More cheerful.

The Wingspan proceeded well yesterday. I finished the 4^th triangle, started on the 5^th. At the end – after the 8^th – one has to knit four rows across the whole top edge, before casting off. That means that if one is using two 50-gram balls of sock yarn, as I am, it is important that the first ball is not entirely exhausted until somewhere in the 5^th. And that is what is happening.

Books

1) I found my new “Fair Isle Knitting Patterns” book from the Shetland Times.

The idea I was trying to remember yesterday is this:

Patterns must (obviously) fit into the number of stitches available. This book says that “the patterns should be of similar size in terms of number of stitches so that they sit on top of each other vertically”. So, for instance, if you have a convenient number of stitches in total like 240, you should restrict yourself to a “family” of pattern repeats: 3,6,12,24 or 4,8,16, or 5,10,20,40.

I’ll have to think about that. I don’t remember that I’ve ever met that idea before, face to face, although I’m sure it must be there somewhere in Starmore. I’m quite sure I’ve never employed it in my own Fair Isles.

[Else, that was an interesting remark of yours yesterday, about the Prince of Wales’s neckline. Here’s another for you, although not so dramatically low: Beverley Nichols when he published his autobiography at the age of 25, in 1926. “Authentic” costumes on our screens endlessly dress men in Fair Isle, but never with a scooped neck.]

2) I got “Sock Yarn Studio” from Amazon.

The back story there is that when I found earlier in the week that my credit card didn’t work for digital downloads, I tried buying a flesh and blood book to see what would happen. It went through without a hitch, leading both me and the nice lady at Amazon to think for a while that only digital downloads were blocked.

What had actually happened was that Amazon was briefly out of stock. One isn’t charged until the book is actually dispatched, and by the time they were ready to do that, the problem had been resolved.

It’s good, the "Sock Yarn Studio", including a really rather super ear-flap hat from Franklin. Goodness, the man is clever.

The point of the book is, how to deal with one’s sock-yarn stash. There are patterns for the odd balls – my odd-ball bag is now far weightier than my sock-yarn bag – and patterns for a sock’s worth of yarn if you don’t want to knit socks. Like me and the Wingspan at the moment. Seriously good patterns. Good value.