Stash/scrap-buster shawl using yarn destined for the Persian Dreams blanket pattern that was not to be.

I really like the original colour scheme used, so I’ve picked out similar shades as closely as possible. I’m splicing between stripes for minimal end-weaving (later edit: I ended up with 2 ends to weave in!).

15-18 March: I’m knitting this sitting by my mum’s bedside in her nursing home. She’s really not very well and it’s an easy, hypnotic knit while she talks away or she sleeps. Actually, she’s not been sleeping so much this week, just chatting, with me mainly listening - and mum’s topics of conversation can be quite bizarre!

20.3: this shawl has turned out beautifully, in a languid, ’60s summer of love’ sort of way. I do love stripes and chevrons! I’d quite like to give this to my mum, but the nursing home laundry is no friend to handknits…

Listen with Mother was a BBC radio prog I used to listen to when I was little (late 50s). It used to start with the phrase ’are you sitting comfortably? then I’ll begin’. I remember sitting on a lino floor in army quarters, with a cup of Milo, listening to this. Funnily enough, mum and I were recalling these old radio programmes; Forces Favourites was another I used to like.