No more news from London – this time, I think we can be pretty confident that no news means relatively good news.

Rugby: it was great to hear from you, Knitlass. It was a great match, in its stressful way. A year ago, we employed overnight care for my husband and I was meant to go to Kirkmichael with Greek Helen and her family. (Half term?) But the weather was bad, as now, and instead I stayed by myself in their Windsor Street flat for a blissful 48 hours, and watched the equivalent match in Paris in which Greig Laidlaw was injured. He hadn’t started again for Scotland until yesterday.

So it was rather nice that it was he who beat them. The score was 32-26, and he kicked 22 of those 32 points.

The first kick was a magnificent conversion. As in American football, there is a supplementary kick after a touchdown, for a couple of extra points. Unlike American football (if my antique memory serves) the kick must be made from a point 20 yards out (or whatever the rule is) from the point at which the touchdown was made. Sometimes the ball-carrier is able to run along behind the line and touch the ball down between the posts. Often, however, he is beset by the hounds of hell and is glad to be able to touch it down at all.

That’s what happened on Saturday, with Scotland’s first try. It was right in the corner. Laidlaw had to kick from the sideline. Once he had done that successfully, we didn’t really need to peer through our fingers whenever  he kicked again. He’s not young, as rugby players go. There won’t be many more such glorious days for him. We may hope, however,  that Calcutta Cup Day, in a fortnight, provides at least one more.

However, we’re here to talk about knitting. I have done one more pattern repeat of the baby shawl centre. The cardboard is showing through more than ever. The cardboard, in this case, is not my doing: that’s how Jamieson & Smith send out their Shetland Supreme 2-ply Lace Weight. It wouldn’t be a bad idea at all, however, to save some toilet rolls in case one ever had to wind lace-weight oneself.

Mary Lou, what a simple and brilliant idea: pay someone to set in a zipper! I will certainly add Amirisu’s “Harley” vest to my EYF Possibles List, with that solution in mind. I did it long ago, when I made a dress for myself to wear to Helen’s wedding, and farmed it out to someone to make the buttonholes and, I think, the covered buttons.  It's still around, that dress. I wore it to my husband’s funeral. 

Lizzie came home last night. Rachel phoned. She is suffering quite a bit of pain, but I think all is well. I worried yesterday because in my now quite distant past, appendicitis was a difficult thing to diagnose. I’m pretty sure my appendix was taken out unnecessarily, in wartime Detroit. And, indeed, doctors told Lizzie and Rachel that they could only be about 70% sure, with a woman – the pain could turn out to be gynaecological. But I gather they were satisfied, once they had actually retrieved the appendix and had a look at it.

This modern practice of doctors actually telling patients the truth is much to be welcomed.

And—rugby! It has been a while since I have seen so exciting a match. Knitlass, I hope you’re still here, or have come back for the occasion. Scotland won! Greig Laidlaw is back! The Calcutta Cup, a fortnight hence, is not absolutely out of the question.

I’ve knit another pattern repeat in the centre of the baby shawl. Cardboard is beginning to show through the fifth ball of yarn. Perhaps when it finally expires I’ll count the remaining stitches on each side – I am consuming one stitch from the adjacent borders at the end of each row – and get some idea of how far I have progressed. I am sure I won’t need the eighth ball – possibly not even the seventh.

I am most encouraged by comments yesterday about Anna Maltz. Perhaps my purchase wasn’t absolutely absurd. The book should be here within a few days. I’ll let you know.

The new IK, as I’m sure you know, has a section called Moto Knits. I happened to flip through the fall-winter ’16 Amirisu the other day (the only one I've got),  and saw again their sensational "Harley" vest: tightly knit, perfectly simple, with a diagonal zipper up to the left shoulder. If there’s one thing I’d like to do more than another, it would be to take Franklin’s class on closures. I can’t do zippers.

Rachel phoned this morning to say that her younger daughter Lizzie – the youngest of her four children – had an emergency appendectomy yesterday. I have heard no more since, and although reluctant to go to bed uninformed, I think that is what I will do.

Rachel was full of praise for the much-maligned NHS. Appendectomies are done by keyhole surgery these days, and she hoped to have Lizzie home today.

The other news is that England beat Wales in a fairly close and exciting match; Ireland beat Italy by an awful lot. We play France here in Edinburgh tomorrow, you will remember.

I have turned the heel of Archie’s first sock, rather neatly, if I do say so. I weighed the yarn again and still had 62 grams (out of 100) so I thought it was safe to knit my way through the match. I’ll have to check again tomorrow. I also did another 8-row repeat of the shawl centre pattern.

The new IK turned up today. There’s nothing that grabs me, and the issue is low on text, too.

I let KD persuade me to order “Marlisle: A New Direction in Knitting”. She’s very keen. It seems to be about knitting with two yarns held together, like KD’s own new pattern. I did that once, long, long ago – a cardigan for my mother of two strands of what was then called “3-ply” and would now be classed as sock or fingering yarn.

The result was very satisfactory. The fabric was firmer and smoother than a single yarn would have been. My mother wore the cardigan to death, over many years. I don’t think I have done anything comparable since, although, on the other hand, I feel I must have held two yarns together a few times through the years.

Cats

Joe-in-Wyoming: my mother went to Germany in the 20’s, her first venture abroad. She was surprised and very pleased to discover that all the cats spoke English. 

Several of you have expressed alarm at the way my WIPs are exposed to my cats in the new heading picture. I can assure you that all is well. The knitting was laid out for the purpose of photography – and you can see how the cats zero’d in on it – and then immediately removed.

But it behoves us all to remember this famous picture of the little girl on Shetland. We’re meant to admire her knitting, and her knitting belt, but I can't see beyond that wonderful Shetland cat who knows not even to think about….

I am well embarked on the centre of the baby shawl, knitting back and forth on one of the borders and picking up a stitch from an adjacent border at the end of every row. This is a process I peculiarly enjoy. Knitting an edging perpendicularly onto an otherwise finished shawl affords much the same pleasure, and goes faster.

The centre pattern is eight rows – except that it isn’t, really. It’s four rows, offset. And since the alternate rows are plain knit, there are really only two pattern rows. The difficulty to going to be remembering where I am. Ideally (as this evening) I’ll put it down only at the end of row 8, but that won’t always be possible. I hope, as matters progress, it’ll get easier to see where I am.

My thoughts for the EYF marketplace, at the moment, are Gudrun’s Kirigami (link yesterday) and Kathryn Folkirth’s “Knife Grinder’s Daughter” – but that could change. Your comment, Mary Lou, inspired me to spend another happy half-hour with “Drop Dead Easy Knits”. I must certainly knit another Polliwog for the forthcoming great-granddaughter once we’ve got her safely in our arms.

Non-knit

I got those papers dealt with and dispatched to the lawyer, at last. It wasn’t all that difficult, once I sat down to it.

Lesizmo, thank you very much indeed for your message (comment yesterday) about Blue Apron recipe boxes. In many ways it sounds a lot like my Mindful Chef. You have about the same number of choices over perhaps a wider range of cuisines. I agree that it’s fun to look ahead and tinker with the meals one is going to get week-after-next. And absolutely agree that the elimination of waste is a big plus of this way of life. 

All well here, although it hasn’t been a day of much achievement. I’ve done all but one long row of the shawl borders, however – and tomorrow, surely, will embark on the centre. That’s progress. And the rugby this weekend should advance Archie’s socks considerably.

We’re playing France – that’s always a highlight of the season. England have got Wales, I think – that could be a good one -- and if so that leaves Ireland and Italy. Alexander and Ketki and their sons are coming over here for the match, and will call in at Drummond Place before kickoff. That’s on Sunday. I'll get them some of Mr Crombie's Six Nations sausages to take home. He sells them every year around this time, made with pork from Scotland, herbs from England, Guinness from Ireland, leeks from Wales, onions from France, and tomatoes from Italy. 

I’m delighted to find that my feelings about bobbles aren’t exclusive to myself. It would be perfectly possible just to leave them out of KD’s pattern – but I think it would be almost as easy to put something else into the centres of those lozenges.

I find my thoughts returning to Gudrun Johnston’s “Kirigami” from the latest Brooklyn Tweed collection: a yoke sweater again – they are such fun – but this time with the yoke done in a textured stitch rather than colours. The yarn is Jared’s relatively new “Arbor”. He’s not coming back to the EYF this year, but Loop (the London shop) will be there, and they stock Arbor in quantity. Wonderful colours. It’s one to think about.

Not that I need another project. It's just that I’d rather wander around the market with one or two possibilities in mind.  

Food

Today’s Mindful Chef meal was Sweet & Sour Aubergine, Edamame and (buckwheat) Noodles. Not the best, not the worst. That’s all, now, until Monday – and I think I’m ready for calmer food. The Mindful Chef prides himself on never sending refined carbohydrates – white bread, white rice, pasta made with white flour. But sometimes the spirit cries out for them.

Lesizmo, I looked up Blue Apron and it sounds interesting. Does it operate coast-to-coast? I love the idea of being warned about the possible colours of cauliflower. Have you been with them long? How does it work out, over time?

I’ve finished the border lace, for my baby shawl. There are five more plain-vanilla rows to knit while I decrease down to the 85 stitches needed to knit back and forth for the centre. Amedro doesn’t include what I think may be called a “break row” – k2tog, yo, all the way around. I am of two minds as to whether I should put one in.

Today’s KD pattern for the West Highland Way group is a good’un. I think it would have to be called a shrug. It has many of the advantages of that “Sontag Shawl” pattern of Meg’s which I like in the Early Winter VK: warmth over the shoulders and chest, solidly anchored, minimal sleeves. In the case of the KD pattern, a shawl pin will be needed for the anchoring, but that’s not impossible. And it doesn’t involve anything like that nightmare cast-on.

The yarn, perhaps surprisingly, is two strands of Buachaille held together, not the new Milarrochy Tweed. The pattern starts out with a cabled rectangle to which various bits are added, a back, short sleeves. The cable pattern involves bobbles which are against my religion – but I am sure a substitution can be found.

It won’t do for my EYF pattern, because I think I owe it to KD to knit it in her yarn, and she’s not a vendor this year. Looking at my Ravelry Favourites list, I can see a tendency in favour of Relax-type plenty-of-ease fairly-light-weight sweaters. I think the thing to do is to choose one or two and go to the market armed with the possibility of finding sport- or fingering-weight for one of them.

People on the website are knitting EYF sweaters for themselves as if it were Rhinebeck. I hesitated for a moment – but the great-grandchild is more important.

Non-knit 

Today’s Mindful Chef meal was less successful – too much broccoli for my liking. (“I say it’s spinach and I say to hell with it.”) I don’t really see how the recipe box idea would work in the US – it’s too big. GB is almost too big. Part of the point is “sourcing” ingredients from named farms. I would be very interested to hear how it works.

Today involved some tinking.

Easy Pattern + All-Has-Been-Going-Well-Lately = Carelessness

But the errors were retrieved, and all is well again. I am engaged with row 98, a plain-vanilla knit row. If I can keep my eyes open for some television after posting this, I’ll finish the lace aspect of the borders. It would be good to get the whole thing finished, or nearly, this month, in case the baby, due in April, surprises us.

Thank you for your comments yesterday, about two-colour knitting and dominance. I have tried to knit the Norwegian way – I even have a gadget through which yarns can be threaded. for wearing over an index finger. But I hate it, and revert always to the two-handed system. Arne can laugh at me if he will.

Cooking

I had another good day with the Mindful Chef: “Lemongrass Trout with Coconut Lime Rice”. The recipes are fancier than I would choose for myself, but the website claims that everything can be done in half an hour, and I am finding that to be more or less true. It makes a tremendous difference having everything right there to hand, down to the last half-teaspoon of cumin. The recipes are clearly set forth, and I love being told: do this, do this, do that. It’s all very healthy and full of fresh vegetables, but that’s probably true of all recipe boxes.

Most days I make the recipe for lunch and can’t finish it and pick at it all afternoon, but today I ate it all up and will need to fry an egg if I want any more food this evening.

I was afraid, at the Palazzo Lanza Tomasi, after our morning of Cooking with the Duchess, that I would embarrass myself b@????????????y [Paradox is the helper these days] sending plates away half-eaten. But when white-gloved servitors are offering food, as was the case, one can take just a little for each course, and all was well.

Here is a picture of my cats, taken in the kitchen this morning. If you asked Perdita, she would say that they hate each other. But if they were full sisters, from the same litter, they still might chase each other around the house and growl. I don’t think it’s serious.

No more rugby until the weekend, so I have reverted to the shawl. I’m engaged with row 95 of the borders. The final lace row is 99, and the borders end altogether with row 107 – so this week might see them done, and the centre commenced.

What I thought about Arne & Carlos on dominant yarn – link and comments yesterday – was that the sweaters they showed were old (not Arne’s pillow, so much, however). Somewhere – I’d guess Knitting Without Tears – EZ has a passage about how time and washing smooth knitting.

Mary Lou, when I do two-colour knitting with one colour in each hand, I let the right hand do the colour with the most stitches. Back in the Dark Ages, before there was such a thing as the Internet to set me right, I used to contemplate the pattern after every round of an all-over Fair Isle and adjust the yarns and the hands as required.

Non-knit

Thank you for the help with spiralizers. I’m still in a quandary. Today’s Mindful Chef meal didn’t involve spirals (and there was too much lemon in the dressing –my fault). Noseinabook, I have been deterred, like you, by the customer reviews. Maybe one of those things like a potato-peeler would do the trick – it’s called, perhaps, a “julienne vegetable peeler”. But it wouldn't be quite as much fun as real spirals. 

England won. England always wins. Italy put up quite a good fight, however, and it would have been even better if one of their tries hadn’t been disallowed because of a forward pass.

(               ( -- Try=touchdown. The last time I saw a spot of American football on television, I was surprised to see a man run over the line with the ball and then not bother to touch it down at all. In rugby, the touching down is essential, although they don't call it that.)

(          (--The glory of American football, the pass, is forbidden in rugby. The ball-carrier is only allowed to throw the ball to someone behind himself. It is often to someone to the side who is only slightly behind. That’s how forward passes inadvertently happen.)

I got on with Archie’s socks while I watched, and have now nearly finished decreasing back down to the number of stitches I started out with. I don’t go in for all this business of afterthought heels. I let the yarn behave as it will, and enjoy watching it re-establish the rhythm it established at the beginning.

Just over 60 grams of yarn remain in the 100-gram ball I started out with. Soon I will have to join in another. I am rather surprised to see that I have a sock on the go, not very far advanced – one which never made it into the sidebar -- in yarn similar to the one I am using. I could frog it, and use that yarn for the feet. Or use something Completely Different from the odd-sock-yarn bag. In either case, the discrepancy will be hidden in the wearer’s shoe. I’ve often done it that way.

Arne & Carlos (to change the subject abruptly) have a delicious new video in which they maintain that, in Norwegian two-colour knitting, there is no such thing as a “dominant colour”. If one of your colours predominates over the other -- or “pops”, in the current idiom -- it means that there is something wrong with your tension. It is done with great humour and charm.

Non-knit, non-rugby

I am eager to welcome the Mindful Chef back tomorrow.

Here is a question for you, who have so often been so helpful before: spiralizers. One of last week’s recipes asked for some spiralized carrot. I have two hand-held spiralizers, which I had never used before. I dealt with the carrot, and the result was tasty indeed – but it was hard work. I am tempted to buy one that you turn the handle of; or even an electric one – they’re not very expensive. What do you think? Advice very welcome. I gather I’m about two years out-of-date on this one.

The Groundhog has been a good prophet so far. Snow on high ground. 

I went without a nap this afternoon, in order to watch Scotland lose heavily to Wales in the first match of the new season’s Six Nations. If (per impossibile) Italy should beat England tomorrow, in Rome, I will send a postcard to Giuseppe Lanzi Tomasi (son of the Duke and Duchess of Parma) to whom I sat next at lunch that happy day at their palazzo. We spoke of rugby, briefly, and of Italy’s hopelessness at that sport.

I hope I’ve provided you with this link before – a Six Nations promotional ad which, in the event, was never screened except on YouTube. It’s worth watching again.

Rugby doesn’t lend itself to lace, so there is no progress to report on the shawl. I did, however, knit the heel flap, turn the heel, and pick up the gusset stitches of the Arne & Carlos sock I started knitting for Archie in Palermo.

Non-knit

Sharon, thank you very much for your comment about jackfruit, day before yesterday. How interesting that you can buy it fresh! I enjoy shopping for food, and try to pay attention, and go to farmers’ markets when I can – I’m not aware of ever having seen it. I’ll ask Mr Hussain at my corner shop. It certainly isn’t fair to judge it by the canned version which the Mindful Chef sent. Wikipedia says that it doesn’t provide much in the way of protein despite being “meaty” in texture.

Groundhog Day

…and the sun has beamed down from a cold but cloudless sky, all day long.

The big news on the knitting front is that Susan Crawford says she has sent the Vintage Shetland Project to the printers.

Not much news here. I spent the morning gearing myself up for my lunch date, resisted the temptation to call a taxi, and succeeded in walking up Dublin Street to the Portrait Gallery where I had a nice time. Then home and to bed.

I have done a bit more shawl. I am engaged with row 87, and have finished the fourth ball of yarn.

EYF

It’s time to begin thinking about projects I would like to buy yarn for in this year’s market.

There is a thread in the EYF Ravelry group called Flash Your Stash. That’s not what people do, however. They show off wonderful things they have knit with yarn bought at previous EYF’s. That’s not stash, that’s FO’s. I am tempted (and I may yet do it) to take the thread at its word – from 2016 I have yarn for Mary Lou’s Bidwell Shawl, and for a shawl of Carol Feller’s. From 2017 I have Blacker’s Samnite yarn (brand new at the time) in a quantity selected for Carol Sunday’s “Nancy’s Vest”.

That’s what I call stash.

Other

Kate Davies has a good post about “styling” her new Shieling Blanket, the latest pattern in the West Highland Way club. “Styling” means taking the sort of pictures you can use to promote a pattern.

She says that hands can be difficult for a knitwear stylist (as I had long thought). Not only for them. My husband and I spent a few days in Milan once, home, more or less, of Leonardo. It was interesting to see in the museum there what difficulties lesser Renaissance artists had with hands when they tried to get the Holy Family together with St Anne and perhaps an angel or two. 

There is little to report today, but that little, good.

I passed all sorts of landmarks today with the borders of the baby shawl: (a) I turned over from page 3 to page 4 of the old mimeographed pattern which I am finding so much easier than the new charts; (b) if I were still using the charts, it would be true to say that I have finished F and embarked on G – the final one; (c) the current ball of yarn is about to expire. The yarn is wound on cardboard cylinders, so the balls never seem to get smaller – but suddenly the cardboard shows through. I should polish this one off tomorrow, if not this evening.

I’m currently engaged with row 85. Row 99 is the last one with lace in it, although, as I’ve said, some decrease rounds follow.

Otherwise it has been a peaceful day of non-achievement. I must face up to those papers I told you about finding. Tomorrow I am having lunch at the Portrait Gallery with Greek Helen and an old friend from both Kirkmichael and Edinburgh. The climb up that hill will do me good.

I have missed the Mindful Chef. It seems a long time until Monday when I will have him back again. I made myself a tasty chowder for lunch today from a recipe in the newspaper, but it involved not only a trip to the corner shop for a missing ingredient, but also (somehow, worse) having to rustle around in my own larder for a chicken stock cube and some chilli flakes.

That’s interesting that you found jackfruit to be trendy, Mary Lou (comment yesterday). I’m not aware of having heard of it either, until the end of last month. I would say it’s dull as dishwater. I can imagine that it might be sustaining if one was on a subsistence diet, but for that purpose I would vastly prefer freshly-dug potatoes with salt and pepper and – if one were lucky enough to be acquainted with a cow – a bit of butter.  

Well!  I hope you have all seen that Jen A-C herself commented on yesterday’s post – and provided enlightenment about the book to be launched at the EYF. I love cables, although I haven’t knitted any for a while. I think that’s one I’ll have to go for.

She says in the comment that she doesn’t own the copyright for the sweater I admired on her husband Jim in the latest Fruity Knitting podcast – but is too modest to mention that the East Woodlands sweater, on her website, is somewhat similar.

Meanwhile, Wednesday it is, and the latest on KD’s West Highland Way is a huge and beautiful blanket – done in squares so that it will be possible, as she says herself, to scale it down for the next great-grandchild, if I’m spared.

And as for my own knitting, I have embarked on row 79 of the shawl borders.

Non-knit

Today’s meal from the Mindful Chef, “pulled barbecue jackfruit”, was OK, but not the hit of the week. When Helen and I went for her birthday lunch at Dishoom, she had something with jackfruit in it, and – since she thought she had ordered vegetarian – called the waitress over to ask, isn’t this meat? The answer was no, it’s jackfruit.

It’s funny how often life, having introduced a new theme, repeats it almost at once. Jackfruit is dull, and in future I will avoid meals which involve it. I continue to find this fun. I went back to the website today and ordered a fourth meal for next week. For this week, it's all over.

I gather we’re having a fancy full moon tonight. Archie and I saw the previous one as we were driven in to Palermo on the 2^nd of January, over Monte Pellegrino. 

Here are two pictures from him:

That black monolith (if that's the word) is a monument to those who died at the hands of the Mafia. Professor Anselmi pointed it out to us on our Gattopardo walk, that first morning.

And here we are, looking down the Via Lampedusa, with the (reconstructed) Castello on the left. It is from here, if you know the book, that the family set forth towards the Ponteleones' ball in Part Six. It's not far away. And down there at the bottom, in front of the church, is where the Prince got out of the carriage to kneel in the road while a priest carried the Sacrament to someone dying in the vicinity. In Visconti's movie, that happens on the Prince's way home. 

A peaceful day of non-achievement, except in knitting. I’m halfway across row 77 of the shawl borders. Perhaps once I’ve reached the centre, I can relax a bit and spend occasional days on the Soutache scarf or Archie’s socks. Or perhaps not – babies can take one by surprise. This one is due in April.

Today’s contribution from the Mindful Chef was Tofu and Carrot Noodle Laksa, and it was delicious. I made it for lunch and kept sipping at it all afternoon; and it’s gone. Tomorrow is Pulled Barbecue Jackfruit and Avocado Salsa.

I originally signed up for Pescetarian. (I hate that word, but can’t think of an alternative.) I think my first three meals qualify as Vegan. For next week the Chef is proposing two fishy meals and one with chick peas for me. I have thrown out the chick peas and opted for steak.

Shandy and Karen (comments yesterday) I take your point. You don’t need to worry about me – I’m not losing weight. I suspect I am sustained by the calories in Weston’s Vintage Cider. We’ll see what happens in Lent, which is currently bearing down on us. I was talking to my Italian tutor last week about coffee-drinking in Italy and she mentioned that she also drank chocolate. That sounded like a good idea, and I’ve laid in a supply. Starbucks has made no inroads in Italy – they don’t care to walk about the streets with take-away coffees.

The new Fruity Knitting is a good’un – Jim and Jen Arnall-Culliford. I wish we could have seen more of the sweater Jim is wearing on his first appearance – a yoke sweater with what may be no more than solid colour stripes. There is indeed something wonderful about yoke sweaters. In the interview, he is in shirt sleeves.

The other (and surprising) omission was the lack of any mention of the forthcoming A-C book, to be launched at the EYF. We shall see. Andrea did say that she and Andrew will be there, in the Podcast Room. I’ll have a look.

Nothing yet this week from the West Highland Way. I even worried a bit, but then went back to last week's incoming emails – Wednesday seems to be the day.

A better day perhaps, strength-wise.

The delivery from Mindful Chef arrived, of course, and cooking the first item was certainly fun. Black Bean and Grilled Corn Lettuce Tacos. I didn’t have to supply anything except salt, pepper, and oil. As expected – feared? – there are almost enough raw materials remaining to cook it again, quite apart from the half-plateful I was unable to finish. At this rate, three meals-for-one per week may be enough to sustain me entirely.

The result was perhaps slightly on the dull side, but very healthy.

The other good thing was the finding of a mighty pile of papers I had from the lawyer at the end of the year, relating to my husband’s estate. I emailed the lawyer at the time to say I was going to Palermo and would think about it later. Then last weekend I was ready to deal with it all, and the papers were nowhere to be found. I sought high and low. I postponed anxiety until today, when my dear cleaner Daniella was due – she can find anything. But she couldn’t find those papers.

And then, suddenly, I found them myself, in a totally unexpected place. So now all I have to do is sit down and look at them.

Knitting

A new episode of Fruity Knitting tomorrow? What excitement! And a new West Highland Way pattern!

The shawl progresses. I have now done 71 of the 99 pattern rows, and have reduced the stitch count, per border, from 160 to 132. At the end, there will be only 85 stitches to knit back and forth on, for the centre. If I were still doing it that way, I could say that I have finished Chart E and embarked on F. G is the final one.

The trouble with the charts is in no small part that J&S have divided them up, and even turned one sideways, to save space – with the result that they don’t provide a sense of the whole, which is what one asks of a chart.

I got through the day’s programme all right, but it has fairly flattened me.

Lisa, I found there wasn’t much call for Italian in Palermo. Hotel staff were adequate-to-fluent in English, little is required in a restaurant beyond menu-reading, and the Italians we met – Professor Anselmi who took us on the Gattopardo walking tour, and the noble Lanza Tomasi’s – spoke such good English that it would have been silly to try Italian. After my fall that first evening we took taxis everywhere -- on instructions from London -- or else walked, eliminating the need to master public transport. 

I did at least deliver my pre-prepared introductory line to “Tancred” – “E’ un honore per me di incontrarLa – Tancredi”.

The only genuine conversations I can remember, both brief, were asking the waitress in the restaurant Da Peppo la Gondola whether she remembered or knew about Jamie Oliver. She didn’t. And the time my credit card failed in a humble locanda (distressing because it’s my PayPal and Amazon One-Click card) and the next day I tried it again in a slightly less humble restaurant, explaining that it had failed the day before and she wasn’t to worry because I had cash and another card, but let’s try this one first.

It went through fine, and has behaved well since.

Whereas my lessons here in Edinburgh, an hour and a half per week, are conducted entirely in Italian. It’s hard work, mentally.

Archie seems well. I asked him about writing a blog entry and he said he would have to be in the mood. I'll press, from time to time.

I’ve reached row 65 of the shawl borders, and hope to knock off a couple more before going back to bed.

And tomorrow I will get my first recipe boxes!

There really is nothing to tell you this evening. I have been indescribably idle. I will have to pull myself together briskly – tomorrow morning I have my Italian lesson, and Archie is coming to lunch. I will sound him on the possibility of his writing a blog entry about Palermo, illustrated with his photographs. I haven’t much hope.

Thank you for your kind words about my swatch-scarf. Alexander says that Ketki would like it, and she shall have it. It’s short for a scarf. I’ll join the ends and make it into a cowl. With or without a twist?

But first, the Calcutta Cup.

At least the blue text has gone.

I don't know why text has turned blue. I don't like it.

This was perhaps a slightly better day. Did I feel stronger? I think I have knit a full five rows of the baby shawl borders, with perhaps another to come. I am currently doing a row of roundels, and it’s actually easy to see how each knitted row fits into the roundel below, once they have been correctly established. Which was pretty easy in itself.

Comments

Thank you, as ever, for your help – starting with Katherine’s answer (comment yesterday) to my question of why Google illustrated Burns’ birthday with Virginia Woolf. I disapprove, much as I admire her work. She’s far too gloomy a character to celebrate in these dark days. Lots of birthdays must overlap, obviously.

Liz, once you’d said it, I remembered that I have heard of the idea of doing corrugated rib in two passes, and I am very glad indeed to have your confirmation, Ron, that it works. I will (try to) remember what you say about needle size. The idea of the double pass is familiar to me from my recent experience with two-colour brioche.

But I also note what you say, Maureen, about doing it in one, and holding the purl colour in my right hand. It’s obvious, once you say it, but I doubt if I would have thought of it. Like you, I don’t care for continental purling.

I am encouraged by your remark, Shandy, that changing lozenge patterns within a Fair Isle row is nothing compared to knitting the Uncia. But I still don’t want to do it. I find Fair Isle peaceful and meditative – having constantly to check on the lozenge patterns would spoil it.

Here’s the promised picture of my swatch scarf:

Except for that band in the middle with the unnaturally pale background, I could use all of this in the vest. If I am to believe memory (Jean, when will you learn to make notes?) the final rows are the ones I had decided to use, and they contain no red. Doing it like this, with red showing up from time to time, in different positions, I think will be rather effective.

Now all we need is the Calcutta Cup. The match is on February 24. 

Why does Google apparently have a picture of Virginia Woolf to mark Rabbie Burns’ birthday?

I have absolutely nothing to tell you today. Well, perhaps it’s a bit better than that. I have finished the third ball of yarn, for the baby shawl. Surely eight balls are going to prove to be too many. I do hope so. (Although I will continue to allow myself 12.5% progress in the sidebar, for each ball finished.) And – if I were still using charts – I have finished Chart D. Chart E is even more confusing and I am glad not to be relying on it.

There are no more zig zags for the moment, just roundels.

Comments

I don’t know about dexterity, Cat, but I can hold one yarn in each hand when I am knitting Fair Isle, and I make quite brisk progress. What I can't do is put aside the right-hand yarn and knit continental with the yarn remaining in the left, although I don’t see why not. I have signed up for several Craftsy classes which promise to speed up my knitting, so far without the slightest success.

But I feel, as I said, that I ought to try corrugated ribbing. The Six Nations rugby season is about to begin, and if Scotland should win the Calcutta Cup perhaps Alexander’s Fair Isle vest could have it. That swatch scarf is still visible in the sitting room, and my current thought is to use the whole thing as the model for the vest. I was playing around with different arrangements of the same six or seven yarns, derived from Edward Hopper’s “Gas”.

 (It's in MOMA, in NYC.)

My final attempt was the most satisfactory, and I had decided to go ahead with it, changing the Fair Isle motifs for each row as in the Jamieson & Smith sweater I have been referring to as the Museum Sweater. But not changing the motifs within the row – that’s a level of expertise beyond my ambition.

But now I think I may change the arrangement of the yarns for every row, as for the swatch scarf, whose overall appearance is rather harmonious. I’ll try to take a picture tomorrow.

It has been what passes around here for an exciting day – a late lunch at Dishoom with Helen because it is her 55^th birthday, and a conference this evening with Jimmy who is in charge of the extra work connected with the new kitchen. I’m ready for my bed.

I’ve only done one row of shawl today. I hope to be able to keep my eyes open for at least one more. The decreases are beginning to make themselves felt, just as the returning light is. I started with 160 stitches per border (and there are four borders, remember, all strung together), and am now down to 142. The rate of decreasing has accelerated, and that helps too.

At Oberlin I did a Classics in Translation course, I can’t remember why. I do remember that when I was assigned to read, say, a couple of books of the Aeneid in English, I would think, that won’t take any time at all. But of course it did. I feel rather the same about the alternate garter stitch rows of this shawl.

I am increasingly sure that you are right, and my horrendous muddle is not going to be particularly obvious except to a lace knitter. I am now working completely from Amedro – using the mimeographed sheets from which I knit Archie’s shawl 21 years ago, rather than the modern one supplied with the yarn, just in case. I am a convinced chartist, but I am finding that it’s easier to keep the overall design in mind from Amedro’s text than from the new charts.

She and Kaffe are the designers I have knit the most patterns of, over a lifetime. I don’t know which would come out ahead, if I were to tot them up.

We've had a new West Highland Way pattern. I am enjoying this, as I expected to. This one is a yoked cardigan, with another unpronounceable Scottish name. KD says she has worked it out so that the colours in the yoke can each be done with one of the balls of yarn which came with our membership. You'd have to buy the base colour, of course.

It starts off with corrugated ribbing, something I've never mastered. I have tried, long ago, and thought I was doing it wrong because it didn't pull in. Now I know that it's not supposed to pull in, and feel that I ought to try again. I like the look. 

I’m very glad to have your various endorsements for recipe boxes, and look forward all the more enthusiastically to my first one, next Monday. Ivy, I do so agree that thinking is the hardest part of meal-preparation. Barbara M., I have read several newspaper discussions of recipe boxes and they all seem to think that (with most firms, anyway) “meals for two” are so generous that you could feed three. So you might be able, after all, to feed your hungry husband and have something left to keep the wolf from your own door.

Knitting

I have advanced to row 51 of the shawl borders and am, in a manner of speaking, back in the saddle. The stitch count is right. The rows relate to what was done in the rows (immediately) below. Altogether, there are 99 pattern rows and then another 8 of garter stitch during which decreases continue to be made. So it’s safe to say I’m half-way through.

However…

Today I discovered another fairly horrendous mistake. In Chart C (like Chart D) I was supposed to repeat the first section a few times, then the centre section once, then the final section a few times more. I was meant to be creating, thereby, a single roundel in the middle of each border, surrounded by lacy zigzags. But I didn’t. I just knit the chart and knit it again until I got to the next corner. So there are several roundels in each border, none exactly in the centre.

Now (Chart D) I am doing more or less the same thing, and doing it right -- with two roundels in the centre of each border, which were intended to be one on either side of the Chart C roundel. But of course, they’re not.

Another ten rows or so, and it may be possible to photograph the result for you. It may not be as bad as it sounds. Although still not Buckingham-Palace-worthy. 

When I knit this shawl for Archie, “lace weight” was an adventure for me, and I felt I was helping with the pregnancy, knitting sturdily on while nature knit the baby. Archie’s elder brother had died at 6 ½ weeks the year before; it was an anxious time. If I had made this sort of mess then, I would have been in despair.

I have made some progress with the shawl. I think the 4^th border, at least, is more or less all right. (All four are knit in one long row, and the alternate rows are plain knit: so one always starts the exciting rows from the same end.) I’ve knit back, and am ready to try the next pattern row.

I’m doing much better, using Amedro. She lays out her text very helpfully, with occasional useful commas and new lines. It makes a big difference. 

I was held up, earlier this evening, when I found the yarn in a tangle. When the cats tried to help with the knitting, the other evening, they slid it off its cardboard cylinder. I’ve retrieved that, and rewound it – and there’s not all that much to go before this third ball is finished and the progress line in the sidebar can be increased.

But then Perdita came and sat on my lap. Had it been Paradox, I would have pushed her off, as I often do. But Perdita is not a lap cat, and I was touched, and sat there for a while without knitting, to accommodate her.

There still may be time to attempt that next pattern row before I go to bed.

Non-knit

I have signed up for a “Recipe Box”. Do you have them in North America or the Antipodes? They are becoming rather popular here. You choose two or three recipes per week, and they deliver everything you need, so you don’t have half-empty packets of miso hanging about in the refrigerator nor do you have to wonder where to go for wild rice.

I’ve signed on for Mindful Chef which makes a big point of Healthfulness – no bad thing – and which is, apparently, the only one which offers meals for one. I would think the others are missing a trick there.

I am always tempted by KAL’s and yarn clubs, but they never fit into my scheme of life. This may be the answer. I’ll keep you posted.

Well, I’ve finished the shawl row that was giving me so much trouble, and the plain-vanilla one that follows. Now to get back on my feet.

In lace, as in Fair Isle, one relies on what one has already done to keep one straight for the future. It's a bit harder to do, with lace. That row was enough of a mess, at least for the first two borders, that that’s not going to work anyway. It’s a perfectly simple pattern – lace chevrons with a couple of roundels in the very middle. We shall see.

And you’re quite right, Mary Lou, that it’s going to be scrumpled up around the baby anyway. This is a take-it-to-the-pub-for-lunch shawl, not a present-at-Buckingham-Palace. But it’s sort of humiliating that I, who have knit Sharon Miller’s Princess, can’t even do this any more.

The cats tried to help last night, like furry Rumplestiltskins but less successfully. No stitches were lost, fortunately. Tonight I have put it away out of their reach, as I should always but occasionally forget.

Non-knit

More snow fell today, and it’s been cold. I haven’t been out, and it’s been a bad day on the weakness-and-lack-of-appetite front as well. I think the forecast promises better for tomorrow. I am going to have coffee again with my neighbour four stories up, and dread the climb as it might be the north face of the Eiger. It’ll be nice to see her when I get there.

My beloved cleaning woman comes tomorrow. I may seize the opportunity to put the knitting straight early in the day, while she gets the rest of my life in order.

“Rather fetching” is perfect for the Gioacchino Lanzi Tomasi of today, Shandy. (comment yesterday) Here is a relatively recent picture of him.

I watched the rest of Visconti’s “Gattopardo” – I’ve rented it on one of those arrangements which means it will vanish like a Boojum tomorrow, 48 hours after I started watching. It’s much better than I remembered. I saw it once in a cinema, many years ago.

I vividly remember when, as a child, perhaps at the age of 9 or 10, during the war, I first saw a movie made from a book I loved. It was “My Friend Flicka”. I had thought that the movie would show me the beloved book as I visualised it in my head. They got everything wrong. Visconti is better than that.

Knitting

What I can no longer avoid telling you is that I am in bad trouble with the baby shawl, and am resorting to my old, old mantra: it’ll be all right from here on out. (I am knitting the four borders of a traditional Shetland shawl in one long row.)

If I went in for lifelines, I would rip back to the end of Chart C. But I don’t. In Charts A, B & C I knit across the chart (rightly or wrongly), repeating as necessary, until I got to the marker for the corner, and then started again. I set out happily with Chart D in the same spirit, and soon saw that all was wrong.

And soon saw why – this time, I was supposed to knit the first section three times, then the centre section once, then the final section three times. I did some laborious tinking and set forth again, but the first border and (inexplicably) the second border are not right at all. The stitch count is right, but that’s not much comfort.

I have reverted to Gladys Amedro’s original pattern – not in her book – and I think things are going slightly better. I like her “T” and “C” – “take” and “cast” – for K2tog and YO. Those were the traditional Shetland terms, she says somewhere, and I find them easier to keep in one’s head.

Let’s hope for better news tomorrow.

Cats

I’ve left the last instalment of my Palermo adventure untold. It went smoothly. EasyJet turns around on a dime, as I may already have said – so a delay in London means a delay in Palermo. But that didn’t happen, that day. We got back on time. I was re-admitted to the UK without fuss (there’s a frisson of anxiety there, these days). Rachel met us and drove us to James’ and Cathy’s house, a great blessing.

The next day we Uber’d to Kings Cross. Cathy phoned half way through our journey to tell us that I had left my iPad behind. We had departed in good time, and public transport Sydenham-Kings Cross is very swift. She got there in time to give it to me, a truly heroic deed.

Our southward journey on January 1 had been very austere, despite First Class. This time things went better. Archie had declined to drink anything more exciting than Coca Cola the whole time in Palermo, but on that homeward journey he allowed Richard Branson to ply him with gin and tonic.

When I got home, Paradox came bounding to meet me, all enthusiastic purr. I walked about the house looking for Perdita and calling her. Niente. Ten minutes later she came strolling into the kitchen, and Paradox flew at her, fists flying, like a jealous toddler.

Perdita had worried her feeders during my absence, by not being there. She worried me again last night. She couldn’t have left the house – but she could be shut in a room, or cupboard, or drawer. I slept badly and got up early. There she was waiting – never too early for pussy cat’s breakfast.

I wasted some time today by watching part of Visconti’s “Gattopardo” on my iPad. Burt Lancaster is perfect, for the Prince, and Claudia Cardinale, for Angelica. But Alain Delon won’t do at all, for Tancred. Feeble. Although I can’t think of an actor, French or Italian or American or British, whom I would suggest to Visconti instead.

This is a picture of Gioacchino Lanza (the “real” Tancred) in 1955.

This is a picture of me (in my “Relax”) sitting next to him at lunch, 63 years later. Better late than never.

Yes, Karen! (comment yesterday) I, too, got an email from Susan Crawford telling me to fill out a survey or else I couldn’t have my book. The point of the survey was to establish whether contact details had changed in the considerable amount of time that has elapsed since we crowdfunded. The website wasn’t entirely confidence-inspiring, and I particularly regretted the absence of a “Submit” button at the end.

We shall see.

There is happy news, too, on other fronts. Kate Davies is now in full swing with the West Highland Way club. The current offering is an oversized Fair Isle called Strathendrick. Interesting, tempting.

And the Early Winter VK turned up today. You Americans, at least, must have seen it weeks ago. It’s almost all rather interestingly Nordic. I am seriously tempted by Meg’s “Danish Sontag Shawl” which looks like something that would be useful in weather like this – chest warm, garment secure, hands and arms free. The cast-on is more than a bit daunting.

And I’m going to want Vivian Hoxbro’s new book, “Strik Danske Stjernetrojer”. It concerns Danish “nattrojer” – “night shirts” – decorated with knit and purl patterns and worn day and night, under other clothes. They sound as if they may be even earlier than the first Shetland knitting. (My friends and I, in the Shetland museum, were shown interesting 19^th century onesies into which the wearer was sewn for the winter. But they weren’t decorated.)

If all else fails, Meg will find someone to translate it.

And I have more or less re-engaged with the shawl, and am determined to finish the current chart before turning in this evening. Only another half-row of plain-vanilla garter stitch.

Non-knit

The rest of the UK has had quite a lot of bad weather in the last 24 hours, but Edinburgh has been OK. More snow was forecast for last night, but instead we had a thaw, the streets and pavements were clear this morning, and I got out to the supermarket. A good thing, too: we were getting low on cat food.