Just Shoot Me Now

Knitting happily away on the Highland Triangle Shawl, I came to the end of one row and found the stitch count was off by one. It's a very easy pattern and if you look at the knitting you can tell if it's working out right (or not). Therefore, I have not knitted a whole row with the pattern off by one stitch. Therefore, I may have forgotten to do the backward loop increase that we do at the beginning of every row. Easily solved - just pick up the loop in the relevant place, twist it, knit it - no problem.

In fact, this was not the problem. The problem was that I had knitted the "plain" (ie non-pattern row), turned the work, and knitted another "plain" row. What is wrong with me? I have been saying all along this pattern is so easy you could knit it with your eyes closed. Wrong! Why do you think you have those two things on the front of your head? Yes, it's so you can use them. I had to tink the whole row and that did not please me. We are back on track now, however, though we are coming to the place where I will have to decide which is the private side and which the public. I think I know what I like but everyone I ask says the other side is the "right" side. There is not a knitter among them. I do feel like that salmon, swimming against the tide, but this is not unusual for me.

If you are reading this blog, you are probably a knitter - you may be a blog junkie; you may be an incurable insomniac, clicking your way through the night, but you are probably a knitter. So what do you think?

Is this:



the public side?

OR is this:



I know what I think.

Leave a comment, drop me a line - I want to know if I really am a salmon.

Side note: I opened a Kit-Kat the other day and printed on it, right there in the chocolate, was: "Remember you are not a salmon". What?

Yesterday I took my sister-in-law (sister of 'im indoors, recipient of the blue buttonhole bag and not a Barbie) to Moreton-in-Marsh to take the train to London. On the way back I popped into Shipston Needlecrafts and had a coffee with Nicky. I didn't buy anything, I thought about it but I didn't do it. I feel very proud and I'm not even on a yarn diet, not like Lixie.

As I neared home I saw the postman's little red van, just down the road from my house. In that split second, I just knew that he had brought my books, on order from the wonderful Marsha at the Needlearts Bookshop in Canada. I knew that he had brought me books, found me absent and left that little yellow card (the one that they leave even when you are in the house, sitting on the doormat, waiting for the post) which means you have to trail off to the back end of nowhere, at dead of night, because that's the only time they are open, retrieve the item (after filling in inumerable forms AND presenting a copy of your "long" birth certificate to prove you are who you say you are). I knew he'd done that and I thought, "Oh no you don't, matey!" I knew that if I ran in the house; grabbed the yellow card that was surely lying on the doormat; chased off down the road; I'd be able to catch him and make him give me the books, even though I didn't have my "long" birth certificate to hand.

I rushed into the house. I fought my way past the famous "small storage solution" hanging in the hall. I whisked away the curtain behind the door. To be greeted with? NOTHING. Zilch, niente, zero, a big fat blank. Obviously, my telepathic powers are on the wane.

It was only at 5.30, when 'im indoors went into the outhouse



for some arcane reason, that the truth was revealed.

Sitting on the freezer was the box and inside were the books:



I'm so excited, I'm going to read.