alexander may not know that) and learned to distinguish a hawk from a handsaw when it comes to country matters.

I was overcome to find a comment yesterday from Rabbitch herself. (As Franklin said recently – “You don’t read Rabbitch? What the hell’s wrong with you?”) Her suggestion for rabbit-disposal should perhaps be considered. Nettle wine, maybe?

But I continue to look forward to Jamie Oliver’s “Pappardelle with wild rabbit, olives and marjoram” and Simon Hopkinson’s “Stewed rabbit with balsamic vinegar and parsnip puree”. Served, as you so splendidly say, Deidra, with “the lingering aftertaste of vengeance”.

The Little Boy sweater is finished: maybe one day soon we can have a picture of it with a little boy inside.

And I’ve started Sam the Ram.

When it came to a provisional cast-on for the second shoulder strap for the gansey at Kirkmichael earlier in the week, I used the idea Ted suggested: tie two yarns together, put the knot under the tip of the needle, then do an ordinary long-tail cast-on with the waste yarn as the one that goes round the thumb. Easy, quick. I did it again last night for Sam.

We won’t send for the champagne, though, until we find out how easy it is to undo. Both cast-on’s were brief, so there’s no great harm done if I wind up as usual laboriously unpicking.

Gansey comments

Thank you, Vivienne – I’ll look up that pattern today. I agree about the need for charting, and the tedium of pencil and paper. I have the program Stitch & Motif Maker. I use it rarely, but when I do, it’s invaluable. “Mrs Laidlaw’s pattern”, the basis for my gansey, isn’t charted in Gladys Thompson’s book, although lesser patterns are. I made a chart with that program – it’s quicker than paper and pencil, I think, and certainly more fun. But I was alarmed, as I checked the link just now, to see how expensive the current version is.

Donna, I’m glad to have a reason for mentioning the source of the gansey wool again: it came from Jan at Frangipani. Mine is “Herring Girl’s Pink”. Jan couldn’t have been more helpful, and the yarn is wonderful. Firm, brilliant on stitch definition.

Mary Lou, it was exciting to “meet” someone else who has knit Mrs Laidlaw’s pattern. How did you do the sleeves, exactly? As you see, mine are plain except for the broken rib panel and its attendant reverse-st-st pennants. I found the body tough going in patches, especially the part after I had divided for the sleeve holes and had to keep flipping the pattern over in my mind to knit the wrong-side rows. But at the moment, I am very happy with the result.

Rabbit comments

Does “Liquid Fence” work, Sister Helen? I think I have established via Google that it isn’t available in the UK. Even in concentrate, a liquid is going to be expensive to ship. And it’s expensive to begin with. But if it works, it’s worth anything.

Rabbits have been getting in to the inadequately-fenced portion of my garden. That hasn’t happened before, and I don’t see how they’re doing it. So far they have just eaten the chives and – feeling rather ill? – the parsley. But soon there will be all sorts of delicious things for them in there.

We have never eaten them before, but I am tired of this. I have quite a few tasty recipes lined up, but they will have to wait until James comes in the summer. My husband won’t clean his successes for me, as he doesn’t much care for eating rabbit. Too much like the War, perhaps. James is less squeamish.

While we were in Kirkmichael, we heard James Naughtie’s interview with President Carter on the “Today” programme. I was much impressed with what he had to say, and with the coherence of his thought and language. The interview can still be heard here.

So, here’s the vegetable garden. My husband said the other day that it has rarely looked so tidy. That could be attributed to what might be called the Japanese approach to kitchen gardening – no plants. That’s not entirely true. The potatoes are growing vigorously, and have been earthed up against freak late frosts. Other things – not all, but some – are coming up but are too small to be obvious to the naked eye.

There had been a frost in the week we were away, but a slight one, and damage was minimal.

And here’s the gansey. I achieved what I had hoped, finished the first sleeve (but for the cuff) and have done most of the second shoulder strap. (I took it outdoors to photograph it yesterday morning -- the results are good. This is the view from what is meant to be the back. Back and front are indentical in shaping, and differ only in the placing of the pattern.)



Tamar, I took your advice and recalculated and spaced the remaining sleeve decreases so that they came out even with the desired length. The worry at the moment is that the broken rib panel down the top of the sleeve wants to recede into the fabric, as if it were simply a panel of purl stitches. (I have pulled it out to have its picture taken.) I will have to be very firm with it at the blocking stage. And of course it won’t entirely be able to recede, when there is an arm in the sleeve.

The weather continued wet and windy, but I got my May calendar pictures.

It must have been a considerable comfort for old folks during the War to spend time as we were doing, and to know that their activities – growing vegetables, knitting, trapping rabbits – were all directly and specifically useful. Except that in my case, vegetable-growing demands a considerable expenditure of time and strength in return for very little food.

Comments

Thank you, everybody, for the kind words about the Princess. She’s not finished yet! I regard the forthcoming insertion, however, as the pons asinorum. Once I am across it, finishing is by no means guaranteed, but the end will be, however dimly, in sight.

Vivienne, I don’t suppose you remember which issue of “Knitting” your husband’s gansey was in? I have subscribed from the beginning, so I must have it.

Now the Princess border really is finished. I even knit a few stitches of the Little Boy neckband last night, after it was done. We’re going to Strathardle today. When we get back, I’ll hope to polish that off and then tackle Sam the Ram – with a swirly hat for light relief once I’ve got him established, perhaps.

I know what you mean, Judith, (new comment for Wednesday) about grandchildren and fleece. Mine span 20 years in age. I find that their parents are willing enough to dress them in wool, and the small children willing enough to wear it, until about the age of seven. Then fleece takes over. Eventually the grandchildren emerge at the other end of the process as normal human beings, and begin to appreciate sweaters again – but by that time they’re big.

My overall Plan of Life, at the moment, is to tackle Theo’s cashmere gansey in the autumn. My sister will bring the yarn when she comes for the Games in August. I hope Theo will be there too, to approve plans. I’d like to do the neck like the one on my friend’s father’s gansey from Eriskay, illustrated here previously. It looks as simple as knitting the neckband back and forth with a modest overlap, and buttonholes.

This project is obscurely bound up with the wish to see Barack Obama president. We subscribe to the New Yorker but only read it when we are in Kirkmichael, undistracted by television and daily newspapers. This time I have the profile of Obama to look forward to.

A bit less than three rows of garter stitch to go, and the Princess border will be ready for the insertion. Garter stitch knitting of hundreds of gossamer stitches is a lot more fun, and a little bit quicker, than I expected. All through the border I’ve had trouble easing the stitches over the join between cord and needle. Without all those blasted yo’s, they glide like silk. So, barring disaster, I should finish today. I’ll polish off the Little Boy sweater and then start Sam. We’re going back to Strathardle tomorrow, anyway.

Mary Lou, I was delighted to hear that Sam’s designer knows he is going to compete at the Strathardle Highland Gathering. I can presumably get news of the result to her through Blackberry Ridge. Bear in mind that I never win.

The weather is disgusting, and so is the forecast, so the May calendar pictures are going to have to be artistic. I took one of the apple tree in bloom last time, but it isn’t very good. Yesterday, guided by your advice and specifically by my friend Helen, I bought a cheap copy of Photoshop Elements on eBay (buy-it-now), so I’ll have help.

Swirling

There’s a comment, much appreciated, from Natalie yesterday – Mrs. Yarn Yard herself. She thinks I’m thinking on the right lines, swirl-wise. Yesterday it occurred to me that I could try a hat. 210 stitches is obviously too many, but 105 would produce a hat that would fit somebody. I’ll use the May Yarn Yard club offering, with the cuff of the hat in the plain yarn. You’ve got to knit round and round to get the ikat effect.

One of the great comforts of old age is having all those differently-sized and –styled people to knit for.

I’m rather taken with my new system of having some easy weekend knitting on the go. It seems to be working. I started the Little Boy sweater in March, and here it is virtually finished, and the Princess has advanced too: neither, in other words, has shewn any tendency to slide down the slippery slope from WIP to UFO. So once Sam is up and running, I’ll maybe start a swirly hat.

IK

The summer issue delighted me by turning up yesterday. As usual with summer issues, there’s nothing much there that I actually want to knit. Perhaps only Candace Strick's “Merging Colors” scarf on page 10. I love the concept of Merging Colors, and I’ve got a sweater’s-worth of the yarn in the Caribbean Sunset colorway, but I haven’t done anything with it.

I went to the IK website yesterday, to renew my subscription, and clicked on the option to read about Eunny Jang, the new editor. I learned that she is going to “tele-commute” or some such phrase, from the East Coast to Ohio. I’m not sure I approve, and await results with some anxiety. An editor needs to be there, quite a bit of the time, to take part in scenes such as Pam Allen describes in her valedictory editor’s letter.

Ce l’ho fatta! – at least, up to a point.

I finished row 219 of the Princess border. Row 220 is plain knitting, not a single yo or k2tog. It is followed by six more rows of garter stitch – then the insertion.

So, in a sense, I’ve finished the border. I shall spend the following rows counting and re-counting, moving the markers to points more helpful for the insertion (which has a modest 4-stitch repeat, with six stitches at each end of the row), and counting again, and identifying and marking the absolute centre stitch, on which the centre must be centred. So to speak.

And I have decided to launch myself straight into Sam the Ram, when the seven plain rows are done. It seems more sensible to have the interruption at that point, and then to return, practice the insertion, and tackle the knitting of it straight away. I don’t understand the instructions. There is nothing for it but to remember Sam-I-Am and his immortal advice: Try it and you may, I say.

Back to thoughts of swirliness (see yesterday). The relevant portion of the Little Boy sweater was knit on 210 stitches. At seven to the inch, that gives a circumference of 30” (and blocking could probably produce another) which should suffice for several of the grandchildren in the picture on my sidebar, even though it’s a bit out of date.

I took a class in designing for the very young with Kristin Nicholas at Stitches East in ’00, and I remember her remark that children don’t increase all that much in circumference as time passes, they just get taller. There’s truth in it.

And I am excited, not too strong a word, by your remark, laurieg, that it might be possible to do the sleeves on half the number of stitches and get the same effect.

The famous article about the ikat process -- to be found here – has you “recreate the skein”, mark the points where one round ends and the next begins, and then cast on two rounds’-worth. Having got this far in thought, it might be interesting at least to try it and see how close that process brings me to 210 stitches.

Non-knit

Thank you, commenters, for the help with photography. I don’t have a Mac, Ann – I begin to see, from your note, why people are so enthusiastic about them. I think it will have to be Photoshop Elements, as you suggest, Pat. I had toyed with the idea before, and Alexander poured scorn on it. He is a serious photographer, and uses the big grownup Photoshop.

Here’s the current state of the Little Boy sweater. When its turn comes up again, I’ll press on to the finish, but today I want to get back to pressing on towards the finish of the Princess border.



One of the things I’d like to figure out how to do, is to add labels and little arrows to photographs, and to draw borders around particular parts. Here, I’d like to point out – although I guess it’s pretty obvious, if you peer – where the sleeves were joined in, and where the first big decrease round occurs.

There is a distinct change when the sleeves are added. I like the round-and-round stripes of the lower body better. But it’s the way the colours swoop about between the first and second decrease rounds that especially delights me.

Maybe I don’t need to take any further trouble over achieving ikat: just knit one of the The Yarn Yard skeins on 200 stitches, which is the number I think I had at that point. One could knit a tube all the way up, then cut for sleeves and a dropped-shoulder. That would yield a sweater of very nearly the same size as this: the lower body was worked on 196 stitches. The sleeves would inevitably be different. I'll think about it.

Blogs

Annie Modesitt is back up.

Lee, thank you for the reference to the Baghdad diary of the Library director. There’s a lot of solid prose there. I got a bit bogged down, and then decided to earmark it with the intention of reading, every few days, the entries for exactly a month ago. It is truly extraordinary to read of the semi-familiar frustrations of a man in his position, dealing with beauocracy, dealing with government ministers, amidst the unfamiliar setting of death and inconvenience-by-terrorism and helicopters overhead.

Little to report. Another day, another dollar.

I did the first big decrease in the yoke of the Little Boy sweater – ¼ of the stitches gone – and the colours started swirling gloriously instead of striping as before. I’ll carry on for today, through a decrease which will remove another third of the stitches, in the hopes of being able to illustrate what’s happening. The Princess had Saturday, so it’s all right.

I mustn’t forget my intention of attempting ikat patterning with one of Natalie's yarns. I may be getting near the end of the Little Boy, the March club offering, but I still haven’t even wound April or May.

Blogs

You’ll enjoy the pictures in Lorna's latest blog entry.

Another one that I read when I can is Baghdad Burning – entries are rare, at least in part because electricity is rare, where she is. I think she’s won prizes for it; there may even be a book. I have no idea who she is. Young. Iraqi. Perfect idiomatic English. She doesn’t seem to knit. Google has nothing to add -- she's anonymous for her own protection.

She and her family have finally decided to leave. I hope the blog continues, not least because the process of leaving and the story of what happens next will be extremely interesting.

Another one I’m following keenly at the moment is Annie Modesitt. Her life has taken one of those jogs – the family have moved west, and her husband is seriously ill. There’s no use giving you a link, though, because I’m getting only a blank screen this morning. I think she’s been messing around with the arrangements

Sorry about yesterday. It was Christian Aid Booksale Day, a big Edinburgh event. And it rained, which is not usually the case. So the knitting stall was not in its usual spot, but stuffed inside somewhere. It took some finding, and the women in charge didn’t know where most of their stock was, and it was so crowded you couldn’t breathe. Nothing of interest that I could see.

I bought Starmore’s Celtic Knitting cheap, remembering the sort of prices her books fetch and believing I could make my fortune and retire. Turns out that one’s in print.

By the time all that was over, and the Saturday shopping done, I was too tired to breathe, let alone blog.

Knitting

I’ve finished row 216 of the Princess border. The end-game, indeed. This last bit has been a bit tough – because it was too easy. Ted would understand. It was an alternation of two very similar motifs, and I was constantly wondering which one came next, or even which one I was doing at the moment. Now one of them has dropped out and the rest should be straightforward although even easier.

I think my current plan is to finish the border, practice the insertion (but not attempt it in real life), and then tackle Sam the Ram. Judith, I did join the Yahoo Sam group, on your suggestion. There doesn’t seem to be much happening there at the moment, but I can always read the archives or ask specific questions. Thanks for that.

I must here confess that I’ve ordered some “Glasgow Tenement” yarn from The Yarn Yard. The original skein had sold before I got there – although I burst through the doors of the virtual shop on the day it went on the shelves. But Natalie is going to dye some more for me. There’ll never be another yarn called “Glasgow Tenement”. I have in mind something like the “big easy” sweater in the new issue of Knitting magazine – a pattern I had admired but not bought in a “Sublime” pattern book. And a boy something like Fergus Drake of Thessaloniki.

The current Little Boy Sweater progresses well, and since today is its day, and maybe tomorrow, the end isn’t far away.

Comments

Tamar, you’re right about the gansey sleeve. (You’re often right, I notice!) If I simply decrease to 60 stitches and then knit to the required length, the lower bit may be too tight. I was given a sweater to use as a template for both the gansey and the Calcutta Cup sweater – i.e., it fits both Alexander and his wife Ketki. I’ll take it to Strathardle next time. It's the one Alexander spilled red wine down the front of. Maybe it would be more prudent, and more attractive, to space out those last decreases anyway.

Esther, it’s not me you have to thank for Lasagna gardening, but kristieinbc, who left a comment back in April when I first introduced my clumsy raised bed. Here’s the ritual how-the-garden-looked-when-we-left picture from last week. The grass needs cutting again already.

The weather was squally – rough winds did shake the darling buds, in fact. But we got a fair amount done. I gave the grass its first cut, and got the basic seeds in. Some random potatoes have appeared – I earthed them all over, remembering last year’s alarming May frost. It remains to plant the seeds which should only be put in when-all-danger-of-frost is past. There is no such date in Strathardle; I usually declare it to be May 15.

I am enchanted with the concept of Square Foot Gardening. The very day we left last week, I got the new issue of Kitchen Garden – and found an article about it. My primitive attempt is fully sown – I’ll spare you a map of the contents, at least for the time being. I have, as always, bought more seed than I have room for – so, it’s not just yarn. This was a good way of giving each at least a square foot of trial.

I am already looking forward to building myself a better, second raised bed this autumn, in which I will apply the Lasagna Gardening principles.

This is really my kind of gardening, where I can kneel or sit on the ground and attend to things without worrying about what I’m kneeling or sitting on.

Further reports to follow.

And, knitting…

The gansey progresses. It seems to be turning out that I will get down to the wanted number of end-of-sleeve stitches, namely 60, before I get to the end of the sleeve. That’s the trouble, I find, with swatching or with arithmetic or perhaps it’s the two in combination. The plan is to reduce to 48 stitches all at once at the cuff, for a slightly bloused effect. The only thing to do is to keep on remorselessly knitting on 60 until the length is right. I should finish this sleeve the next time we go north.

“Finishing” of any Kirkmichael project is done here in Edinburgh, and I have decided that in this case, the wrist ribbing will be classified as “finishing”. So I’ll put the stitches on some waste yarn and cast on the second shoulder strap at once.

Meanwhile, here in the big city, Sam the Ram has turned up – with no duty to pay! He looks challenging, to put it mildly. He’s obviously a Scottish Blackface, appropriately enough.

And The Yarn Yard May offering is also here, as hoped. And it’s wonderful, as usual. Don’t trust those colours on the screen. The real ones are even better.

Having a quick look at the Yarn Yard site just now, I find there’s a new yarn called “Glasgow tenement.” Again, can I resist? Our first house was a Glasgow tenement, much as the National Trust describes it, in the link the Yarn Yard provides. Alexander, James and Helen were born on the premises – the boys, before we even had a telephone of our own.

Thanks, as ever, for all the comments last time. There are several I want to reply to, but I think that’s enough for today.

It was aw’fy hot in Glasgow. The picture is backed with new board from which nothing was to be learned. It’s a nice picture, though. It was good to see it, and my husband was able to interrogate it in various ways that can only be done when he is standing in front of the actual object. We went to a second-hand bookstore and a couple of commercial art galleries and the Glasgow Modern Art Gallery – oh dear! – and came home.

We’re going back to Strathardle today, as soon as my husband has voted, to stay about a week. Maybe I can even plant some seeds this evening. I have been studying the Square Foot Gardening website and will report on my success or lack of it, in adapting its principles.

So we’ll be away when the May yarn arrives from The Yarn Yard sock club. We’ve got a nice big letter box – the package will get through all right. I’m guaranteed some knitting excitement to come home to.

Here’s a last progress shot of the Princess border. I have embarked on row 212. “Last” because I won’t take another picture until I’ve finished the border.

Things are going fairly briskly, except that the last motifs involve a good many double decreases, and they’re slow. When I knit Amedro’s “Fine Lace Stole” I had a lot of trouble with the Ring Stitch section, which is full of double decreases. She gives them as k 3 tog and I kept finding – too late – that the middle stitch had escaped and was wandering off by itself. I switched to some other system.

This time, in order to centre the decreases, as seems appropriate, I am inserting the right-hand needle in the next two stitches as if to knit them together, slipping them both, knitting the following stitch, and passing the slipped stitches over. Having learned from Margaret Stove that the stitch the needle enters first in any decrease, is the one that winds up on top. The most valuable piece of knitting lore I know.

But I also pause each time to tug and make sure all three are secure.

Comments

Thanks for the upbeat reports on Handknitting.com. I did some Googling yesterday and found others. I hadn’t realised they were Canadian – I hope that doesn’t involve my sister in paying duty when the yarn arrives.

And for the references to zolendronic acid, which I gather is the lead story in the Times today. I’ll keep an eye on that one.

I have just taken my first osteoporosis pill and am sitting here waiting to explode. I am to take it once a week, before any food has been consumed, with water, and remain upright for half an hour afterwards. Computing and knitting are allowed, but I can’t go out and hoe the vegetable garden. If I get away with it without side effects, it will prevent any further loss of bone mass. So I am now a genuine Oldie with a pill all my own.

We are going to Glasgow today; I could do without Glasgow.

Christie’s is selling some Scottish art in London later this month. My husband discovered only yesterday, in a pile of paper in his study, a flyer from them saying that “highlights” from the sale would be shown in Glasgow today and tomorrow. He rang them up, and they confirmed that the picture by His Artist is among the highlights. It is a late one, one of the last the artist painted, and my husband has seen it in the past – but he has never seen the back of it, and hopes to do so today. That is what art historians are really interested in.

So off we go. Theoretically he could go by himself, but I don’t entirely trust him out alone. I said that to him, and he agreed. I’ll take the bed socks to knit – I’m advancing nicely down the second foot. I did take the Little Boy Sweater to the meeting last night, and made some progress.

And I have reached row 210 of the Princess border. Since the final row, 220, is unpatterned, I can now be considered to have embarked on a count-down of the last ten rows. A certain amount of “mirroring” is going on – the arrangement of the motifs pivots on the central “feather”. But the motifs themselves are vertically symmetrical, unlike those sprouting seeds which nod to right and left earlier on. And things seem to be progressing smoothly.

I did order Sam the Ram from Blackberry Ridge yesterday, and some 4-ply sport weight cashmere from Handknitting.com. Blackberry Ridge is an old friend; that’ll be OK. Handknitting.com is a plunge into the unknown and it will be interesting to see what happens. Nobody responded to my appeal for information about them. The business has recently changed hands, and there are worrying notes on the website about delays in filling orders. But the website works smoothly and seems secure and professional, and there’s no hurry.

I went for the shade called “Blueberry”. Theo himself had a look, and put that one on a short list. I liked it for its sort of faded-denim-y appearance. Handknitting.com is meant to send it to my sister, who will bring it when she comes for the Games. We’re going to have a splendid party this year.

The half-hour is up, and here I still am.

Not much, today.

I have embarked on row 209 of the Princess border. The trouble with the current situation is that I keep thinking ahead – whereas the joy of Princess knitting, up until now, has been timelessness. This will last forever – sit still and enjoy the moment.

But the big question now, on the contrary, is whether I can get the centre started before I have to knock off and knit Sam the Bloody Ram as my Games entry.

The Games are on the Fourth Saturday in August (as always) so I could postpone ram-knitting until mid June, perhaps. I hate knitting to a deadline; there’s got to be plenty of time. I will soon finish the Princess border, insh’Allah (220 rows). But then there are some rows of plain garter stitch, not difficult but not instantaneous over 850 stitches.

Then the insertion. That’s obviously tricky, and will have to be practised before I attempt it in real life. And when I’m ready, it’s 20 rows long.

Is that achievable in May? much of which I hope will be spent in Strathardle cooing over my vegetables.

We’ll see.

Not much will be achieved today, either, because I must go to a Drummond Place committee meeting this evening. Maybe I’ll take the Little Boy Sweater, which is a manageable size and at a particularly easy stage just now, instead of my usual Committee Sock.

I’m circling round the question of the Barak-electing sweater for nephew Theo, and may even nerve myself to order some cashmere from handknitting.com soon.

While I was in the very act of grumbling about provisional cast-ons yesterday, I began to remember the crochet one, where you crochet the loops directly onto the knitting needle. Not that I needed to remember, since several of you have kindly reminded me.

I learned it while knitting Candace Strick's “Harmony” pattern – which doesn’t seem to be on offer any more. It was my Games entry three years ago, in the “children’s cardigan” class, and was unplaced. My claque thought I had been hard done by, but I believe they were judging the pattern, which is brilliant, not the knitting, which was only so-so. (The model is Rachel Miles of Beijing, three years ago.)

Candace includes several useful techniques, including that one, in the instructions.

I’ve never tried the long-tail method that Ted and Julie mention in their comments yesterday. I think I’m going for that, when I come to cast on the second shoulder strap for Ketki’s gansey – but I’ll have a crochet hook to hand. Or could I do it with my fingers, as Mel suggests? Lots of possibilities, and a great incentive to get the first sleeve finished.

While we’re on comments: knititch, I had heard that men’s urine was preferred for soaking lichen in (before using it as a dye), but I didn’t know that alcoholic men were the preferred source. I’ll make a note in my natural dye book!

Ron, might it not be worth writing to Jamieson’s and asking them to reconsider their policy about shipping to Canada and Mexico, now that they’re alone in the field?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I’m very pleased with progress on the Little Boy sweater, and especially, at the moment, with the smooth way the yarn incorporated the sleeve stitches without a wrench in the colour sequence. (I left the yarn attached to the body, and knit the sleeves with a different skein.) We’ll see what effect the first big decrease round has.

While I was pursuing sheep around the field last week for the sake of the April calendar picture, I took this one. I was rather struck this morning, as I was deleting them one by one, at the way the uncertain sun on the hills behind makes stripes rather like the Little Boy Sweater.

I’m somewhere in row 206, Princess-border-wise. I joined in a new ball of yarn the other evening – there now seem to be only five left in the packet. The last one took not much longer than a month to knit, with interruptions for London and Strathardle. The Princess suddenly begins to seem finite. I’m not sure I like it that way.

Still, little-boy-sweater today. It would be nice to get the second sleeve finished and joined.

Provisional Cast-On

I have never mastered it. One was needed for the shoulder strap of Ketki’s gansey last week. Brown-Reinsel’s instructions are for the over-and-under system. I tried, several times – I have a feeling I’ve actually done it, sometime in the distant past. But this time I failed, and eventually resorted to the last refuge of the clumsy, casting on and knitting a row in a different yarn.

I have also tried and failed the other “elegant” system (in the mathematical sense of that word) – crocheting a chain and picking up stitches from the back loop. I got that spectacularly wrong and had to spend hours tweaking out bits of yarn from the active loops.

I mean to try again for the other shoulder, bringing more books into play. My knitting library is here in Edinburgh – I had nothing to back up Brown-Reinsel last week. Watch this space.

Odds and Ends

Thank you for the note about nettles, Deidra. I had a natural-dye phase once, using unbleached yarn from Jamieson & Smith. Mostly I got a not-very-interesting range of browns, but I did succeed in finding some oclorechea tartarea (spelling not guaranteed) – a lichen – in Strathardle, from which came a pretty good red, and purple. You soak it in vinegar for a few weeks, I seem to remember. The natives used urine. Green, from nettles, would be a welcome addition to the range.

Knitterguy had a very interesting post recently, under the headline “Change”, with links hither and yon, not all of them knitterly but all interesting. The big news, and the saddest, is that Jamieson & Smith are discontinuing a long list of Shetland jumper weight colours. I was a tad worried when they were taken over a year or so ago, but people I respect seemed calm about it (notably Myrna Stahman), so I tried to stay calm.

We’ve still got Jamieson’s. We’d better treasure them.

Thank you, everybody, for the welcome-home comments.

The answer is, yes, Stephanie, (that’s the Yarn Harlot herself: I am deeply flattered) – stinging nettles. I have a book that says they can be eaten all summer through. I wouldn’t try it, myself, once April is gone. You pick the tender tops, wearing gloves; pick them over a bit, similarly attired; wash; blanch for maybe two minutes. After that they’re sweet as kittens. The soup involved sweating some onion and potato for a while, adding the nettles, adding some stock, half an hour or so, pureeing the lot. (Admittedly, I wouldn’t do that to kittens.) The result was perhaps slightly gritty because picking-over and cleaning in gloves hadn’t been very efficiently done, but quite tasty.

Thank you, everybody, for encouragement with my clumsy attempt at a raised bed. I’ve looked at squarefootgardening and at Lasagna Gardening with great interest. If my first raised bed works, maybe I’ll do a lasagna for the second.

And you may have an idea there, Ron – I’ve been assuming that I’ll take my 12 pictures to the local Kodak shop for transformation into a calendar, one per page. But maybe I can find someone on the web who’ll let me have two.

Well – you got me started. I wandered around on the web a bit, after writing that paragraph, and found that Kodak themselves will let me make a calendar with one photograph on some pages and more on others. They complain of all my pics that they aren’t sufficiently high-resolution. I will remedy that for the future, but there’s no way to go back and re-do January through April. The moving finger writes, and having writ…

Knitting

I finished row 203 of the Princess border yesterday. 201 and 202 were hard: hardly any lace, but what there was consisted of establishing new motifs so the whole thing was an agony of counting and peering to make sure everything was in the right place. We seem to be set fair for now.

Thank you, Edinburgh Jean’s (comments April 20), for the suggestion that the Royal Edinburgh Repository might eventually block the Princess for me. I’m afraid it would be rather like putting out a baby to a wet nurse; I couldn’t bear it. If we ever get that far, I’ll have to do it myself.

The Repository is a remarkable charity. I was glad to be reminded of its real name. My husband and I tend to refer to it as the Distressed Gentlefolk, and often shop there. When I knit granddaughter Kirsty her Christening set, I bought a paper pattern and some material and took it to the Repository so that someone could make me a slip for the baby to wear underneath. It was done nicely and promptly.

The trust, whatever it is, pays for the shop (city centre; no joke) and the staff – the craftspeople get every penny they charge for the things they sell. I wonder if Google could explain who was behind it, but I’ve spent enough time already this morning exploring the calendar question.

Here’s the routine homecoming picture of My Vegetable Garden, as of Thursday morning. We ate and much enjoyed the forced rhubarb.

Back again, very tired, but with a healthy-feeling, countrified tiredness much to be preferred to the sort that London engenders.

The potatoes have been safely interred. I had hoped to follow them with the first seeds, but Wednesday – the designated day – was wet. The soil was still cold and clammy yesterday morning, so it was the right decision, although a disappointment. May sowings catch up fast on April ones, anyway.

I whiled away the time on Wednesday by making nettle soup. Our own crop of nettles was inadequate, but our neighbour has lots, so I helped myself. The result was mildly interesting and not unpleasant.

I got the soil largely ready for the unsown seeds. I have always wanted to try raised beds, but I always thought I had to get a Man In to make them, or at least order a kit from the ads in the back of Kitchen Garden magazine. Neither procedure would my husband approve. Then when we were in London last time, I read an excellent vegetable gardening book of Alexander’s – can’t remember the title – the man grows his vegetables in Vermont.

And that gave me the idea that I could cobble together a raised bed by myself, using some of the wood which is piled up in the byre for firewood. If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.

Here’s the result. The idea is that it can be cultivated without ever stepping on it, so the soil doesn’t get compacted and doesn’t need digging. Also there’s greater depth of soil. If results are good, I’ll cobble together another one in the autumn.

Anyway, knitting…

I finished the body of Ketki’s gansey, as hoped, and the whole project instantly sprang back to life. I have knit the first shoulder strap, not without a struggle, and am cantering down the right arm. The gusset has already been reduced away.















The seven-stitch broken rib pattern from the body appears on the shoulder strap, and will continue down the otherwise-plain sleeve, flanked by the reversed st st pennants from the main pattern. So far so good.

I took a lot of uncharacteristic trouble at the beginning to set the pattern so that the result would be symmetrical. I'm pleased with the result, which you can scarcely discern in these pictures. Thinking sometimes pays off.

It has all become so much fun that I found myself wondering whether I could get Obama elected by knitting Theo a cashmere gansey, instead of a cashmere Koigu sweater. On that subject – there is an interesting article about Maie Landau in the new VK, waiting here when we got back yesterday. She says herself of cashmere Koigu, “The colours are duller, more matte.” So I’m not imagining it.

I like Brown-Reinsel’s snakes-and-ladders pattern. And I like the look of handknitting.com's Mongolian cashmere. Does anyone have any experience of it?

Much more to say, but I can wait. The choice of the April calendar picture is going to be a tough call.

Ginny, yes! That’s the link I was hoping someone would provide to the post of Franklin’s about knitting lace. I thought he had been talking about silk rather than cotton, but the effect was precisely the same as my attempt to knit the Princess edging in pure silk.

I finished row 200 of the border last night – a good place to pause.








The weather is grey and cool. I have packed up my potatoes in a box rather than try to carry them up in their sprouting tray, filling the car. Potato sprouts are pretty tough, as we all know from the state of the vegetable rack this time of year.






Bloglines is down this morning, so I spent my usual search-of-inspiration quarter hour wandering around unfamiliar territory. Lorna, I loved Celtic Memory Yarns, and recommend it to lovers of green Ireland. I was interested in her remark about "the traces of earlier habitation, when Ireland's population was larger", with evocative photograph to accompany. (Scroll down a bit.) We have very similar ruins in Kirkmichael. One of Our Walks is to the "ruined village" which sounds a lot better than it is. I always thought everybody left and went to work in Glasgow, when the land no longer needed a lot of labour. We have seen the same thing happening in the 40 years we've been there -- farmers used to employ shepherds and tractor men. Now they do it all themselves.



Ginny, I enjoyed the Black Bunny Hop cooperative, and will try to keep mental hold of the idea of the Scroll Stitch Scarf idea for a forthcoming issue of The Yarn Yard sock club – or even for the beautiful April yarn, so far untouched.

So – off to the West Port and let us gae free. We should be back by next Thursday, the 26th, at the latest. That being the day of Sotheby’s Scottish Sale.

I’ve embarked on row 198 – a landmark, because when I’ve finished it, I’ll have done 90% of the Princess border.

The opening notes of the final movement have already sounded. Row 201 will be the next major landmark, when the top-of-border patterns are set in their place. And at some point, I’m pretty sure, between now and the end, I’ll finish a ball of yarn. That’s always an Event.

Sharon mentions that she used point protectors, and needed them, as her stitches were constantly trying to escape. Mine are singularly well-behaved. I try to be very careful, picking the work up, and I don’t think I’ve had a single escape-attempt yet. Sharon used a cotton yarn – I don’t think, at that stage, she had found the Italian-spun Gossamer Merino which she now sells under her own label, and which I’m using. And loving.

I sent for a trial ball of the cotton she recommended, but I don’t think I even cast it on. I did attempt almost half-a-repeat of the edging in a pure silk yarn which I had intended to use. Franklin drew a picture once of the result – I wish I had bookmarked it.

You would have to use one or other, I think, if you wanted a really stark white, as many brides do. The wool yarn is white, all right, but it looks like white wool. More Christening than wedding, perhaps.

Other

The only knit-related item in the pile of mail holding the door shut when we got back on Monday, was the autumn (!) edition of Yarn, the Australian knitting magazine. I like it more with every issue. This one has a concentration on drop-spindle spinning. I’m really tempted, if only there were more hours in a day or more days in a lifetime. There’s a good pattern for a top-down child’s sweater, with the thought that as the child elongates, you can easily add more stripes at the bottom. And I haven't finished reading.

Comments

Hellen, I love your work, and your web design. It is wonderful to think that I introduced you to the Baby Surprise – my colours were all due to Koigu, I think; no credit deserved.

Blocking the Princess – it’ll be too big for any ordinary frame, I fear; and I can’t do it in a Major Traffic Area just before we go somewhere, because the blocking will be a day’s work in itself. Maybe the spare room single beds, pushed together, will be big enough. I’d certainly be happier having it here. But as I said, it’s far from being an immediate problem.

Non-knit

We’ve decided on tomorrow for Strathardle. The weather has turned April-y, very welcome. Some of my potatoes have developed beyond chitting, in a sinister-looking fashion. I’ll be glad to have them safely in the ground. And to see our lambs.