Finished the scarf. It's five feet long -- the instructions say it will be 80", but it's hard to measure swirly, and maybe it will stretch, and five feet is fine, anyway. The cast-on edge forms a central spine, and I don't see how 150 stitches of Koigu or any sport-weight yarn can come out 5' long let alone 6 1/2', but such is the case.

I decided as I was driving back from leaving James and Kirsty at the airport -- they should be in Beijing by now -- that the Aegean blue yarn from Candace Strick was too strong, I'd knit in gentler colours for the second swirly. Then it got dark, and I decided I couldn't bear not to knit with Aegean blue. So I've cast on with that, but I'll bind and probably stripe it with variegated Koigu rather than black as I had planned.

I'll wait until the sun comes up (if it does) to photograph the first scarf, in the hopes of showing you something not too washed out.

The message below is from Thessaloniki, referring to the second orange Wallaby I knit for Fergus. The first one was his Christmas present last year. He was delighted with it. It shrank to Thomas-the-Younger size in the first wash. His mother took the second one back to Greece with her after the birthday visit last week.

"[Fergus] Is terribly pleased with his sweater. He has insisted on wearing it every day so far and i doubt he will ever wear anything else until it falls to pieces. He's that sort of boy. David says we will have to dry clean it (when he's asleep) so that it wont meet the same fate as the last one."

 

So that's nice. I'veasked for a picture.

 

Non-knit

 

James had time to look at the broadband-installing instructions before he left yesterday, and I feel bolder. Hey, I put a floppy disk drive in this computer with my own hands. I can do anything. The really good news is that he discovered a small sealed envelope with my broadband details -- including the new password, in clear. So that's all right. I remembered that I had used the password I use for banking, and that it was too long and I had had to shorten it in some respect -- what I couldn't remember, and foolishly hadn't noted, was exactly how I had shortened it.

 

The Mytob virus persecution has stopped for the last two days, establishing the source beyond doubt as an American computer, I think.

Kirsty on the doorstep 

With my husband, in Drummond Place gardens 

The winter glooms came down like an avalanche yesterday. Time to make some soup.

I'm putting the contrast edging on the swirly scarf, increasing in every stitch. Now it turns out I'm working on the right side after all. I don't know where the mistake was. The next row is the cast off, so I might finish today. And start another.

James and Kirsty will soon be on their way back to Beijing -- I'll drive them to the airport. So we'll say goodbye with some Kirsty-pictures, above.

I got some stuff about broadband yesterday, but not the stuff I need to connect. So James can't help; I'm on my own, and it sounds as if I can't just drift along with the dial-up connection. I'm anxious. I had to choose a new password and I'm not sure I remember it. If you suddenly don't hear from me for a while, that'll probably be the plughole I've disappeared down. I'd better hurry up and finish the Christmas on-line shopping.

Potential swirly scarves 

All my favourite bloggers are too busy basting the turkey to write, so I wandered a bit further afield this morning and found these nice hats to knit. If anybody wants to join me in Christmas madness. And don't miss Helen's brilliant suggestion, in a comment yesterday, for a quick knitted present.

I have four more long plain rows to knit of the swirly scarf, before doubling the stitch number again in the contrast colour, and casting off in the same. Yesterday I laid out a few more potential swirlys. The blue yarn, a shade called Aegean, was a present from Candace Strick when I bought a sweater's-worth, still unknit, of her wonderful Merging Colors yarn. It's sort of a strong colour, but the kind of thing which is wonderfully comforting to knit in these dark days. With black for the contrast? Or striped with black?

The Aran-coloured Koigu, the background yarn in Thomas-the-Younger's striped Koigu sweater which was seen here a day or two ago, could be striped with variegated Koigu's for a sunny and cheerful stripy.

The other yarns are just lying there.

Non-knit

Today is James' and Kirsty's last day here. We plan to go see The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

James keeps remarking on the darkness. Beijing is on a line with Madrid, or Washington DC, roughly, and things are a lot lighter down there. He's had brilliant sunny days almost all week, too, which lightens the load a lot, darkness-wise. I usually suffer badly from gloom and anxiety during this Dread Decameron, the last ten days of November. From there until the solstice, it's so awful it's funny. But this year, what with the excitement of the birthday and James's visit, I've hardly noticed.

Another thing I've been doing which helps a lot, is Christmas shopping on-line. I spent an hour in a crowded shop a couple of weeks ago. It was full of expensive things I couldn't imagine anyone wanting, and awful people, and was pretty depressing. So I've been going through those catalogues which rain down on one. My husband says he wouldn't want to buy things without seeing them, but so far I have been pleased with the quality of what has turned up. And the process is blissfully painless.

Half-way. It's longer than it appears here. 

Kirsty went to the National Gallery 

I'm swirling away, but I made a stupid mistake.

I got the 150 original stitches back onto a needle -- that black line is the waste wool which was holding them -- and set out in the opposite direction. Start with a wrong-side row, the instructions say. I gave the matter little or no thought -- it's garter stitch after all -- and now I see that I have started with a right-side row. The scarf is finished, as you see, with a contrast stripe, and when you do that in garter stitch, there is very clearly a right side and a wrong side.

I'm not going to rip it out. I have two choices: to add or subtract a row, so that both sides are the same. Or to do the right number of rows, so that the right side for the contrast stripes will be different on the two halves. Since both sides will surely be visible on the wearer, I think that's the option to go for.

I continue to be overjoyed with the pattern. I hate holiday-deadline knitting. I don't do it. The Knitlist -- at least in the old days when self-expression was allowed -- is full, this time of year, of stress-filled accounts of knitting incomplete.

But this scarf is tempting me to join that miserable band. How many could I finish by Christmas? The thing is, they will make great presents for the very people who are the hardest to think of presents for. I'm certainly going to try a stripy one next, this time actually giving some thought to right-side, wrong-side (the answer will be to mix them up, I think).

Non-Knit

James and Kirsty and I went to Deep Sea World yesterday, and had a nice time. It is right under the famous Forth Rail Bridge of which we therefore had an unusual and breathtaking view.

 

My husband, at his birthday lunch 

Two of our guests -- namely Snow White and Rose Red in their striped Koigu sweaters. 

The birthday was a total success. I'm sorry not to have written yesterday. I was exhausted, and perhaps, if the truth be told, somewhat hung over.

Our four children gave my husband a small drawing by the artist he knows all about, and a delightful Grandchild Book for which each child had designed a page, at least those capable of such a feat. These things were presented just before lunch, and then we all walked up to the restaurant and there were the Nine Old Friends, a surprise as total for my husband as James's arrival on Thursday, and just as welcome. I think perhaps the best moment of the day, for me, was getting there and hearing the murmur of voices behind the door which meant that our friends had arrived and were drinking champagne.

The food and the service were fine, and we all had a nice time.

Nephew Theo, who arrived late and breathless straight off a transatlantic flight, is now in London compiling photographs onto CD's I hope. So there may be more birthday pictures soon.

Knitting

For fully two hours yesterday morning, I couldn't find my knitting (the swirly scarf). It was dreadful. It finally turned up on the floor in a corner of the bed room, where I had tossed it at the last minute before we left for the restaurant.

I've finished the first half, cast it off, and it swirls. I love it. I took a picture of it swirling, which we will have tomorrow, knowing that when I picked up the cast-on stitches and started knitting the other half in the opposite direction, the swirl would temporarily disappear. I'm in the middle of unpicking the waste yarn, and it is slow going. Next time -- and I am currently resolved to do another one right away -- I'll use that provisional-cast-on system involving a crochet hook.

Comment

Kate, welcome aboard.

The pattern for the Communion veil is my own, except that you'll need Marianne Kinzel's Second Book of Modern Lace Knitting for an altar frontal of hers which I have adapted for my purposes. My copy is a Dover reprint. I don't know if it's still in print, but a library would get it for you. I'm not finding the going entirely easy this time, and may be able to tweak the pattern to its advantage as I go along.

Another thought would be to knit a rectangle of any lace, perhaps with a small headpiece at one end. Queer Joe did that for a neice recently, I believe.

I'm jean@jeanmile.demon.co.uk. Write to me if I can help further.

Kids love row-counters 

Well, here we are, the 19th of November.

I still haven't finished the seating plan. That's what I'll do right away, instead of my morning SuDoku. I've got the cards, and I figure I'll be able to nip in and distribute them during the initial Champagne Reception bit.

The picture shows Helen, from Thessaloniki, helping her nephew James, from London, play with my Katcha-Katcha. I think it previously registered the row-count for the Communion Veil, and I think I'll be able to reconstruct it.

Meanwhile I got to the final increase row for the first half of the swirly scarf, but haven't done it yet. At this rate, I should be able to finish another before Christmas. What about a stripey swirly?

Tomorrow's blog may be late, as we will have added another to the Drummond Place body count, and he'll be on a mattress on the floor in here.

Breakfast: Kirsty is homesick. James is glad to have a proper cup of English tea. 

They're here.

James was afraid to go to bed last night, for fear both he and Kirsty would wake up on Beijing time. He needed have worried. It's now early afternoon in Beijing, 7:30 a.m. in Edinburgh, and there hasn't been a peep out of either of them.

My husband was completely surprised. The ensuing scene was near enough my favourite moment in all of English literature, the meeting of the Knightley brothers in "Emma", where "'How d'ye do, George?' and 'John, how are you?' succeeded in the true English style, burying under a calmness that seemed all but indifference, the real attachment which would have led either of them, if required, to do every thing for the good of the other."

I was pretty exhausted at the end by the nervous tensions of the day. The new swirly scarf progresses well -- and there's nothing like long rows of garter stitch for comfort knitting, as I found when I combined a Baby Surprise with a cataract operation. I may reach the next increase row and subsequent cast-off today. I may not.

I'll wait until James and Kirsty get up, I think, and perhaps add a picture of them breakfasting.

He has a new and alarming Haliban (="Bank of Scotland") story. Three forged cheques have been presented on their account, totalling £1500. They were written on a chequebook which never reached them -- and therefore fraud from within the bank is one of the possibilities. Cathy has spent arduous (and expensive) hours on the telephone, and the money has been refunded. But the bank is curiously uninterested in involving the police, and has declined to say, so far, where the cheques were presented. Beijing? Edinburgh? It should be easy enough to tell. They were signed with Cathy's name, in a signature not remotely resembling hers. Were they accompanied with a card?

The Scotland Street tunnel 

Our crack 

In the stirring lyrics of the old British football song, Here we go! Here we go! Here we go! I have heard no more from Beijing, so presumably James and Kirsty are at this very moment somewhere over the Urals. And I am far too twitchy to venture out to lunch without my knitting, so I phoned my sister-in-law in a quiet moment yesterday and told her it was coming too. She agreed that it would be rude to bring it, but was quite understanding. The excuse -- perfectly valid -- is that this is Christmas knitting. She knows that James is coming, and that he's supposed to be kept secret until he arrives.

I cast on the second-attempt swirly scarf yesterday, and it is at a perfect stage to accompany me. I've got as far as 450 stitches and am now required to do 12 rows plain. All is going well so far, but with the other attempt it was the third doubling of the stitch count that did for me. In this case, when I've done the 12 plain rows, I am supposed to double the stitch count again, and then immediately cast off, pick up the cast-on stitches, and set off in the opposite direction.

Today's illustrations are, obviously, not knit-related. I have friends who enjoy Alexander McCall Smith's accounts of life on Scotland Street (which is just around the corner from Drummond Place). I tried to read the first one when it was serialised in the Scotsman, and found it seriously boring, but it figures on many a best-seller list.

One of my Smith-reading friends asked the other day if there is really a tunnel under Scotland Street, so today's pictures are (a) the mouth of the tunnel, down by Tesco's, photographed yesterday, and (b) the crack in the wall of our hall, which my husband is convinced is tunnel-related. McCall Smith suggests, I believe, that there is access to the tunnel from a door or doors on Scotland Street. I don't know about that, but it sounds not unlikely. Edinburgh is a funny sort of place, that way.

Comments

Thanks for comments. Anyone remotely interested must know by now that Pakistan won the first test. My husband and I are reading Churchill on the Second World War at bedtime, and on Tuesday evening had just finished the chapter on the fall of Singapore. England's collapse on Wednesday morning, from a relatively good position, was very similar.

Lee, thanks for the tip about "Knitting on the Road". I've heard good things about it, too; perhaps it will be my next purchase. I still haven't looked at "Knitting Vintage Socks".

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