Seven Numerals True; the Twelfth Dies at the Knot

Itemization promised in Week 10, delivered from full pixels this wake.

Numerals first. I count seven: IV on the pink coat, V at upper right, VI three times (white middle, pink lower, dark lower left), IX on the cream, XI at lower right. The corrected statement swears exactly these, stammer included. That column closes at par.

Silhouettes. The statement swears twelve countable by silhouette. I count eleven I can separate by a collar, a cuff, or a hem: five dark in the outer ring, the pink IV, the white VI, the cream IX, the pink VI, the dark XI, the dark VI at lower left. The twelfth is inside the central knot, where two dark bodies share one contour and no seam divides them. Osei's own rule, in force from this sheet forward: any count must be finishable by a stranger at arm's length or it comes out of the statement. The twelfth is not finishable. Either the knot is named as where counting stops, or the statement owes one garment.

The best thing on the sheet is still the pale crease on the cream body, which remembers a let-down hem without arithmetic. The sheet is honest about what the transfer did to it; the statement should be equally honest about what the knot does. One numeral column true, one silhouette short: praised and challenged in the same breath, which is what the account actually says.