We had a lovely day here in Edinburgh yesterday, but it rained quite a lot, I understand, in England (and Ireland and Wales). And St Swithin is an Englishman. Sure enough, today is lousy. I’m afraid the last hope is gone for the Summer of ’07.

Not much to report on the knitting front. I am attaching edging down the second long side of the melon scarf, progressing well. I might reach half-way today.

My friend Helen and I are planning a yarn crawl to HK Handknits later this week. They’re having a sale. That should cheer us up, even if the sun don’t shine.

Since that interesting topic has been dispatched, I will proceed to a political question:

In my distant youth, as I remember things, the parties’ nominating conventions in presidential election years were just that – the places where the nominations were decided. Not all states had primaries, I don’t think, and the ones that did regularly bound the delegates’ votes on the first ballot only at the convention. So primaries were important, but not overwhelmingly so.

There was lots for the Boys in the Back Room to do. If memory serves, Adlai Stevenson wasn’t in any primaries in ’52. They just sort of drafted him at the convention. He was Governor of Illinois, and the convention was in Chicago – but, ah, who decided on that, and why? – and they just went and fetched him, and he came out and stood on his front steps and said, “What more shall be required of thee but to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with thy God?”

(Don’t blame the history books; blame my memory, if all this is rubbish.)

Whereas nowadays I get the impression that the primaries are everything. When a candidate wins enough of them, that candidate becomes the candidate, and there’s nothing left for the convention to do but throw a party. Is that right?

I wonder because the Boys in the Back Room might well think Hillary too divisive to be the candidate. There was an article in the Independent on Sunday yesterday about how lots of people don’t like her. Including me, although that wasn’t mentioned. It did say that Jane Fonda was hostile. I was delighted, because I am a great Fonda fan, as I was of her father, but we don’t always see eye-to-eye on politics.

On the other hand again, it currently looks as if any Democrat could get elected as long as he/she was capable of tying his/her shoes, so maybe the Boys will figure that they might as well run with Hillary.

My sister and her family will be here for the Games; we can discuss this matter thoroughly then.

Speaking of which, yesterday I ordered the Meet Dolores sweatshirt to wear on Games Day. Last year I wore my new Panopticon sweatshirt, which has proved a most useful garment in the ensuing months. If the day should be sizzling hot – it has happened – I’ll strip down to my “New Yoga” tee shirt.

St Swithin's Day

…and he has chosen rain, according to the early weather forecast on the BBC, which mentioned him specifically. On the other hand, it’s a beautiful morning here in Edinburgh, cloudless blue.

Here’s the new Yarn Yard club offering – Natalie’s strawberry patch. I had it unfurled over the back of a sofa all day yesterday, as is my wont, and loved it more and more as the day progressed.

And here’s the melon stole. I’ve rounded a second corner, and now begin to see what the finished thing will look like. It will be very interesting to see what the final size is – clearly far smaller than the VLT exemplar. The one in the book is knit in “fine weight” yarn. There is a useful section in the back where the terms are not so much defined as illustrated with a list of yarns – “fine weight” includes Kidsilk Haze. Most of the designs in the book are “fine weight”. The yarn list will be less useful in 25 years' time.

But there’s also “super fine weight”, including Helen’s Lace. I think the Yarn Yard lace merino is finer than that, more like Shetland cobweb but far stronger (because plyed) and more interesting colour-wise.

Miscellany, including comments

My friend Helen wrote to me yesterday about her father’s gansey, knit on Eriskay. She has, through an intermediary, shewn photographs of it to an Eriskay knitter, who recognised it at once, named the knitter (her treatment of the gussets was unmistakeable) and identified some of the stitch patterns. More to follow.

MoMo, love the blog. Congratulations on doing it, and fingers crossed for the move to Colorado. Where in Michigan are you? I spent important youthful years in Detroit, with many visits to a grandmother in Constantine, towards the west of the state, near Three Rivers and White Pigeon. James and Cathy had a happy year in Ann Arbor before they had all those children.

Janet, I don’t think I was the one who mentioned Frances Partridge recently, but it sounds so plausible that I mistrust myself, saying that. We have them (all, I think); my husband has read them, I have only dipped – after all, one must have time to knit. But if it wasn’t me, who was it? That’s a blog I’d like to read.

Julie, I can’t grow other poppies, either. Just papaver somniferum, which grows itself.

Donna, yes, I will certainly go on with square-foot gardening. I plan to add a second raised bed next year. In a dry year, there’s reason to worry, because our soil is basically fine and sandy and will dry out fast. We shall see.

Julie, [a different Julie] I have heard of the sort of companion planting you mention, but have never tried it. I think I should. The trouble with the beetroot this year was, however, firstly poor germination, and then – with the help of some re-sowing – plants that came up and then just sit there, teeny tiny, not advancing.

The square of sky visible from my study window is still pure blue.

The Thousandth Post

As in every gardening season, I suspect, since Adam delved and Eve span, there was some good news and some not so good. The potatoes, as I suspected, had relished the rain. We dug some First Earlies, and relished them. The courgettes were less happy – they must have missed the sun – but we’ll have plenty in August. Courgettes are much more fun to grow than to eat, anyway.

Carrots promise well, beetroot disappoints. And so forth. There was no sign whatsoever of rocket (arugula) or kale, the veritable garter stitch of vegetable growing. I suspect slugs rather than rabbits. I don’t think rabbits have been back to my little enclosure, and anyway rabbits don’t like rocket very much. Too peppery for them.

Here is my “raised bed” with which I continue delighted. The empty-seeming squares have been re-sown largely with salad stuff, their previous contents either eaten or despaired of. A square foot of spinach is just right for lunch for two.

The opium poppies have turned up. They find empty, cultivated soil as unerringly as pussy cats do. I always leave a few for next year's seed, but I don't think I need worry. They'd be here anyway. They look just like the poppies in pictures of Afghani farmers with their proud moustaches, but I've never had any luck extracting heroin. The magazines say that British poppies don't get enough sun to develop any -- but they would say that, wouldn't they?

The picture shows them among the broad beans.

I scarcely knit while we were there. I’m moving, slowly, down the second sleeve of Ketki’s gansey. I found it sort of tough, the tight circle and the tight gauge. Maybe it’s time to switch to two circulars.

Back here, last night, I turned the first corner of the melon stole.

The modest pile of post included no knitting magazines, but did bring the July Yarn Yard Club offering. It’s based on the colours of Natalie’s strawberry bed this time. It’s time for me to sign up again, as I will do. I can’t go on much longer; I’ve fallen well behind, and soon there will be no room for the yarn. But for the moment, I can’t bear the thought of a new month with no blue package.

The new Knitting magazine – I didn’t give up on it, after all – has a plug for QueerJoe on its recommended-blogs page, and I had the great pleasure of being the one to tell him. I’ve never seen a plug for Franklin on such a page, although I cannot imagine that anyone who reads knitting blogs at all doesn’t read Franklin. Editors must be scared of Dolores.

Nearly to the corner, and here I must pause, because we have decided to take advantage of the current flicker of good weather to make a dash to Strathardle after Mass. Back next weekend, or thereabouts. Mr Federer will have to manage without me this afternoon.

The next post will be my thousandth. Not really, because there was a long stretch when Blogger wouldn't incorporate pictures and I had to post them as separate items, via Flickr. Still, it's quite a lot.

Mel, thanks for the supportive comment, and congratulations on the garlic. Maybe I’ll try it again; at the very worst, I could chop the leaves into salads.

I am hugely looking forward to the reunion with my vegetables. After all this rain, the first early potatoes could be ready to lift. And there were buds on the biggest courgette plant a fortnight ago. And I’m hoping to cook cime di rapa this evening – this time, without blanching. We’ll try it bitter, the way the Italians do.

Ciao.

Seven Seven Seven

The edging proceeds nicely. That first corner isn’t far off. I am eager to see how it looks with edging on both sides.

I continue enthusiastic about the yarn, Yarn Yard's new merino lace. Pleasant to work with, nice on the hand, and the colour variations are just right for lace.

And that's that, for actual knitting for today.

I think there are both a Knitter’s and a IK out there in the void trying to find me, and the Yarn Yard club July yarn has been delayed by Woolfest. The post office is having a sort of strike, and things are very odd in that department.

Anonymous of Toronto, thank you very much for the explanation of why people have been googling on “Margaret Velard”. I didn’t think they could really be interested in my quarrel with her about the plural of “virus”. The Kauni cardigan to which you provided the link, is tempting indeed. I’ve just printed it out.

Now that I don’t read a general knitting forum (Knitlist, Knit U, whatever) I sort of miss knowing at least the names of the patterns that Everybody’s Knitting.

Non-knit

I saw the last set of the sensational upset in women’s tennis yesterday. Good fun. I also caught part of the interviews afterwards. The loser was grim, as well she might be, and talked tennis jargon about ground strokes and raising one’s game. The winner, in an enchanting French accent – and I’m not, in general, terribly keen on France – said “Maybe I play well because Pierce Brosnan was there. Maybe he come tomorrow.”

Venus Williams, who will probably win the final today, often has a similarly engaging air of not taking things entirely seriously.

A more serious comment on current affairs: I sort of get the impression that in Iraq a suicide car bomber drives to his chosen destination and then blows himself and his car up. None of the three cars involved in the London and Glasgow episodes last week actually exploded, not even the one in Glasgow airport which was thoroughly on fire.

This seems clumsy and inefficient. And yet the newspapers, which still devote pages to the subject every day, blame Al Qu’aeda.

The edging is trotting along nicely. It’s so easy it might get boring, but for the moment I’m just enjoying the forward motion. It’s easy to sink down and knock off a repeat when the Exertions of Life get too much for me.

I figured out yesterday, rather belatedly, that the thing to do is to eliminate the dp needle, and do the whole job with the circular one. Every so often I slide everything to the other end and pick up some more of the selvedge loops. I’m not worrying about the count at all, although I’ll have to when I get to the bit – low on the other side – where I wasn’t making a proper edge.

I’ve made three other small changes on the pattern as printed. What a lot.

1) I decided after a while to slip the first stitch purlwise for every inward-going row, so that there is a chained selvedge on the outside edge. Considerably neater. The pattern says just to knit that stitch (the edging is garter stitch).

2) Those big holes are made with two adjacent yo’s. The pattern says to knit and purl into the big loop on the following row. I’ve always done it k1, k1tbl, and that’s what I’m doing this time. Looks fine.

3) The pattern says to do the actual join by knitting the border st tbl along with a stitch from the central panel. That seemed needlessly complicated, so I’m just doing ssk and am perfectly satisfied with the result.

We’ve pretty well decided on Monday for Strathardle. I should reach the far end before then, and might even be able to start down the other side.

Miscellaneous, including Comments

There’s a marvellous evocation of last weekend’s Woolfest here. My friend Helen found a bus leaving at an unconscionable hour of the morning, from Edinburgh. It was impossible this year because that was the very day we were travelling back from London, but it might be attempted next year if it happens again. Woolfest looks seriously good.

Fizz, thank you for the explanation of “bounce rate”. I’m astonished, if that’s what it means, that mine isn’t 98.7%. Overall, I am 81.78%, Google Analytics says. Yesterday, that went way down to 74.48%. I enjoyed your blog, too. It’s enough to make me think of eating less, and diving into the stash. I’ll remember the shop in Newburgh, too.

I’m still left wondering why people are suddenly looking for Margaret Velard. It’s been happening throughout June.

Natalie, it’s a relief to learn that not all your lace yarn skeins are as long as mine.

Tricia, I looked at Get Knitted’s Malabrigo lace weight yarn. Yes!

Exciting news, today.

ONE: we’re not going to have a Core Path past our front door after all. Our neighbour, who was also affected (but not much), sent his protest in early and succinctly. He has already heard from the Council that our path has been struck off the Core Path list. He kindly forwarded a copy of their letter. The Council say that they expect the path to remain open for walkers; we can live with that.

TWO: Natalie at Yarn Yard is hard at work dying for the shop, now that Woolfest is over. She’s posted a tantalising page of lace yarns, including one called “Melon” aiming to be the colour of the Melon Shawl on the cover of VLT. Amongst them she is offering some skeins of the yarn I’m currently knitting with – and she has named it “Jean”! How’s that for glory!

I had nearly an hour and a half of knitting time at the hospital yesterday, and used it industriously. The centre panel is finished, and I have started the edging.

It’s very easy, but I’m finding things a bit awkward. The pattern says to leave the centre panel stitches on the circular needle. I’ve done that, but I’m going to put them on some waste yarn today. I don’t like the thing flapping about.

As you can perhaps dimly discern, I have followed my own advice and slipped some selvedge stitches onto another circular needle, which I am using, along with a short dp, to knit the edging. I think maybe when I’ve polished off the current needle-ful, I’ll try it the other way, with two dp’s, collecting the selvedge stitches one by one as I proceed. The whole thing keeps getting twisted: that’s a matter of learning to turn it one way and then the other, at the end of successive rows.

As you can also see, I have made no impression at all on the original skein. It is clearly impossible to use it up, and I worry that Natalie can hardly expect to sell very many in that case -- were it not for the primitive stash-acquisition instinct in us all.

Miscellaneous

Dawn’s interesting comment about the weather came in yesterday – I’ve now got Blogger set to email comments to me – but is attached to Monday’s post. Well worth reading. I looked at a long-range forecast yesterday. Dreary, dreary, including St Swithin’s day.

Judith, the Strathardle Highland Gathering is on the fourth Saturday of August, always.

Two questions arise from a visit I paid to my Google Analytics pages yesterday – a fun, free service for bloggers.

One – what is meant by “bounce rate”? Mine seems very high. All I know about “bouncing” is when you send an email and it comes back to you undelivered for one reason or another.

Two – why are people suddenly interested in Margaret Velard? I looked at the list of words typed into Google which resulted in visits to this blog. Amongst the wholly predictable ones were several “Margaret Velard”’s. (If you try, you’ll find yourself in July ’05 – Margot’s visit is there, and much talk of my cataracts, as well as Margaret Velard.) I hope she’s OK.

Five repeats to go – this afternoon’s hospital appt might just finish off the centre panel.

missalicefaye, I suggested slipping the edge loops onto a needle a few at a time because I thought they’d be easier to knit, if they were on one; and because it might be easier to get the count right if the two operations, the picking-up and the knitting, were kept separate.

Anyone who follows the link to missalice’s blog will see some beautiful lace knitting.

Susoolu, I tried to leave a comment on your blog yesterday embracing you as a sister across the miles, who knows what “decimate” means. Haloscan swallowed it, I think. I abandoned Haloscan myself when Blogger went beta. How do you stand on “beg the question”?

Tricia, I would very much welcome a report on Malabrigo lace-weight at Stash Yarns. Not that I need yarn. Not that I’ve got time to knit it. I’ve just had a look at their website. Clearly, some wonderful stuff. How can you bear it?

Non-knit

Not much else. I had a chance to talk to a local vegetable gardener yesterday – a good one. He says it’s been a very funny year. He’s had patchy germination too.

I hope we’ll get back to Strathardle soon. Today’s hospital appt is the last actual impediment on our calendar, and Wimbledon has made great inroads on the ironing. It’s like an annual visit from Rumpelstiltskin.

Finished repeat no. 50, of 62 (of the melon stole from VLT). Tomorrow’s medical appointment is a routine diabetes session at the Royal Infirmary. I go along for those, and they usually involve lots of knitting time. The end is nigh.

Kathy in Juneau, I think you’ll like attaching an edging. My real favourite is when one somehow has the whole shawl bunched up on the needles, all stitches live, and knits on an edging which gradually releases one’s creation into the world. But knitting an edging onto a nice selvedge isn’t bad either. I think it might be a good idea to slip a needle through 20 or so edge loops at a time. There's a photograph in Amedro's "Shetland Knitting" of this simple and pleasant process.

What’s boring is knitting an edging by itself, although I like getting it out of the way first.

Your Malabrigo lace yarn in “tortuga” has me hyperventilating.

Core Paths

I’ve run out of things to say about knitting.

A couple of years ago, the Scottish Parliament passed some right-to-roam legislation, and now all the local authorities are drawing up plans for “core paths” which will presumably be published on authoritative maps.

The path past our front door in Strathardle has been tentatively designated as such. We have registered a protest. It is a footpath of long standing, from nowhere to nowhere along the burn, forming part of a pleasant circular walk out from the village and back. We have no objection to its continued use. But the house is isolated, and the path runs very close to our front door. We don’t want it advertised.

The path runs through the foreground of this picture. The fence is between it and the house. As you may easily judge, it is not a major thoroughfare.

There was an interesting article in the Scotsman yesterday by an Important Legal Figure about how the legislation does nothing to define “privacy” or “reasonable” or any one of a number of other terms. That has been left to the sheriffs’ courts to determine. Perish the thought.

We submitted our letter yesterday. I’ll report developments.

Things sort of moved forward yesterday. At least we’re somewhat rested. My husband has a series of medical appointments this week, starting with teeth, this afternoon. I hope to catch up on dusting and ironing. Ironing can be combined with Wimbledon-watching, if it doesn't rain. Then, maybe, Strathardle.

The weather is unbelievably bad. See Susoolu's blog, for instance. St Swithin (July 15) is now our only hope. Perhaps a novena would be in order. We have been lucky in our Strathardle weather – I got the grass all cut on four successive days in early June, and we had that successful overnight visit at the end of the month. But now it’s time for some consistent summer weather.

The clever people who write newspapers are saying that all this rain is part of Global Warming, as is the sizzling heat in southern Europe. Sometimes it sounds like a circular argument: might as well put your faith in St. Swithin.

Back to knitting…

Here’s the present state of the melon stole, perhaps 2/3rds of the centre panel done. One of the many nicenesses of this pretty pattern is the fact that it’s dead easy to see when it’s time for the next pattern row. I’m the one who spends life in an agony of worry about whether or not this is the row for the cable cross.

Despite which, I see I’ve got it wrong once. Maybe I should fire up Photoshop Elements and try to draw a circle around the offending row. It will mean one loop too few to attach the edging to, but I dare say that can be fudged.

One very small point: if I understand the chart correctly, each row begins with a “slip 1 purlwise with yarn at the wrong side”. This is a st st pattern, so there is a clear wrong-side and right-side.
Blind Follower that I am, I did exactly that for the first few pattern repeats, and then had a look at what was happening. Answer, of course, one nice loopy selvedge for attaching an edging to, and one distinctly not.

I’ve known for years that the way to make such an edge is to slip the first stitch of every row purlwise with the yarn in front, and then pass it back between the needles.

I doubt if this even counts as a mistake, in the XRX scheme of things. I’m sure it’s their fault and not the brilliant Mrs Sowerby’s.

I continue full of enthusiasm for the Yarn Yard’s new lace yarn. Rachel admired it, in London.

Pictures from last week…

Rachel’s children win goldfish at the Games, and Rachel brings them to south London and takes good care of them. Here is the collection. Some of them are losing their colour. Is that what happens to goldfish in old age?






This is a picture I took at Margot’s funeral, when we were back at the house sipping chilled white wine and eating delicious sandwiches. The land slopes steeply, as in Drummond Place. The front door is somewhat downhill from the street, and the lovely garden further downhill from the ground floor. I am standing on a balcony off the kitchen, looking down on a group of Margot’s children.

Safely, tiredly home.

We’ve flown under the clouds during Britain’s recent troubles – literally and figuratively. Monday’s trip south, during the “monsoon” that flooded much of the Midlands, was slow and painful and the lavatories on the train ran out of water.

But the car bombs which didn’t go off in London on Thursday-Friday night, didn’t affect us. I got back from Margot’s funeral on Thursday evening before it happened. And we spent Friday at the Dali exhibition at Tate Modern, south of the river, and thus entirely avoided the considerable disruption in central London, since Rachel lives south of the river too.

Yesterday’s train ride north through lots more rain, was fine. I saw from the train window as we neared Edinburgh, three men playing golf in the rain. They were on a green, one of them lining up a putt, the other two under umbrellas. We’re back in Scotland, I thought. We didn’t know about the attack on Glasgow airport until we got here and phoned Rachel to thank her for a happy week.

We saw lots of art, but no blockbuster. Usually there’s One Big One, and we start with that, while we’re fresh, and it provides mental fodder for the rest of the session. Nothing like that this time. But on Thursday I went to Birmingham for my friend Margot’s funeral, and that’s what I’ll remember for a long time, about last week. It was wonderful. Many tears.

First, what would have to be called a memorial service (not a religious one) praesente cadavere. Then a woodland burial in a pleasant spot south of Birmingham. Margot’s son Tom played the Last Post on the trombone. Then a party at home. She did so much, and was loved by so many. I wondered a bit if knitting were enough.

On which subject, I didn’t – predictably – get as much done as I had hoped, but I’ve finished 42 repeats of the 60-odd required for the central panel of the melon scarf. Details to follow.

Hotter Than, of Swindon: I got Sam the Ram from Blackberry Ridge. He’s available as a kit, which I bought, but the pattern can be had separately.

So, off to London. Back Saturday, DV, blogging on Sunday.

I've done nearly 1/4 of the central panel of the melon stole/scarf, before the train has even left the station. I normally don't do nearly as much knitting in London as I think I will, but the prospect of running out remains terrifying. I can't take the book along with the thought of starting the edging -- far too heavy -- so I have hastily packed some socks. On Thursday, I will be going to Birmingham for my friend Margot's rather tardy funeral. That's three more hours of train time.

Until Sunday, then...

Here’s where I am with the melon stole (VLT p. 146). I’m having a great time.

It’s a very easy pattern, and I’m trying to work out why it’s such fun, when knitting the easy Paisley Long Shawl last year, wasn’t. This one is alternate panels of st st and faggoting – I love faggoting – for five out of six rows. The patterning is all done in that sixth row, with an awkward and interesting manoeuvre, new to me.

I am to do 62 repeats of the 6-row pattern, over 70 stitches. That’s a walk in the park for us Princess knitters. Here you see the first eight of them.

The yarn (the Yarn Yard's new merino lace) is terrific. I adore hand-painted yarns, but too much colour variation can swamp lace. Natalie’s got it exactly right here, as you see. I don’t know how the other colour-ways will work out, but I have a good deal of faith in her by now. The yarn feels good and knits well. It’s plyed and it’s strong. I’d never knit again with Shetland cobweb yarn, which is unplyed.

At the end of each year, or beginning of the next, I like to sit down and make a list on a Lotus Organiser page of the knitting I might get done in the 12 months ahead – definitely not a list of resolutions, which would be contrary to the whole spirit of knitting. Here is this year’s list:

finish Alexander's Calcutta Cup sweater -- done, March
finish Ketki's gansey
do some more Princess
Koigu for small boys -- perhaps another Wallaby – done, June, with Yarn Yard yarn
KF, perhaps Ravenna
Bog jacket in Malabrigo
Hiawatha stole in Jade thingamy cashmere
something with the Cherry Tree Hill lace stuff from Stitches

And here’s how the list would look if I wrote it this morning:

Finish Ketki’s gansey
Do some more Princess
Finish Sam the Ram
Finish the melon stole
A boy-sweater in Glasgow Tenement yarn
A Shapely Shawlette in that cashmere Koigu
Get well started on Theo’s Obama-electing cashmere gansey

There’s not going to be time. I would like to get the Princess insertion out of the way, and the centre started, before 2007 becomes history.

I keep forgetting to mention that my sister has some pictures on the family blog of the cashmere for Theo’s gansey. Address in sidebar; scroll down. She’ll bring it to me when they come for the Games.

Non-knit

Mel, you’re right, of course, courgettes are zucchini. (Microsoft Word disapproves of “courgette”, indeed, but likes “zucchini”.) And I was thinking as I moved about yesterday, how many vegetables have Italian variety names, even in English catalogues – spinach “Lazio”, beetroot “Chioggia”. I will certainly go on down that path next year.

Today is Rachel’s birthday.

And we’re back again.

We were lucky with the weather. Despite poor forecasts, much rain elsewhere, and rolls of thunder from up the glen, we were fine, tee-shirts and sunhats even, and got a fair amount done.

The ten days away had been cold and wet. The grass and the weeds grew prodigiously; the vegetables, on the whole, have been biding their time.

It was sort of sad. a) because the summer solstice is the saddest day, and b) because I had to face the fact that I have other enemies besides rabbits.

Someone has been tweaking up newly-sprouted runner beans and French beans, and leaving the little plants on the ground to wither and die. Who would do that? It sounds like pigeons, but we haven’t seen them about. I don’t think it’s happened in other years.

It even happened while we were there. On Thursday afternoon when we arrived, I admired a little group of three runner beans, rare survivors from the many seeds planted. When I went back out after tea, there was only one. The other two were lying there, and since the deed was so fresh I tried planting them, protected with a sawn-off soda bottle each. They looked more or less OK yesterday morning.

We ate some spinach, after this picture was taken, and some cime di rapa con cecatelli, without the cecatelli. That’s cime di rapa in the lower right-hand corner. Turnip-tops, in English. I ordered several things from Seeds of Italy this year, for the fun of it and without much hope that they would be up to the rigours of Strathardle, but they’re all going great guns, including even an Italian courgette. I’ll get more, next year.

The peas have recovered surprisingly well from The Night of the Rabbit. Peas enjoy cold and wet.

As for knitting…

I knit a few rounds of Ketki’s second gansey sleeve – not enough to be worth photographing.

When we got back last night, I admired Sam the Ram from across the room, while making a start on the Melon Stole from VLT in the Yarn Yard's delicious new merino lace yarn. As I thought, the pattern is easy and fun. I am a firm believer in Franklin's second Observation on Lace Knitting, so I just picked a suitable needle size and started.

It looks, so far, as if my results will be much smaller than the object illustrated in the book, although of course the eventual edging and the blocking will change things. Since no particular size is needed, that’s fine, except it would be nice to have something that’s easy to spread out over the shoulders. I feel sort of sad when my fancy knitting gets scrunched up and worn as a scarf as seems to keep happening with my attempts at rectangular stoles.

It’s off to the West Port… We’re both going to Kirkmichael today, and will stay one night. The weather continues disgusting and the forecast poor, but I can weed and even hoe in the rain, if need be; I don’t want to cut the grass anyway.

No blog tomorrow.

I got Sam’s stuffing finished, and one ear knit. Sure enough, the ear instructions work fine as given. My husband says his legs don’t meet his body in a very sheep-like way, but my feeling is that we’re not in a competition for The Most Anatomically Correct Knitted Sheep, but for a Knitted Toy, and he’s pretty good.

Maureen in Fargo, I’m glad you’re still with me, and am very grateful indeed for your suggestion, that happy day, that I knit Sam.

I can’t show you a picture of the ribbing-to-ribbing grafting because it’s between his legs, front and back, and I don’t want to strain them. Here’s a picture of where the final cuff stitches were grafted to the body stitches. I’m proud of the way it looks.

So I will now – or when we get back on Friday, rather – put him aside for a bit to knit the Victorian Lace Today “melon shawl” – it’s the cover picture – in Yarn Yard's new fine lace merino yarn. There are three evenings remaining here in Edinburgh before we head south. That should be plenty of time to get started and memorise the pattern (it looks easy peasy) so that I can take it along.

I’ll tell you all about my vegetables on Saturday, insh'Allah.

My sheep!

Stuffing isn’t finished. When I was posing him for photography, I noticed that that left front leg was weak, so I pulled the stuffing out and re-did that. Now I think the head and neck need more, so I’ll do it again. The instructions wisely point out that this is the only chance I’ll get.

I don’t think I’ll have quite enough stuffing, but I’m not sure yet. I think I have enough to get to the point where I start the rear-end grafting, but the instructions also say that I will find as I work, that there’s room for more, and that I should put it in. And even if I finish, there are still horns to be knit and stuffed.

I don’t understand the instructions for the ears, but whenever that happened in the past all became clear as work progressed.

I’m terribly proud of him, and impressed with the instructions. The effect of seamlessness is wonderful – those cuffs under which are concealed the seams joining the legs to the body, are little short of brilliant. I have high hopes for him, especially if the judges don’t just think oh, sheep, cute, Aran, but actually examine him.

Not much else to report. “Butterfly” was good, but failed to involve the audience in a Total Experience. It’s pissing with rain this morning. I had hoped to go to Kirkmichael tomorrow – either by myself, for the day; or both of us, to stay one night. Just to get my vegetables weeded and maybe eat some spinach. But it would be no use in weather like this.

I read a lot more blogs than the ones listed in my sidebar, and have recently become rather fond of Kristin Nicholas, with whom I once did a course at Stitches East on designing for children. Her blog is sort of the Farmgirl with knitting.

I did it!

It was a combination of Lucy Neatby's Sock Toe Chimneys and going back to Montse Stanley and really paying attention to the diagram, instead of just Blindly Following the written instructions. I see what they mean about the grafting being offset by half a stitch, but hey! it’s grafted ribbing!

(I also finished Sam’s fourth leg yesterday, and sewed all four in place.)

Next, I must graft 18 stitches of ribbing to 22 body stitches. I got that job lined up last night, and saw that the body stitches are not ribbed at all. Some of them are Aran-panel, others seed stitch.

Since a line of grafting creates only one row of fake knitting, I think the only thing to do is to graft in ribbing, rather than try to accommodate the k’s and p’s of the 22 stitches as well. I think. We shall see. The designer, in whom I have the utmost faith by now, is emphatic that you should “graft to match the K or P nature of the stitch you are sewing”. That sounds as if you should try to pay attention to all of them.

Assuming – a big assumption – that that goes well, I might even be stuffing Sam today, ceteris paribus. Unfortunately, other things aren’t equal. I’m going to see Madame Butterfly this evening, which will not only cut radically across the time usually devoted to knitting but will mean that much of the day will have to be spent thinking about and lining up food to leave behind for my husband.

I’ll try to sneak half-an-hour to attempt that grafting, though.

Non-knit

I’m fine; Sunday’s fall has done no harm. Thank you for the concerned comments. (And Hi! Gail.) I think it would be a good idea, as you suggest, Tamar, to learn how to fall. My sister-in-law says to observe football players. In both of the falls that resulted in fractures I was carrying something; this time I wasn’t. One’s instinct is to protect one’s burden and it’s a hard instinct to abandon in a split second.

I stumbled across this link just now. It’s good fun. It might have been interesting to include alcohol – hard to believe they’re all teetotallers. The Mileses of Edinburgh eat very well, by world standards; but I knew that.

Not much knitting yesterday. I fell down, the sort of thing old ladies should avoid doing. I’ve got away with it this time, but the right wrist – which wasn’t involved at all; I fell on my well-padded bottom – is sore and weak. I am beginning to get the idea of how shock must travel through an elderly skeleton, quaerens quem devoret.

Anyway, Sam’s third leg is done. I hope to provide him with a fourth today, and maybe get them sewn into the cuffs. Then comes more grafting.

I’ve posted a query to the SamtheRam Yahoo group on the subject, although I very much doubt whether anyone is going to be able to come up with anything better than Lucy Neatby's Sock Toe Chimneys. The tutorial you referred to yesterday looks good, too, Lorna. I’m sure she’s right that it’s a good idea to take the stitches off the needles and pin them out. At the moment I’m rather looking forward to this. Another failure will dampen my enthusiasm.

Kapok: live and learn. I realise that I have no idea what it is, really. I didn’t know until I read your comment yesterday, Kate, that it was natural. I don’t think the stuff I’ve got is kapok at all – it says “100% white washable luxury soft filling” on the label, which isn’t very informative, and comes from a company called Abbey Kapok and Fillings. I think I jumped to the wrong conclusion. It looks as if it’ll do fine for Sam, whether or not there is quite enough of it.

Odds and Ends

Natalie of the Yarn Yard told me about the Yahoo “Mystery Stole 3” group the other day, and I made haste to join. The idea is that the designer will issue the stole pattern in bits, and we all knit along not knowing where we’re going. It’s a fun idea all right, but I had to drop out of message-receiving at once because the volume is tremendous and the knitting hasn’t even started yet. With all the beautiful things in the world that one isn’t going to have time to knit, I am surprised that so very many people want to do this.

I read your blog with interest, Mel, after you left a comment the other day, and therein discovered Ravelry, which everybody seems to have known about but me. A sort of Facebook for knitters? It’s not “up” yet – one can but press one’s nose against the window, but it looks good.

Thank you for the many kind messages about the death of my friend Margot.

The funeral is not until June 28 – the undertakers of Birmingham are very busy just now, I was told. Is that possible? We will be in London then; I will leave my husband to look at art by himself for a day. From there, it is a easy day trip by train and one which should still feel familiar.

I spoke yesterday to the one of Margot's daughters I know best, the one Rachel’s age. There is to be an all-singing all-dancing ecumenical service with only very slight religious overtones, followed by an eco-friendly burial somewhere near Evesham, followed by a party at home. Margot was a Roman Catholic of very Advanced Views.

We are very fortunate, I feel, my husband and I, in knowing where we will be buried, namely in the little Tayside burial ground on the road between our house and the village. There is bound to be a certain amount of delay and confusion on the Day of Judgement; it will be good to see the old place again.

Back to knitting

I am now knitting Sam’s feet, and it’s pretty boring. I’m working on the third.

There’s more grafting-of-ribbing to come, and I’m going to try the system Ann (yet another) recommended day before yesterday: Lucy Neatby's chimney. I will have to knit a completely separate little ribbed swatch for myself and try it and see if I can understand what I’m doing. When the final bits of Sam’s legs are attached to his body, there will be a considerably unequal number of stitches on either side, and the only hope of success will lie in an actual grasp of what I’m trying to do.

I am also winding the Yarn Yard lace yarn, and loving it. I enjoy the process, for getting acquainted with the yarn. It’s more cobweb than lace-weight, I now think, but plyed and strong, unlike Jamieson & Smith cobweb. I took this picture yesterday morning; I’ve done more winding since then. In the ball, the yarn appears to be solid-coloured.

The first step in the process was to finish off the yarn on my swift, which had been there a long time. The next step was to find the rest of that set of yarn in my stash. The search took an unusual length of time – I know my stash well, and can usually find what I want quickly -- and during it I found:

a) a bag of kapok which may be enough to stuff Sam;

b) and some lovely Lorna’s Laces Shepherd’s Sport yarn, machine washable, about which I had completely forgotten. I can’t even remember what I once knit with it -- the fact that there are different-sized oddballs as well as complete skeins, means I must have knit something.

But for now I’m winding the yarn by hand anyway. The skein is a bit too big for the swift, at least for the time being.

Occurremus Hilariter in Caelum

My friend Margot is dead.

This picture was taken the last time I saw her. She and her son Tom (eldest of seven) came here to Edinburgh two years ago to march in favour of Making Poverty History. She told me then that she had had cancer, and I gather it turned up again. The final episode involved an infection. It sounds unpleasant, but mercifully brief, and included “morphine intolerance”. That’s a new one to me. I thought we all had morphine, at least, to look forward to.

Margot and I go back a long way, to Glasgow in the early 60’s, when one or the other of us was pretty well constantly pregnant. It was Margot who rang us up on November 22, 1963, to say “Kennedy’s dead. Somebody shot him.”

Our paths diverged; we both left Glasgow, but by a very kind twist of fate, wound up living as near each other as before, in Birmingham.

I would like to go to Birmingham for the funeral. I don’t know, yet, when and where exactly it will be. I don’t like leaving my husband overnight, and the trains from here to there seem to be remarkably slow. I’ll enquire about flights today.

The American practice – I have no idea how common it is – of removing a corpse directly from death-bed to crematorium in anticipation of a later Memorial Service, has not yet caught on here, although no doubt it will, like all things American. It’s a mistake, I think. A relationship needs to be rounded off by a proper funeral, which can be a happy and inspiriting occasion in its strange way. I am sure Margot’s will be. I’d like to be there.

The Latin title today is St Thomas More’s motto. It was mis-spelled on the board outside St Thomas More’s primary school in Leicester, which all four of our children attended in the late 60’s. I wonder if anybody ever told them.

It means, “We shall meet merrily in heaven”.

I think I’ll leave knitting for tomorrow.

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.