'My Princess'

Well, here at long last: more progress on my Princess Shawl. She's obviously not looking her best, because she's not blocked. But in my eyes, she's beautiful - still I'm not being boastful, it's just that Sharon's design is so fantastic. I find knitting the border somehow much easier than the edging - how weird is that??
Sadly, the really zinging colour (Gossamer CashSilk - Viola) doesn't show up to well in my lousy photos, but believe me, it's gorgeous. The yarn is a little unforgiving, because the silk in it makes it quite slippy - so dropping stitches is a nightmare, but tinking is easy - swings and roundabouts, eh what?! ;)

Princess Shawl: detail (unblocked):


Princess Shawl so far, edging and border (unblocked):

This weekend I am looking forward to a positive grandchildren-fest!! I shall be looking after Ellie while her parents are moving house, but I shall also see baby Finn, because his family is coming over so that Dad Jos can help with the move. And to cap it all, I am taking Ellie to visit Luke and family on Sunday. I am so-o-o-o-o excited! Until then, knitting and reading.

In fact, I have finished reading The Tale of Genji. It was a big read, and has taken for ever!!! and I'm generally a quick reader. But it really takes a lot of getting to grips with, so I sent for The Tale of Genji: A Reader's Guide, by William J. Puette to help me understand it. In fact, I am so taken with it, and yet so unsure of what I have read, that I think I'm going to order the E.G. Seidensticker translation to help me get to grips with it!! How's that for dedication?

Finally, if my Princess is my first beautiful thing, my second is my grandkids, and my third is The Tale of Genji, where do I put President Obama?

Well, I'm old enough to remember Kennedy's inauguration, and the massive swell of hope that it brought with it. I was still at school then, and it inspired me and my generation (the oft-maligned sixties baby-boomers) with a new and fresh idealism that outlived his early death, as well as those of his brother Robert and of Martin Luther King. And I can honestly say, this is the first time since the dashing of all those hopes by the dismal seventies and the cynical eighties, that I feel the stirring of real promise for a better future. So I say to those in the United States of America, well done! Hopefully we in the UK will soon be given the chance to make the same choice. I and many like me, including my children, who have hitherto been disaffected from politics, maybe because of the withering of OUR sixties dreams, look forward to a new era when the President of the United States sets the tone for world leaders in looking for real solutions to the problems of inequality both within and beyond our western democracies. All hail to the chief ....