Ritzy - I feel your pain over your beautiful jumper! At least it fits someone in the family.

Many years ago my mother knitted my father a white arran (cable knit) jumper for my father, and the first day he wore it he went and worked on the car and got oil on it Luckily it did come out and I now have it somewhere. Along the way in the wash it got so heavily fulled/felted that it is brilliant in the worst of weathers, nothing comes through it wind/rain/sleet, the lot

PS. sweater = jumper

Ritzy I think we need to see a photo of the Aran sweater you made, please?

Charae, I will wait patiently, with great anticipation, for the arrival of the mug rug. Aren't you a lucky duck to be going to a quilting class in Alden Lane Nursery. Some of us can only imagine such a thing. Have a great time.

Wow, I had a quilting weekend! The first in a long time. Norma, your mug rug is posting today. Rita, I will have your mug rug finished and in mail by end of week. I was seriously delayed by unexpected trips to Montana, Wyoming and Colorado over the last month. I am taking a class from Susan Else at Alden Lane Nursery in Livermore (Quilting in the Garden) on Thursday and Friday. It's so great to be in sewing mode again!

What a great day Ritzy, heartwarming to hear you are still in touch

Rosemary--yes, that is the kind of ribbing I know in knitting. I imagine that your mums description is as good as any I can come up with and will probably do the fishermen's stitch for the project unless someone else comes up with other answers for me. In the mean time, I have started a much easier project in knitting to console myself and do that until finished. Why do I need to be consoled? I worked on the Celtic Cable sweater designed and taught by Carol Feller on Craftsy. I worked a very long time on it and learned a lot. I finished it, blocked it and it is a beautiful sweater. There are mistakes in it but I am a very new knitter and this was a very difficult pattern so I am OK with the results. What I am not OK with is it doesn't fit me. I did the swatches to check my gauge--they were exactly what they should be. The only thing that saved me from ripping it into little pieces was the thought it might fit my daughter. So, said daughter is the owner of a beautiful cable sweater--knitted by her mommy.

I just spent a beautiful day in Chicago with a former foreign exchange student and her family. How wonderful to see her after about 18 years and to meet her husband and child. And, the weather in Chicago cooperated by giving us a glorious fall day of sunshine and cool breezes off the lake. God is good.

Beautiful Vicki, the mug rug not you though I'm sure you are

Ugh I'm sitting in the garden and just been presented with a dead frog. Dinner anyone?

Talked to my Mum about ribbing of the knitted kind, and she reckons that the fishermans rib variation became named 'english rib', because an English lady taught it to an American lady, who then forgot that it had been called 'fisherman's rib' and could only remember that she had been taught it by an English lady. Jus' sayin'

Another variation of ribbing is knit 2, purl 1 etc to the end of the row, then knit 1, purl 2 to the end of the row (lining up the knits & purls)

Oh bother!! The lovely James is married (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Naughtie#Personal_life)........ big sigh..... Maybe I need to look into the older members of the family of one of the boys I work with..... good solid Irish stock, surname 'Quilty'.

Terrie, Queen of the Boxers, I can send you the book when I have finished, so you can see for yourself what Mr Naughtie has to say I wonder if he is available. 'Lorchen Naughtie' sounds perfect for me. 'Nunn' doesn't quite describe me.

Aberfeldy is a very small town in the Trossachs, a part of Scotland. The single malt that is made there is not available in places like supermarkets. It is not heavily peated, but has strong heather undertones. It's very smooth.

Ritzy, not to add to the confusion, but I've been knitting since I was a very young child :shock: and I'd never heard of the English rib. Of course, I knew all the knitting terms in Italian, not English and had to learn the English ones... To this day I still chant diritto, rovescio when doing a knit, purl. So I found that YouTube and passed it on to you... I watched it and discovered that, like Rita, I had never done that stitch either, which really surprised me. So I could not tell you for sure whether that YouTube video is accurate.

And the saga of the English Rib continues...

I am pretty sure his name is pronounced 'Nochty' - not naughty. He is a BBC radio presenter.

I am still puzzled by the 'English Rib'. I must ask my mother if she had ever heard of it. I spent years knitting but never saw it in a pattern. Anyone else out there ever heard of it?

to put you out of your confusion and seeing that Lorchan might be tied up until the weekend

1. Almost certainly, Personally, I would suggest possibly of Scots descent.

2. Another make of single malt

1-Is the guy`s name really Naughtie?

2-and what's an 'Aberfeldy'


3-Also, I'll bet that if you think long enough ( like 20 seconds) you'll figure out why you're always so busy!

Also, if you're too busy, we don't expect an answer too soon.

Thank you Renata--I had watched that one but then I saw a different site and it was done like the Fisherman's stitch that Rita had mentioned. So, I thought I would check with the talented ladies here to see if anyone actual had done it and which was correct.