Little to report. The day slid away from us yesterday, and the walk didn’t happen. We’re about to try again today. Alexander came over from Glasgow and cut his father’s hair with very successful results.

Thank you for your help with fitness bracelets. I’m afraid I’m a bit startled at the prices – me, who would happily spend that much on knitting I may well never get around to. I need to think this thing through: what do I want of a bracelet, other than step-counting? I don’t have a smart phone. I will talk to my sister about it – she’ll be here soon, and she’s keen on fitness.

As for actual knitting, I carried out the steps of my new Plan as outlined yesterday. Now comes the challenge of actually laying the Neap Tide shawl aside and joining those shoulders on the Sous Sous, and picking up stitches for the sleeves. Once when my mother was moving house, and overwhelmed with to-do’s, a neighbour advised her to start with the job that bugged her the most. Very good advice.

The only news I know on the knitting front is that Wool People 10 is out. That’s a Ravelry link – I can’t get through to the actual Look Book this morning. I saw it last night: photography wonderful, as usual; patterns deserving of more study.

I’ve knit at least one pattern of Jared’s, but have never used one of his yarns. That’s e344444ioooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo78yi90i     -- intervention by Perdita; what is the matter with that cat? That’s one for the bucket list, I was about to say. Along with Buachaille – I’m hoping there’ll be something for that in the hap book.                                                                                 

So Bernie won another primary –in West Virginia where Hillary beat Barack handily in 2008. And the polls are showing Hillary and Donald alarmingly close in key states, whereas up until now we had been told that she’d beat him easily in the general election.

I’m glad to be watching this one from a distance.

Knitting

The Neap Tide shawl is now very near the end of the first skein, and measures 87cm if I tug it a bit. I think I’ll count on blocking to get me the rest of the way to a metre, rather than ordering more yarn. I’ll knit to the end of the skein, mark the end of the last complete pattern repeat as the half-way point, wind the second skein (because that’s a lengthy and slightly tedious procedure) and then return to other projects for a while. A plan.

Susan Crawford has promised us fortnightly updates on the much-delayed progress of the Vintage Shetland Project, and yesterday I got the first of them. It centred on Elizabeth Henry, the first, apparently, to transcribe Shetland lace patterns. Crawford has tracked her down, with much difficulty, and found her archives.

And meanwhile Kate Davies thinks she has identified “Mrs Hunter of Unst”. It will be a great year for the unsung heroines of Shetland lace, when both books are published.

Crawford’s update sent me back to Rae Compton’s “Complete Book of Traditional Knitting”. I hadn’t looked at it for a long time. It’s a thoroughly good book. She includes a brisk biography of Mrs Henry, and that’s what started Crawford off on her search. 

I especially like – have always liked – the picture on page 121 of “a grey-green modern Shetland sweater, designed, knitted and worn by Mrs Annabel Bray of Sandwick, Shetland”.  It’s a superb sweater, masterfully knit – photographed from the neck down.

Non-knit

Today I’m going for a proper walk along the Water of Leith. It’s another good one, weather-wise. Southern Gal, I like the idea of a fitness bracelet. Does anybody have any recommendations? I used to wear a pedometer sometimes and, unlike you, was always disappointed at the score when all I had done was be active (as I thought) around the house.

I laughed aloud when I saw your comment, Mary Lou: nothing such fun as a shared reference. And I was horrified by yours, Beth, saying that the scene (Marshall McLuhan in “Annie Hall”) is often cut for TV. Too high-brow, do you think?

All I meant about garter stitch is that it somehow shows up all the irregularities in one’s knitting, much more so than st st, and makes it so difficult to correct a mistake even three or four rows down. And, yes, I’ve got one of those two-headed crochet hooks and I still can’t do it neatly.

All continues well with the Neap Tide shawl. Very soon now I shall finish the first skein and be able to decide how to proceed – another skein? Or declare the point I have reached, half-way?

Our television problem seems to be solved, or to have solved itself.  And the friend who has been assisting us throughout, came and sat with my husband at the end of the afternoon yesterday so that I could do two more circuits of Drummond Place Gardens. Theoretically, I am sure, shopping counts as walking. And I’m on my feet a lot here in the house. But I feel that a regime might be more helpful. Today I've already done three circuits. And, yes, Beth, you can still speak of “doing the messages” in Edinburgh.

Sharon Miller is about to publish another pattern, called the Jewel Long Shawl. That’s exciting news. There is talk on the Heirloom Knitting Group of an informal KAL. I’m tempted. But what I don’t need is another project. Absolutely not.

Cookery

A notable feature of Hellie and Matt’s wonderful wedding last September, was the Chicken Shop Hot Sauce provided on every table. I assumed at the time that once I got home, I could order some on the internet. Not so. You have to go to the Chicken Shop – a London chain of about half-a-dozen places, very well worth a visit.

Alexander has tried to reconstruct the recipe from the ingredients on the bottle:

100 grams red Habaneros, chopped

2 white onions, chopped

6 cloves garlic, chopped

3 large tomatoes, chopped

2 teaspoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoon sugar

Soften the onions for a minute or two, then add everything else. Cook over a gentle heat with the lid on for 10 minutes or so until it all becomes soft. Put it all in a blender. Add vinegar and sugar and blend.

The interesting thing is how much difference can be made by gentle tweaks to this simple-sounding formula. I now use a tin of good Italian tomatoes. I’m having trouble getting fresh habaneros. Last time, I used 20 grams of dried and wound up with a sauce which could easily double as a paint-stripper. I think the recipe probably needs more vinegar – it is the first ingredient listed on the Chicken Shop label.

There are whole websites devoted to chilli sauce recipes. I am surprised that no one – until now – has tried to re-create this one.

Tamar, I will never doubt you again. This, this morning, from Kate Davies herself:

“I noticed this morning there had been some discussion about the identity of the various bits of Mrs Hunters knitting at the KCG on your blog. The guild has several pieces which are identified as being knitted by Mrs Hunter - one is the tree of life hap which you knitted, and another has an old shell / feather and fan border.  Its this second hap that has the sacrilegiously stapled label - which is of course part of its history as it suggests how these textiles' Shetland 'authenticity' clearly carried value for Patons' and their customers.  Both these haps are identified as being knitted by "Mrs Hunter" and were acquired by Norbury around the same time, and there are a few more as well - which were similarly used by him as the basis of his baby shawl patterns. 

I obviously didn't make it at all clear on the blog post that I was looking at several haps - effectively a whole Mrs Hunter collection! All these pieces are beautifully knitted and are to my eye the obvious work of an Unst knitter of considerable skill and experience.”

So that's that!

Non-knit

Marilyn, you’re right! A daily walk! The circuit of Drummond Place Gardens is about ¼ mile. (Why do I think I know that?) I did two circuits yesterday, and will try to keep it up. Devoted readers will remember that I used to do four before breakfast, at a very fast walk/slow jog. No longer.

However, probably not today. A Television Man is coming at some point between 12 and 4 – and I had to use the hour after the carer arrived at 11 for some essential local shopping. Many days are like this one.

I also did some doorstep gardening yesterday – got my beans in.

We have pretty well decided that our television crisis is Richard Branson’s fault (= a defect somewhere in our Virgin cable system). Our kind and energetic friend battled through the system yesterday and actually spoke to an actual human being on a telephone, and booked the engineer mentioned above.

My sister has posted some engaging pictures on Facebook of her new apartment in DC. After what must be about 30 years in CT, she and her husband have returned to DC and moved into a retirement community. I envy her, for having gotten rid of all the stuff. It has been a tough, uphill job, I know, but now it’s done and there they are in their nice apartment with nice rugs and nice pictures on the walls. Who needs stuff, in these days of iPads? Except, of course, for one’s stash.

Knitting, again

Not much knitting has been done of late, but I continue very pleased with the Neap Tide shawl:

 Garter stitch is notoriously difficult, and I am a notoriously clumsy knitter, but the overall effect is good, I think, and blocking will improve the few glitches, at least somewhat. Old Maiden Aunt’s beautiful yarn (50-50 merino and silk) is rather gently twisted. Split stitches are a danger – the one mistake that can’t be fudged, according to EZ.

At present I have done about 72cm, and I think you will agree that it needs the full metre if one is to be able to flip it with insouciance about the shoulders. The moral is, when substituting yarns, to pay a lot of attention to the ratio between weight and yardage, as given on every ball band.

A good day, yesterday.

I went walking in the Botanic Gardens with a dear friend, and we saw some British Art into the bargain. I held up fine, less than an hour, but was appalled at how weak I am. A year ago, before the pulmonary embolisms, I could go on a five mile walk – and, yes, I know, that’s nothing – without difficulty. Could I do it now? Will I get any stronger, or just continue declining?

No use worrying, especially in May.  The Gardens were grand, the Art somewhat less so.

I knit on, but not very much got done because we had a television crisis which occupied much of the late afternoon. The same friend came to help, bringing a set of her own to lend us but she couldn’t make that one work, either. We remain uncertain about whether the fault lies with the actual set, or with the cable company; although the afternoon’s events seem to throw the blame towards the latter.

I am about 66cm along with the Neap Tide shawl – a metre being needed --  and I am beginning to worry, just a bit, about whether I will have enough yarn in the first skein to reach a satisfactory half-way point. I’ve now got far more stitches than the pattern specifies (I’ve stopped counting), in order to reach a satisfactory width. Which I think I’ve done.

I’m terribly pleased with the way it’s looking, and draping; I must make it long enough to do it justice. Old Maiden Aunt lists the yarn on her website. I could buy a third skein. Best to keep on knitting as fast as I can and see how far I get. The whole experience is a valuable lesson in the mysterious matter of gauge. We need a photograph. Tomorrow, I hope.

Kate Davies’ Hap Book

Not only does she keep us on the edges of our seats in eager anticipation, but she says nothing about “pre-ordering”. She’ll publish the book, and then sell it to us.

Tamar, I am in awe of you, always grateful for your comments and impressed beyond measure by the width of your knowledge. But this time I think you are mistaken, in saying that the photograph which identifies Miss Hunter in Kate Davies’ blog entry, is of a different shawl to the others.

 I assume the photographs are all ones KD took at the museum of the Knitting and Crochet Guild. I think they all show the same shawl, the prototype of Patons’ leaflet 893 which is the same as one of the two shawls in leaflet 1085. The photograph which shows the label is of a corner, and does indeed look a bit different for that reason, as the lace patterns decrease into the mitre. But I think it’s the same shawl. I have the leaflets here on the table as I write – the corner is clearer in 1085 – and I think it’s right. 

Incomplete, but better than nothing…

Oh, skeindalous, yes, I’ve seen Kate Davies’ latest teaser about her Haps Book. So exciting! As she says there, she put out an appeal a couple of months ago, for anyone who had knit that pattern: the Patons shawl from the 50’s, attributed to a Mrs Hunter of Unst. I answered, among many others, and I think I will be mentioned in the book!

It’s the shawl I knit for Rachel, at that point unborn, in the early weeks of 1958. As KD says in the blog entry linked to above, it is knit in six separate parts and sewn together. And I did it that way, not knowing any better. And now KD has found the prototype in the collection of the Knitting and Crochet Guild – the very shawl that James Norbury carried away from Unst; presumably the one photographed for the pattern leaflet.

And we must contain our impatience until the book is published, for she is going to tell us how it was actually knit (not in six pieces) – and who Mrs Hunter of Unst was.

It will be interesting, once both are published, to compare KD’s book to the Vintage Shetland Project, not for the patterns but for the research into the history of Shetland knitting. 

I’m pleased about the results in the Scottish election. When it comes to Nicola Sturgeon, I am rather like a 1930’s Republican, fulminating against That Man in the White House. And yesterday she didn’t have it quite all her own way.

And speaking of politics, one thing Mr Trump has achieved is to knock the “woman card” out of Hillary’s hand. Hillary-the-doting-grandmother, Hillary-the-smasher-of-glass-ceilings, doesn’t stand a chance. She can only win in the role of Hillary-the-competent-president, and quite right too.

Knitting

I spent a bit of time yesterday looking up the websites of the independent dyers profiled in the current issue of “Knitting”. Some wonderful yarn. Some websites were better than others. Today I hope to move on to interchangeable needles.

I’m sure I bought some yarn from Shilasdair many years ago, pre-internet, and it was a crashing disappointment. Dullsville. Something must have happened there over the last quarter of a century – the yarns are now luxurious and the colours vibrant. They were at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival but I didn’t even look, remembering that old disappointment. Next time, I will.

The Neap Tide shawl is now about 60cm long – we’re aiming for a metre, at the half-way point, but blocking can be counted on for at least 10cm of that. There are still 38 grams left in the ball. So I must knit on until the ball is nearly finished, or the measurement is 85cm or so, and then declare that Half Way.

I pressed ahead yesterday with my idea of re-reading Walling’s “Counting Sheep”. There is a fascinating account, early on, of the seaweed-eating sheep on North Ronaldsay. “Some attempt has been made to sell [the meat] as a gastronomic delicacy…If this were France the meat would be given an appellation controlee and sold as a gourmet product.”

As it happens, I had been exploring the possibility of ordering some North Ronaldsay mutton for my new slow cooker, only the other day. No dice, but I learned during my search that NR mutton has applied for official protected name status. Did Walling give them the idea?

I am very grateful for all your comments about interchangeable needles, which I will pursue with care and report on soon. Maybe I don’t need those smaller sizes after all. I’m with you, Melfina, in being hard on sock needles, although in my case it’s sets of four or five. I can’t stand the magic loop, probably because I haven’t given it enough of a chance.

The big domestic news is that Rachel phoned yesterday. She is going to take two days off work at the end of the month and come all the way up here to be in charge of things so that I can go off to Strathardle when Greek Helen is here with her family, and stay overnight!

Poor Perdita is in heat again, and it had already occurred to us to send her up there with Helen (if she [Perdita] can hold the thought that long). It’s our only real hope of kittens, since we can’t let her out here, straight onto a busy-ish road. I’ve tried both the vet and the Cats Protection League for help with this problem, in vain. I don’t know of any Kirkmichael toms, but a queen in heat has her ways of calling to them.

Knitting

Here’s the link (I hope) to the Knitter’s Review article about British yarn – KD’s Buachaille, Rachel Atkinson (“Daughter of a Shepherd”) and Ysolda Teague.

I think this thing about farmers burning yarn because it costs them more to shear the sheep than they can get by selling it, is a bit misleading, although perfectly true. It is not that the knitters of Britain are letting the farmers down; it is that the wool is so coarse that it is fit for nothing except carpets, and carpets have (a) gone all acrylic and (b) relocated to Belgium and the Netherlands anyway.

I would recommend an excellent book called “Counting Sheep” by Philip Walling, 2014. Indeed, I think I should start reading it again myself. I want to understand the “remarkably sophisticated stratified national meat-producing system, based on double cross-breeding, which has come to be called the sheep pyramid.” Is that what goes on in Strathardle? I thought those idle Scottish Blackface just had their lambs every spring, and some got kept to refresh the flock, and the rest turned into lamp chops. Double cross-breeding?

The interesting turning-point, in the history of British sheep, Walling says, was during the Industrial Revolution, as the great cities of England were forming, when farsighted sheepmen, in particular Robert Bakewell, saw that wool – the foundation of England’s wealth for centuries – was, in future, going to be of rather less importance than mutton, and began to breed sheep with that aim in mind. He even encouraged incest among them, to reinforce desirable characteristics, to the horror of the pious.

The author is a barrister turned sheep-farmer. He writes with a pleasant facility. Alas, he is no knitter, and there is not as much as we would like about, for instance, Shetland sheep. All is forgiven for the news that a Bluefaced Leicester “should have a head like a solicitor” – with a photograph which perfectly illustrates the point. 

Progress on the Neap Shawl feels slower now that there are so many stitches; in fact, it is moving forward nicely. I’ll stop increasing at the end of the present pattern repeat, and put in one of those stitch markers like a little plastic safety pin – normally a nuisance, but just what’s wanted here to mark the beginning of the long straight centre section. The kitchen scales assure me that there are still 57 grams in the ball -- and it's only required to get halfway across.

“Knitting” magazine turned up yesterday – I think I’ve had every issue since the beginning, although I haven’t added them to my over-extensive archives. I’ve never been tempted to knit anything I’ve seen there – is it the relatively unsophisticated photography? or the actual designs? I suspect the latter.

I was interested, however, in the pattern called “Arela”. The magazine says: “It’s two garments in one: a back-opening jumper and an elegant cardigan.” In Ohio in the 1950’s we often wore cardigans backwards. When I got to Glasgow in ’54 the notion was thought so very peculiar that I quickly abandoned it. What goes around, comes around.

But the major interest in the new issue lies elsewhere, in an article about independent dyers – much like Ginger Twist, where I recently spent a lot of money, although she isn’t included in the article. I had never thought of the basic idea of the article, that when one is laboriously constructing something, for weeks or months, it is particularly satisfying to be working with materials which are themselves unique and hand-crafted.

I’m not sure I’m quite ready for that, although it is a very interesting idea. Kate Davies’ Buachaille yarn isn’t hand-dyed (is it?), but when I finally knit something from it, I don’t think that will be a drawback.

The other idea which percolates through the current issue of “Knitting” is that of interchangeable needles (again). And, again, the drawback for me is that they don’t seem to come in the smaller sizes which is what I mostly knit with. Jeanette Sloan in “Ask Jeanette” distinctly implies that you can get them down to 2.75mm, although all the information I have so far clicked on, starts at 3.5mm or so.  Jeanette used to run an excellent LYS overlooking the Meadows: I can’t count her quite as a friend, but surely an acquaintance, and always read her article.

But this issue is full of food for thought – and things to explore on-line.

I got the latest Knitter’s Review in my email in-tray this morning – an interesting article about British yarns, prompting enough thoughts that I’ll leave it until tomorrow.

I wrote something last night, but it has vanished. Start again.

We lived in Leicester for a while – four happy years at the end of the ‘60’s, before moving on to Birmingham. My husband founded the Art History dep’t at the university there. We have no interest in football, but enough in Leicester that we rejoice this morning in their success.

I continue happily with the Neap Tide shawl. I have nearly achieved the desired width – length is still a long way short of target. If I had been paying attention to gauge from the beginning, I could have achieved a gentle curve and a relatively short centre section (knit straight) as the designer intended – but I didn’t. The centre section will have to be fairly long. Never mind; I’m going to love it anyway.

The colour might be described as “olive drab” and, together with the style of the shawl, suggests a BBC costume director’s idea for a Sunday night serial of Tess of the D’Ubervilles.  But then you see the other colours, and the shine of the silk. Very subtle, very satisfactory.

Again, little news, (and less thought) -- but that little, good.

My sister has fixed a date and booked a ticket for coming to see us at the end of June. Very good news.

I went happily on with the Neap Tide shawl. Soon I’ll have to fit it into the programme. I did some weighing and measuring and extrapolating this morning. I weighed the ball while I had the scales out for my husband’s porridge – there are still more than 70 grams there, out of 100. The width is getting on nicely. The length is still distinctly short of the metre which will be wanted at the halfway point.

But all I’ve got to do is keep adding increase-repeats of the pattern until I am satisfied with the width, and then knit straight, Centre Section-type repeats until I’ve got half the length. Keeping track a bit, so that the return half can be harmonious. 

Oh, dear – here is May, most beloved of months. And there’s no way to slow it down.

Not much today, but all good:

Knitting continues well – starting the Neap Tide shawl was the right thing for me to do. I did a bit more measuring and extrapolating yesterday, and decided that the extra stitches I have added are not nearly enough to get near the desired width, even allowing for blocking. So I am progressing through the Second Increase Section, as through the First, increasing one stitch on every right-side row. It makes for easier knitting, too; less thinking.

The current skein – there are two – looks as if it will last forever. I will re-group (=recalculate) towards the end of this section.

I wonder if this is the yarn I knit the Fantoosh in. The label doesn’t give it a name, just the fibre content and “4-ply”. The colour is called Crazy Ivan.

Another good day, yesterday. The Neap Tide shawl was just what I needed – the difference between knitting to pick up when I happened to have a chance to sit down; and knitting to contrive opportunities to get back to.

I calculated, very roughly, how many more stitches I needed to achieve the width specified in the pattern, given my gauge and given its, and I decided that two additional pattern repeats in the first Increase Section would about do it, 14 extra stitches.  Obviously, two more repeats add length as well as width. I have done that, and have now advanced to the second Increase Section, where the increases don’t come as fast.

Towards the end of this section, I should be able to get a better idea how things are going. I can add more repeats in the Centre section to increase the length, if need be. And if I decide that more width is needed, I can incorporate more stitches into the latter parts of the second Increase Section, without increasing length and at some damage to the slope of the curve.

It’s a super pattern. The yarn is wonderful too.

I often marvel at smart newspaper columnists who say that later life never involves any mathematics, so why learn all that stuff?  This particular problem was pretty elementary – I figured that I needed 25% more stitches than I had, and two pattern repeats, with increases on every pattern row, seemed to do the trick.

(And, knitting aside, what about the question, which often arises these days, of what a 1.5% tax free interest rate is worth to a basic rate? a higher rate? tax payer. That one involves elementary algebra. I can do it if I apply myself, and would feel a bit uncomfortable, I think, if I couldn’t.)

At least there’s knitting to talk about today…

Kristie alerted me to the latest news from the Vintage Shetland Project. “Publication date” is now mid-August, with the manuscript to be finished in July. I can’t entirely remember my own progression through belief to irritation to despair. I now don’t believe anything she says; I won’t be disappointed again.

If you Google the VSP, you won’t learn any more. What puzzles me slightly is that no negative note appears, at least in the first five pages. Endless praise and excitement from 2015. No references to (for instance) me. Could I be the only crowdfunder in the universe to be expressing doubt and irritation on-line? And even if so, why not cite me? I often find references to myself in Google when I look for something I’m interested in. Not this time.

What a contrast, all this, to Kate Davies’ hap book. It is already approaching the page-layout stage, and I am absolutely sure that it will appear later this year, as promised – and she doesn’t even have crowdfunders to please.

(Don’t miss Kristie’s new grandson.)

Yesterday I thought that what I needed was something new. We’ve all felt like that. So I got out my packages from the Edinburgh Yarn Festival. I wanted something that started small and simple and got bigger. I settled on Mary Lou’s “Neap Tide” pattern for which I had bought two skeins of glowing yarn (50% merino, 50% silk) from the Old Maiden Aunt.

Most of yesterday’s knitting time went into winding a skein of it. It wasn’t exactly tangled, but it wasn’t exactly straightforward either. And 400 yards is a lot of yards. But I got it done.

Then problems presented themselves. The pattern says “fingering weight yarn”. There must have been something about the yarn which suggested to me, that day at the EYF, that it was fingering weight. The label doesn’t actually say so. Mary Lou’s recommended yarn is 255 yards to 100 grams. Old Maiden Aunt (see above) has 400 yards. I hadn’t previously taken that in.

Old Maiden Aunt recommends 2-3mm needles. Mary Lou says 4.5mm. Swatching is for wimps – at least when we are talking about shawls. I went for 3.5mm and am delighted with the fabric I’m getting. But I have knitted enough to determine – no surprise – that if I persevere with the pattern as written, my shawl is going to be on the small side. I think the solution will be two extra repeats in the First Increase Section, where I now am. 

Non-knit

Thank you for your comments about my sudden swoop into the Greek alphabet yesterday. I wasn’t doing anything fancy at the time. CKP, you may well be right that I hit Alt-Shift as I was sitting here thinking what to say next. I won’t try it again, just at the moment. And I enjoyed the Wikipedia entry about “lorem ipsum”. I have often wondered. It must have been very satisfying for the scholar who identified the passage in Cicero which has been rubbished to furnish that text. 

I am enormously encouraged by your Sous Sous experience, Pascoag Girl (comment yesterday). We’ll both get there in the end, I am sure. And, for the moment, I feel I have your permission to knit on, on the half-brioche sweater. I am within about four rows of finishing the tedious initial ribbing on the front.

I am also enormously encouraged by having been able to write the preceding paragraph. I was sitting here just now, blamelessly arranging my thoughts, when the computer went ding, ding, ding and thereafter everything I typed was in the Greek alphabet. Even when I closed Word and went back to my emails, everything I said was in Greek. If I had tried to do it, it would have taken me at least an agonized half-hour. I solved the problem (thank goodness) by restarting the computer. I want to try to find out what combination of keys I must have hit to produce so remarkable an effect, but meanwhile I am profoundly grateful to be back with Times Roman.

I think I felt a bit as King Midas must have, when everything he touched turned to gold. It’s no use invoking Help and typing in “alphabet” if you type in “alphabet” in Greek and Help says it doesn’t know what you mean.

My husband has a genius for creating unexpected computer problems by just looking at the screen, but even he has never achieved that one.

Genetics: Rachel says that Thomas and Lizzie, the eldest and youngest of her four children, have her brown eyes -- Thomas, of course, being the father of the wonderful Juliet. My own eyes are a sort of washed-out blue, and my husband has always claimed that his are hazel. He was an orphan when I met him. We have a drawing of his father which makes it pretty clear that his eyes were light in colour, but I don’t know about his mother. And you may well be right, Knitlass, that Juliet’s eyes are kitten-blue at the moment, rather than brown. 

Howzzat! for the new header. That’s Juliet, of course. Her grandmother Rachel has beautiful brown eyes. Neither my husband nor I do – so the gene must be recessive. Is that right? I can’t remember her father Thomas’s eyes.

I must at least add an email to the designer of the Dunfallandy blankie to my to-do list, however far down.

Yesterday was a bit better on the knitting front, not much.

I finished the back of the half-brioche sweater, and cast on the front. My mistake, I now see clearly, was abandoning the Sous Sous at a point where so much fiddle is needed. I can’t pick it up and just knit for comfort – and that (comfort knitting), for very much the most part, is what I need.

I’ve got to attach that 4-stitch edging to the back neck. And then cast off the front shoulders and sew them to the back shoulders – I have established, for my own purposes at least, that grafting won’t be possible. And then, counting carefully, choose the spot and pick up stitches for the sleeves. I should have done all that before I laid it aside. Now, it all seems too difficult whenever I contemplate it.

At least I did something yesterday.

And I have also seen Kate Davies’ list of designers for the Hap Shawl book. It was among my “Promotions” and I deleted it too hastily. They are all designers I know, or at least know of, and am interested in. This book is going to be seriously good.

Non-knit

Archie came around yesterday afternoon, briefly, after a dismal-sounding trudge through the hail trying to open a bank account. The best he could achieve was an appointment to see someone a day or two hence. He has a test today on King Lear. I mentioned my favourite line, Lear with Cordelia’s body in his arms, “Never, never, never, never, never” – iambic pentameter turned on its head into a string of trochees.

He didn’t know it, although he knew “Howl howl howl” from the beginning of the same brief scene. So I have added a few syllables to his store of possible quotations. 

I am sorry for the silence. I haven’t been doing any knitting, either. I must somehow get a grip on what remains of life. I have finished, but not yet bound off, the back of the half-brioche sweater. That’s all. Last night I dreamed that I had been buying yarn.

I had a grand time at Merchiston on Friday evening. There was an early and rather tasty supper with a dozen or more boys who asked intelligent and interested-sounding questions so that James could scarcely eat. They took this group picture for the school magazine. It is rather bleached by the late afternoon sun. It shows James, me, Archie, and his younger brother Fergus:

Archie said that the dress code specified in the three-line whip inviting them to supper was “smart casual”. The Drake boys clearly put the emphasis on the second of those words. Everybody else wore suits.

There were three or four dozen more at the subsequent talk. That went well too. It was a fun occasion. It was also nice having James here, not for Christmas or Easter or any Event that meant that we had to do anything.

When we were sipping our orange juice before our supper, a Chinese boy told James that he had seen him doing a podcast somewhere recently, and thought he spoke better Chinese than any other foreigner he had ever heard. That was very nice.

Yesterday was Perdita’s first birthday. We celebrated quietly.

All of this may or may not be of mild interest, but it’s not about knitting.

I trust we have all seen Kate Davies’ blog post about the final work on her haps book. Wonderful photographs as always. I’m greatly looking forward to that one. The next time we have a great-grandchild, if I’m still about, it will have a hap from that book. 

Again, little to report.

Except that my husband is safely home from hospital. He arrived at midday, unannounced and with a catheter. I had an anxious time – would the social services carer and the district nurses turn up at the end of the afternoon? That sort of thing is all supposed to be arranged by the hospital before release, but we have had glitches before, and the catheter made it scarier.

In fact, they did turn up, although later rather than earlier, thus contributing to further stress. Catheter management is pretty simple (as I thought it would be).

I did virtually no knitting. There were a few available moments at the very end, and I did maybe half a round on the sock. There must be a better way.

Today James will arrive to give his talk at Merchiston. A friend has valiantly offered to hold the fort here at that difficult time of day, so I can go both to the 5:30 feed beforehand and to the talk.

I probably won’t be back here tomorrow. Don’t worry.

Happy Birthday to the Queen. She is doing a good deal better than my husband is, at 90. And her husband, rather underestimated, I feel, at 94, is doing better yet.

My husband, however, within the given parameters, is doing pretty well, and may be home today. He is off oxygen, and saturations are good. Antibiotics have been reduced to pills, I think – we can manage that at home. He had a catheter yesterday. I would have to be told how to manage that, but it couldn’t be very difficult.

I was there when a dr came around yesterday, who more or less said that he could come home. My husband had gained a different impression from a different doctor in the morning. The thing about the Assessment ward – I was there myself last summer, with my pulmonary embolisms – is that sometimes you see the specialist assigned to your problem, and sometimes the Omnium Gatheruzxmsa[asw=[- -- what does Perdita want? – the Omnium Gatherum Assessment doctor. Yesterday’s exemplar didn’t entirely seem to grasp the multiple systems which have to be put in order when someone with my husband’s multiple problems is discharged.

So this morning I sit tight, waiting for the telephone. I had allowed myself to think that if this ordeal dragged on as others have, I might desert my post and go to Strathardle for a two-nighter, with my cat. The weather is beyond blissful, as Knitlass has indicated. That is probably not to be, and it is far better for my husband to be at home.

James will be here tomorrow, to give a talk at Archie’s school, Merchiston Castle, about matters Chinese. It will be good to see him. He’ll go south again on Saturday.

And, oh yes, knitting.

I found the Sous Sous pattern. It had migrated out of the sitting room to a position in the catalogue room which it couldn’t have reached either by the agency of a carer or of a cat. Oh, dear. I went on with the half-brioche, however. Only one more complete pass remains – first this way and then that, with first this colour and then the other.

And during the hospital visit, I did finish the first yarn cake and did attach the second, from the middle.

I’m sort of catching up with Craftsy. I’ve got an awful lot of half-viewed courses, and have added more recently. I am much taken with Bruce Weinstein on Combination Knitting. He promises greater speed. He is the designer of the sweater I knit for Archie a year or so ago, so I feel we are acquainted, although I am disconcerted to learn that he pronounces the two syllables of his surname differently despite the apparent similarity of the vowels.

But he is persuasive. Maybe I’ll even take an evening off and do a swatch for him.

Non-knit

I loved this, from this morning’s Scotsman, in an article on dementia: “Smoking, drinking excessive alcohol and eating less sugar are among the actions we could all take to help make our brains more healthy…” I don’t smoke, but otherwise…

So – it’s Hillary. I guess we always knew that, really.

I am rather embarrassed at how much quicker you were than I, at finding my glasses. (Comments, yesterday.) They were on the floor – that has happened before, in the history of the world – fairly near the chair where I put them, but not so near that they could have got there under their own steam. A furry paw must have been involved.

My husband seemed much better yesterday, although still with oxygen up his nose and on a course of intravenous antibiotics. He is in an Assessment Ward, which encourages us to hope he will be out soon. Alexander and I got there at an inappropriate (=non-visiting-hours) time yesterday, since we didn’t know what ward he was in, nor what its rules were, when we set out. They were generous and hospitable, but it wasn’t ideal. Today I will go at the right time. I will try hard to talk to a doctor. I’ll also take in some day clothes. Getting dressed always seems like progress.

A total strike of junior hospital doctors is planned for next week. It would be interesting to be in a hospital when that happens, if it does.

As for knitting, not much sock at the hospital, under the circumstances. Here they are. What I have done – daft! – is simply to continue with the first cake of yarn, after finishing the first sock. When it gives up – soon; surely today – I will switch to drawing from the centre of the second cake, so that the colours go back in the other direction. Although of course they won’t get all the way back to bright pink.

If only there were a little more yarn in each cake, I could go ahead and knit a third sock for a three-legged friend or, failing that, leaving the wearer free to choose any two on a given day. But for that, I would need to get half-way through the current sock before switching yarn cakes, and clearly that won’t happen.

At home I went on with half-brioche. I wound another skein of Whiskey Barrel – that, too, always seems like progress. Part of my excuse for not turning back to the Sous Sous, is that I can’t find the pattern. When my husband was in bed last weekend, I had carers seize the chance to clean the sitting room, where he usually spends the day.

In order to gain access to the floor, it was necessary to amalgamate our multiple piles of paper. Somewhere in the amalgamated piles, that pattern must be (and, at the worst, it’s in my Ravelry library). But the other pattern came to light promptly, and there I have stuck. I might even reach the bind-off today.

My husband is back in hospital. The doctor came and found that there was even less oxygen in his blood than the day before. Our resistance crumbled. There followed a long day of waiting, first for the ambulance and then for a hospital doctor. And then – although by that time I had gone home – for a bed. The doctor was cheerful about it. “It’s always like this on Mondays.”

I got on with the socks. It took a while to get my fingers re-accustomed to sock knitting, and another while to finish the ribbing of the second sock. I think sock-ribbing is the kind I like least. But it’s done, and more hospital sitting should mean good progress today. Alexander is coming over.

In the evening I watched an episode of The Night Manager – too complicated for my husband – and knit half-brioche. I’m within hailing distance of finishing the back.

And this morning I have been overtaken by the One Impossible Disaster. I can’t find my glasses. This happens to other people all the time – never to me because, since childhood, the last thing I do at night is take them off and put them beside the bed. And the first thing I do in the morning is reach out and get them and put them on.

There was one memorable occasion in Oberlin when I had put them on the floor beside the bed and swung my feet out in the morning and stepped on them. I never did that again.

But this morning, impossibly, they are not to be found. An old pair from the drawer will serve, just about; uncomfortable, but safe to drive, anyway. I don’t know what to do. There’s nowhere else to look – and they simply aren’t there. Phone the oculist.

Somehow or other I had got out of sync with Franklin’s Lion Brand Notebook. I spent some happy time yesterday catching up. Notification turns up amongst my “Promotions”, along with messages from Susan Crawford about the latest postponement of the Vintage Shetland Project. (There’s nothing new from that source.) I must have missed several. I particularly like his latest, about the Franklin Habit Home for Neglected Knitting Projects.

Still very little knitting. Is this a symptom of a deeper malaise? James’ wife Cathy asked me early last week for the Latin for “Help! I’m dissolving!” (Something to do with something she’s writing.) I offered “Subvenite! Liquor!” and have wondered since if I should adopt it as my own motto. I discovered in the course of looking things up that Ovid says somewhere of somebody that she “…liquitur in lacrimas” (= ”…dissolves into tears”). It’s always slightly disconcerting to find a modern phrase in the Bible or Shakespeare or, in this case, Ovid.

I’m sorry for my absence. My husband has another chest infection. Perhaps more accurately, his chronic condition has flared up again. Our GP suspected trouble when he was here on Wednesday, and prescribed a course of antibiotics now half-finished. But my husband continued to weaken and this morning his diabetic nurse told me to phone the emergency NHS weekend number.

A nice doctor came fairly promptly and wanted to send my husband off to hospital yet again. We demurred, and he acquiesced, too polite to ask why we had called him out if we weren’t going to take his advice. My husband has been in bed all day, too weak to totter about, disagreeable but clear-headed. I don’t think he lost ground during the day. Tomorrow we’ll call our own doctor.

Knitting

I have got as far as to hold the shoulders of the Sous Sous up against each other, and I even tried slipping a needle through some of the bound-off stitches on the back shoulder, to see if I could by that means, graft them to the live stitches of the front. It soon became obvious that the answer was, no. And just at the right moment, I read your heartening comment, Mary Lou, to the effect that a grafted shoulder might not be strong enough anyway to hold up this fairly hefty item.

So the next thing is to do the binding-off and start seaming. But all that has actually happened is a few more rows of half-brioche.

Grandmother Rachel just emailed to say that Juliet smiled at her yesterday – aged five weeks exactly. Early but not implausible. It has always seemed to me wonderful that the first thing a child learns to do is something so utterly human.

And another thing that seems wonderful, in a thoroughly imperfect world, is that English asparagus and Jersey Royal potatoes appear in the supermarket at the same instant. I’m sure neither were there when I last was, on Saturday. We had them for supper last night, with a bit of haddock. My husband didn’t think the asparagus was very good.

Knitting

I took myself in hand and went back to the Sous Sous. I have extended the four-stitch ribbed edging to a length which should reach around the back of the neck. The next instruction is to graft the live stitches from the front shoulder to the bound-off ones of the back – “or, alternatively, cast off the stitches and sew shoulders together” – a rare touch of insouciance, for a knitting pattern. I love grafting, so I’ll at least attempt the former option.

I haven’t matched front and back yet. The back shoulder stitches were sloped, a few cast off at the beginnings of many rows. It would have been a bit fiddly, but by no means impossible, to keep them live for future grafting. I wish I had read the pattern through at the start, but I am sure that is a virtue I will never acquire.

Comments

Thank you very much, Lisa, for guiding me to the Ravelry page with the patterns from Valimaki’s “Color Wheel Knits”. She is a designer I very much like, and there are some good things there – but I now know that I don’t need the book, at least, not right now.

Joni and Tamar, thank you for guiding me to Franklin’s colouring book. I pre-ordered it from Amazon.co.uk even before reading the next comment. Isn’t this an extraordinary phenomenon, adult colouring books? One likes to imagine the marketing meeting at which a Brash Young Person suggested such a preposterous idea. And now it turns out to be the Next Big Thing! Where does anyone find the time to do all that colouring-in?

Knitlass, I hope you have a grand time at the Knitting and Stitching show. My husband and I went to one at the Ally Pally once. The astonishing thing, which he remembers as vividly as I do, was the Japanese pavilion. So it must have been 2001 when we were there. The journey to north London was well worth it for that alone. 

I’m not getting much knitting done. Can I reconstruct my day? The limitations are fairly strict. I keep sinking down and knitting a few peaceful rows of half-brioche – I’m a couple of inches beyond the underarm cast-off by now; and that’s all.

One bit of knit-related news, though. I got a picture of myself back from the framer yesterday, and hung it up. My sister commissioned Franklin to do it in 2006. Eventually one gets around to things. Sorry about the reflections.

I love Carol Sunday’s “Nancy’s Vest”.

I had a good day in Strathardle, but a very strange one. The house is fine – the water went on without difficulty, and there were no leaks. There have been mice but not too many  –  the house had been empty for seven months, after all. 

The garden is ragged. My husband and I, even tottering on senility, had been able to accomplish quite a lot just by being there and helping out one plant or another with weeding and feeding and mulching. Several had perished – including, alas, the pinus bungeana, perhaps for lack of that attention in 2015. I devoted the time and strength I had to rescuing from beneath the weeds a little, late-blooming rose my husband is fond of. It is almost the last survivor of the roses the last full-time occupant of the house loved and tended, and one I have not been able to find in the books: a red floribunda with clusters of single flowers. It suffered from last year’s neglect, but it’s still alive.

Here's the rose, when I had finished with it:

And here’s a recently-planted white lilac, as an example of a plant badly in need of a similar session:

(We're famous in the village for our daffys -- those aren't all, by any means.)

Maybe we should replace the bungeana with another pinus sylvestris aurea. But for the moment, we’ll wait to see whether it pulls itself together. Spring is a wonderful season.

It was odd being there alone. And, odder, walking down the drive and feeling weak and remembering how I didn’t feel this weak, the last time I was here.

Knitting

The first half-brioche sweater was, as it happened, lying out in the sitting room when I got there, much reduced by moths and perhaps even mice. But enough remains to make it clear that, as I thought, it is a straightforward number with front attached to back at the shoulders; no saddle. I can’t remember the source of the yarn – as with the present effort, it was one solid and a toning variegated. I was very fond of it, but it tended to shed and my husband eventually forbade me to wear it in Drummond Place.

VK was waiting for me when I got back, the perfect end to the day. I don’t need another project but I like what I see, overall. Yoko Hatta’s duster, no. 16, perhaps top of the list, but there are a number of other things of interest. I don’t remember an issue where a single designer has had so many things as Hatta does here.

Does anyone know anything about Color Wheel Knits by Veera Valimaki? There are no reviews yet on amazon.com. I don’t want a book that’s “just patterns” unless, like early Kaffe, it’s one I’ve got to have. 

As for actual knitting, not much of which has been done lately, I hope to resume the Sous Sous today.

Very little to report. I scarcely knit, yesterday. If I’m back in the saddle today, I should reach the armpit decreases on the half-brioche sweater and be ready to switch back to the Sous Sous.

Thank you very much indeed, Skeindalous and Catherine, for the reference to Matthew 12 (comments yesterday).  I’m sure that’s what I was thinking of – and it’s maddening to have something on the tip of one’s mind like that. The only NT commentary (Knox) I have in the house is a bit puzzled by the passage, and certainly offers no line of thought which might be applied to stash-enhancement. Be careful, is my only conclusion.

But I’m glad I am buying for specific projects and hope that I can, at least, stick to that.

I’m glad to have such good reports of the Crazy Stripes Tee, from Mary Lou and Kristie. And, oh! Kristie, you are right – I bought the yarn for KD’s Northmavine Hap when we were in Jamieson & Smith that day, and I have even started it, and it’s all in a shoebox here and should have been listed.

I probably won’t reappear here until Tuesday at the earliest. I’ll have to spend leisure moments today preparing to leave all behind on Monday, when I am to go to Strathardle. I need to write out a programme-of-the-day for my husband’s meals and medication.

It will be wonderful to be there. Will this be the first time since Pentecost, 2014? when Rachel and Ed came up and took us there for a two-nighter. It is impossible to believe I have been away so long, and equally impossible to think of a later trip. I am not feeling terribly strong, and still don’t know whether this is the inevitable decline or the lingering effect of last summer’s pulmonary embolisms (in which latter case, I might still improve a bit).

 All I hope to do is to ensure that everything is all right – most especially, that when I turn the water on, it stays where it belongs. The people who sold the house to us (and for whom it was also a second home) gave up when they got there in the spring of 1963 and turned the water on and it all came down into the kitchen from the tank above. But ’62-’63 was an especially savage winter. I remember it in some detail – Greek Helen was born in that January.

I’m hopeful – but I don’t trust water.

I will take a thousand pictures. I will go down the commonty to see our trees. If I have the strength actually to do anything – and if it is still alive – I will weed and mulch our pinus bungeana. It is a tree which often grows in the courtyards of Chinese temples. This will have been its third winter, I think. Or fourth? It replaces the pinus sylvestris aurea – the golden Scots Pine -- which our children gave us as a golden wedding present and which was eaten by a neighbour’s horse. I couldn’t bear to just buy another, so we went for Something Completely Different.

You might as well hear the worst: I went to the Ginger Twist Studio yesterday, and I bought some yarn.

Somewhere, very likely in the Bible, there is an image of a house or stable being swept clean only to make room for worse. I’d be very  glad to know the source of that, if anyone recognizes the idea I’m groping towards. And be warned by me, that a purge of stash can lead to an excess of yarn-buying.

It might be as well to list my USO’s (UnStarted Objects), for my own sake as much as yours:

                (sock yarn doesn’t count)

                Jamieson & Smith Shetland Heritage yarn, purchased on the spot in 2013 (was it?) for a sleeveless Fair Isle vest

                Madtosh Tannehill DK for a sweater for my husband; my sister has that lot in CT and will bring it here later this year

                Nature’s Luxury wool, silk & camel, for Mary Lou’s Bidwell shawl

                Oldmaidenaunt merino&silk, gosh it’s beautiful, for Mary Lou’s Neap Tide shawl

                Skein Queen merino & cashmere, for Mia Rinde’s Cameo Flower shawl from Knitty

                Whistlebare mohair and wensleydale, plus a pack of their coordinated skeins for striping, for Carol Feller’s Yorkshire Capelet from IK

                (That’s four from the EYF. I thought there were only three.)

                And today’s purchase: Ginger’s hand-dyed Luscious 4-ply, blue-faced Leicester, silk & wool, to be striped with 5 graduated skeins from the Big Boys, purchased recently at Kathy’s Knits when I was there with J. and her daughter Emily.

I was thinking of knitting yet another Relax, and striping that. ButI am now rather taken with Atelier Alfa’s “Crazy Stripes Tee” which I found after I got home yesterday – How? From Flipboard? So I’ll contemplate that as a possible pattern, and perhaps print it out (I’ve bought it) and store with the yarn. I doubt if the five Big Boy “cakes” would be enough to stripe the pattern as written, but adjustments may be possible.

                You’ll have to agree that the list is already past ridiculous. And that’s assuming nobody has any babies for a while.

                The Ginger Twist Studio is tiny, and delightful. No branded yarn; all local. The proprietors are American and my Bernie Sanders sweat shirt was applauded. 

On I go. Only a few centimetres – and fewer inches – left before the armhole decreases on my half-brioche sweater. The Sous Sous was abandoned in an uncomfortable position, with fiddly bits next instead of peaceful knitting. I had better get back to it soon.

I have discovered some sort of mis-stitch, hundreds of miles down one of the WB ribs. Do I dare try to ladder back?

I was briefly inflamed with the idea of walking up to the Ginger Twist Studio on Tuesday, since I had to go up to St James’ Centre anyway and that must be nearly halfway. Alas! Ginger Twist is closed on Tuesdays. I have to go up again soon, and will make another attempt. I am not as strong as I used to be, but I think the walk is still within range.

The shop looks very interesting, from its website, with luxurious yarns dyed locally. I am much taken with the Luscious 4-ply – blue-faced Leicester, silk, cashmere. But there are other possibilities I might prefer, when face-to-face. The trouble is a) I feel I ought to buy something, whenever I visit an enterprising and independent LYS, which this clearly is (as I feel in a second-hand bookshop); and b) I have an idea of something I might like to knit.

That’s a trouble, because I already have the three projects I bought at the EYF, neatly tucked away with their appropriate patterns. All relatively small projects, but still, three of them. And the madtosh Tannehill which my sister will bring relatively soon (I hope, for the sake of seeing her), intended for a sweater for my husband. And what if Hellie and Matt get pregnant?

So I don’t need another project.

But it's wonderful what can get done, if one goes on doing.

Miscellaneous

There is going to be an Edinburgh Knitting and Stitching show at the Royal Highland Centre at the end of this month – a first for Edinburgh. This is what goes on at the Ally Pally from time to time, isn’t it? They have emailed me asking me to go free and blog about it. I am flattered to be noticed, especially because the EYF, in summing up, mentioned a whole host of blogs about themselves – but not me.

But I’m not strong enough, so soon after the EYF. And I suspect, looking at the interesting list of workshops, that the show is more stitching than knitting.

Another good day for Bernie! New York will be very interesting.

All continues well on the knitting front.

I’ll have to make myself a little schematic. The pattern is so old it doesn’t even offer one. I think the other time I knit something with this stitch pattern – the half-brioche I keep going on about – it was completely plain. This time I’ll go with the pattern in having what I called the other day, saddle shoulders.

What happens is that the front and back don’t attach to each other at the shoulder. Instead, there is a strip at the top of each sleeve which runs between front and back, up to the neck edge. Is that a “saddle shoulder”? I’ll try to make the round neck a little lower than round necks used to be. Lots of necklines have lowish round necks these days. The one fashion tip which has registered with me, in a long life, is that collars flatter the aged face. The collar being provided by something worn underneath, of course.

And I mustn’t forget the Sous Sous. When I reach the underarm decreases, at the very latest.

I remain very grateful for the introduction to Nathan Taylor, and it is remarkable, as you say, Hat, that one so young could make such progress in knitting, especially while concentrating his life on something else (=acting). I have started to watch the videos you provided the link for – he’s good at video-making, too – but I don’t at the moment think I’m going to try to teach my old fingers to do two-colour brioche in one pass. I’m enjoying life in the slow lane (except that there’s so much I want to knit, and time is running out).

You were knitting something from that little book called “Knitting Brioche-stitch Socks” (by Barbara Sander) the day we met, Hat. I bought the book and then, as with so much else, have done no more about it. Now, at least, I have got it out and am thinking about it again.

Non-knit

Greek Helen and her family are planning a week in Strathardle at the end of May. We are trying to contrive a plan to get my husband there, at least for a day. He doesn’t think he can do it, but I hope the idea will percolate. We’d have to take a carer along. It would be sort of sad, as it would almost certainly be the last time he would see the dear place. But not as sad as not seeing it, surely.

It’s Lizzie’s birthday today, Rachel and Ed’s youngest child. When I was young, a baby born on the last day of the tax year (which this is) was a great blessing, as the parents were able to claim it as a tax-deductible dependent for the entire year. Alas, that privilege was withdrawn even before Lizzie was born, but we love her anyway.

I hadn’t intended to give the impression that brioche stitch is in any way difficult. It’s perfectly easy, for the hands. It’s just that I am trying to figure out what the yarn actually does – that’s trickier.

EZ has a hat in KWT in “prime rib” or brioche stitch. She makes it sound as if she approaches it with some caution. She also says, pace Marchant, that brioche stitch and fisherman’s rib are not the same. Both writers could be right – maybe the yarn traces the same course in both cases, but the methods of doing it (knitting below;  or slipping a stitch wyif, passing the yarn over it, and knitting the two together in the next row) may produce a different effect.

I’ve never tried all that fancy stuff in the books, where the brioche ribs swirl about and even cross over each other. Maybe one day.

At any rate, my iPad was persuaded to give up its treasures due to the intervention of a kind friend, and here’s where we were a day or two ago:

I realize with something of a start, that I’m going to have to decide what I’m doing. The pattern I am vaguely following is for a man. It has a placket front and saddle shoulders. Do I want that? If not, what do I want? I love the fabric I’m producing – but decisions must be made.

Thank you for the introduction to Nathan Taylor, Anonymous. (Comment yesterday) I don’t think I’ve heard of him, although obviously I should have since he published a shawl pattern in VK recently. And he was at the EYF! What a lot of famous knitters I missed!

I had feared that the organisers might be overcome with the sheer exhaustion of it all, and might be planning to spend the next few years in recovery on a remote Hebridean island, but no! There is to be an EYF in 2017 and the dates are fixed. Now all we need is Franklin.

Non-knit

A neighbour here in Drummond Place has Strathardle associations, and a little house of her own somewhere in the vicinity. She has offered to drive me up on Monday, when she has to meet some builders. I don’t think I was there at all in 2015. Is that possible? That dear place is so much in my thoughts that it feels as if I am constantly there.

But this time last year, I was in Athens. And not long after that, my husband’s hospital ordeals began. 

More new followers! Welcome! Welcome!

We had a stranger this morning as our Edinburgh Council carer. She hadn’t been briefed, and when we met at the door, she assumed I was her charge. It was a bit disconcerting. It won’t be long.

I’m hugely enjoying my Half Brioche Experience, although I’m not making much progress with my goal of understanding the stitch. Every text I turn to seems to approach it differently.

My pattern is as follows. “wb” means madtosh DK “Whiskey Barrel” and “rhc” means “Roasted Hatch Chillies”. K1b and p1b mean to knit, or purl, into the stitch below the next stitch on the left-hand needle:

11.     RS, with wb, p1, k1b across, then p1

22.   RS, with rhc, purl

33.    WS, with wb, k1, p1b across, then k1

44.    WS, with rhc, knit

I hope that makes sense.

The k1b’s and the p1b’s are all concerned with the columns of apparent knit stitches, as viewed from the front. Since the knitting and purling below is entirely done with wb, it is no surprise that those stitches look entirely wb. The rhc yarn sort of slips behind when you knit into the stitch below it.

The purl columns puzzle me more. In fact, there is no funny business there at all. They are purled on the right side, by both yarns, and then knit on the wrong side, likewise. So why, on the right side, do they look so completely rhc? The purl columns have twice as many stitches as the knit columns, since there is no knitting below. Maybe that has something to do with it.

“Half brioche” because half of the rows are plain knit or purl? Or because only half of the stitches are ever knit or purled below? Or are those two conditions interlocked?

“Look at your knitting” was one of the wisest of EZ’s wise maxims. In this case, it isn’t doing me much good yet.

I’ve got the XRX book called “Knit One Below”, and Tarasovich-Clark’s “Brioche Chic”, as well as Marchant, so there is much to explore. I might even wind up tempted to swatch.

I took some pictures for you, and mailed them to myself from the iPad. They whooshed off in appropriate fashion, but never arrived at the other end. I have a feeling this has happened before, but if so I have forgotten the remedy.

And another follower! Hi!

A good day, yesterday.

First of all, I met one of you – we’ll call her J. – and her Oberlin-graduate daughter Emily (see yesterday’s comment). We met in Kathy’s Knits and did a certain amount of yarn-buying all around, and then went around the corner to Angelina’s for coffee and scones and talking which could have gone on a lot longer.

I bought a set of graduated yarns, partly, perhaps, inspired by the class I had taken with Carol Feller at the EYF., partly because I don't like to leave an LYS (or an independent bookstore) without buying something, Emily asked what I was going to do with them. Good question. But I think I have at least a tentative answer – her mother J. was wearing her Relax and I suddenly remembered how much I love that pattern, both the knitting and the wearing of. So maybe one day I will do it again, with the graduated yarn as stripes starting near or at the bottom. All I need to do is to find the right madtosh near-solid for the rest of it. And time, and time.

Later, I started my half-brioche sweater. How very second-millennium it felt, to be knitting k1 p1 back and forth in DK over 83 stitches! But it produced a deep rib very briskly, and I have now gone on to the real pattern.

This time I really mean to figure out what I am doing – or, rather, what the yarn is doing. The effect, on the right side, is of a rib with the knit stitches in one colour and the purls in the other. The reverse is messier-looking. I got Marchant’s book out. The net result was to confuse, but I have at least discovered that she regards k1b and p1b (which is what I am doing) as producing an identical result to slipped stitches paired with YO’s and knit or purled together as one on the next row (which is her preferred technique).  

I have other books besides hers, including the XRX “Knit Below”. It is obvious from the beginning that this group of stitches admits of a great deal of variation.

My pattern, at least, is easy and stress-free.  It involves nothing more nerve-wracking than knitting or purling into the stitch below the next stitch on the left-hand needle (which is – if you’ve never tried it – a remarkably easy and comfortable thing to do). The stitch itself, when thus inevitably slipped off the needle, forms a sort of YO over the stitch just knit.

I’ll continue to report on my discoveries, at least until I slouch back and just enjoy the process.

Non-knit

The gov’t has just made a “living wage” mandatory for all workers over 25. I wish I knew the carers who are keeping my husband and me afloat well enough to ask how much they earn by the hour. They are all skilled and pleasant and patient and efficient at their difficult job, some more than others but all well within acceptable parameters. Some are employed by Edinburgh Council – the famous “care package” that my husband couldn’t be released from hospital without – and some by a private firm which provides us with invaluable help for a few hours daily – so that I can get out and meet knitters, among other things.

The “living wage” sounds to me far too little to reward what they do. 

New follower! Hi!

Little to report. The Sous Sous decreases are done and today I will lay it aside in favour of starting my half-brioche sweater at last. But don’t forget, Jean – the Sous Sous isn’t finished. I wound a skein of the Roast Hatch Chillies in December to knit a Christmas present hat, and I can’t find the ball. That’s a nuisance, but only a small one. I’ll be starting off with good old Whiskey Barrel, anyway.

I know Meg has unvented a way to knit brioche in the round, but I’m not going to attempt it. This is going to be an old-fashioned number: front, back, two sleeves, sew them together. The late and much lamented Judy Sumner assigned different days of the week to different WIPs. I prefer to set goals: I’ll work on the back of the new sweater until the ribbing is finished and the glories of the pattern established.

Speaking of brioche, I see that Nancy Marchant will be at the Loch Ness Knit Fest at the end of September. I couldn’t get into her class at the EYF, even ten minutes after booking started. Starmore will be there, and Di Gilpin, and other folk unknown to me. There will be knit cruises on the loch and it all sounds rather fun.

Vintage Shetland Project

Guess what? The promised “early April” date for publication joins the other promises on the scrap heap. Now it’s “just a few weeks later than planned”. So – May? June? We’re getting rather close to the first anniversary of the crowdfunding episode. That was early July last year, with publication promised for November.

“Every new lead takes time to follow up” – that’s a dangerous path to go down. One of the attractions of the crowdfunding pitch was that she had a good track record, with the Stitch in Time books. I thought she could be trusted to pull this one off, too.

I still think she probably will, but I’m getting crosser and crosser. And she must have known for a couple of weeks, at least, that she wasn’t going to make the “early April” deadline. Why not tell us?  Why let us wait until the promised month arrived before breaking the (new) bad news?