Lace At Last

Thank you for the suggestions about my bikini-shaped swatches, but I think the thong-wearing days of the Comtesse de Ribes (b. 1931) are past, as indeed are my own. Mostly. Thanks too for the info about the YSL docos, Gretchen. I've put them on my list.

A second cone of white laceweight merino arrived from the lovely Linda yesterday, so I will be able to do the white maybe-Christening shawl double-stranded without having to wind any off, oh joy, oh bliss. The second cone is merino from Tasmania, which is exciting. It's a creamy white which brings the bright white down to a softer shade. As soon as it arrived I started a swatch (in my pyjamas) but in fact I couldn't see a good reason to cast off so I've kept going and it's no longer a swatch but the start of the shawl. It's so nice to have something dainty on the needles again.

The sheet it's pinned to is pale blue, by the way, not dingy white. I got out the Brasso and polished my Addi lace needles before I started: they're gleaming. I'm not going to do a square or a circle. It'll just be a triangular Swallowtail. The only problem I had with the double strands was with the slip stitch in the sl 1, k 1, psso, so I'm now doing that as a k2tog through the back loops, and it's working more easily. I'll worry later about whether they will actually want a christening shawl, or whether they already have some elderly female relative to placate.

I've finished the back of Billie. I thought I wasn't going to need all the yarn but then I remembered the hood. I'm still very happy with the colour and it's going a little quicker than I expected.

The baby in Dubai has arrived and is a little girl. Both well. I'm beginning to think I might give the green and cream Pinwheel to her after all. I'm on the last cream stripe and then I have two balls of Sea Spray which would do a fancy cast off. It also occurs to me that I have some* of the distressed green version of this yarn and that could soften it a bit. Here it is, with a cabled swatch that I have no memory of knitting.


The problem with keeping it for the August baby is that in Scotland green and white stripes indicate support of a particular football team, and my friends may not be able to put up with the jokes. I'll have to make the Dubai baby a Daisy Hat, as her big sister and her cousin each have one so it's a bit of a tradition. She may be going to be named Ava.

I watched what I thought was the last Wallander of the second series. I had expected the ghastly young couple to be finally sacked because they were sucking face in a squad car while the suspect arrived and got her head caved in with a poker, but they were bright-eyed as ever, and allowed to graduate. Then the whiny girl was again put in danger and nastily beaten up (have I mentioned the amount of threatened or actual violence to women in the second series?) and again did something very stupid. Wallander then took it upon himself to risk his career and his pension in order to cover up for her. Give me a break. One always expects a series to like this to fall off a bit when they run out of the original stories but the fall here has been particularly abrupt. I have since discovered that it wasn't the last episode: there is one more, in which surprise, surprise, the female prosecutor is put in danger - it's been shown but I haven't watched it yet. I'm not sure I can stand it.

This seems a suitable time to remind ourselves of David Mitchell's superb diatribe about football coverage on the television.



During the first England match of the World Cup, my Twitter feed jammed up with disconsolate fans' comments, but by the second they had lapsed into speechlessness, or Twitterlessness. Long may it continue.

*Discovered that I actually have ten balls of it. Eeeek.