These are great times,
this is how memories are made -
not huge times
(though it helps),
but just spending time with you
looking at our world.“
~ A Cloud and Some Lemonade by Fireside Symphony

New colours, a new Catkin. Swatch stage…
- Oh, and totally off-topic, but I want to give a huge shout-out to LadyDanio who has now taught me to weigh every skein before I cast on. I already used the Tashkent once, so I can’t go back and weigh that one, but when I weighed the skein of Deception Island, I discovered that it was 126 grams. I’ve learned my lesson, Sarah - most skeins don’t actually weigh in at what they’re listed as!

4/29/12 - I finally got to cast this on. I had done the swatch forever and ever ago, but I really didn’t want to start this before I was finished with my Axonometric Tank. This is the year - the year for finishing up all those long outstanding WIPs, of which there are many. The only one left now is the Mary Poppins Satchel, and I’m staring at the boxes of yarn I have for that right now. I started this yesterday and am now at a good place with the stripes - I can take them with me the next few times I go to see a movie and do them as “mindless knitting”, which is perfect. That means that for now, I can restart that satchel and have it be my “concentration knitting” while I’m at home.

I forgot how addictive it is to cast on new projects. You know what I wanted to do all day yesterday? Cast on MORE new projects. Even though I had just cast this one on! It’s absurd, I know, but that’s how my brain was working. I’m resisting that urge - for now. But it’s hard. Now that I’m finished with one long-standing WIP, I keep staring at all those boxes of yarn and thinking, “Well, maybe I should also have a sweater going. Or a scarf. Or a tank top!” But I’d really love it if I could break that cycle and focus on just a few projects at a time. I mean, what would it be like to cast on AND cast off one project within the same month? I think that must be a heady experience…

5/7/12 - I am loving this project. LOVING IT! The stripes were so incredibly easy and just a blast to watch the colours stacking up. I realized partway through that these colours are bright. Deeply, deeply saturated. That’s awesome, it’s just not what I’m used to. I’ve realized that I like jewel tones but I don’t necessarily knit with the brightest colours int he box or when I do, I tend to balance them with a more muted colour. This is so eye-searingly bright, it makes me think of a sports team uniform. I think it’s going to be awesome and maybe open my mind in a new direction. I’m going to have to remember that the stripes make for great in-the-dark-movie knitting.

I’m officially on Chart One. I still feel like it’s really hard for me to see the chevron pattern that’s going on, and I hope that’s something that will be more apparent once the whole section is completed and blocked. This is definitely not in-the-dark-movie knitting. I did manage to kick out a few rows last night during Game of Thrones, but it was really difficult. I’m going to have to start bringing along my teeny light to Mo & Zac’s so I can read my pattern with more ease.

I am so in love with this pattern…all I want to do is stay home and work on it all day. Silly job, getting in the way of my knitting joy! As much as I’m loving being monogamous to just this and my Weekend Satchel, I think that I will have to add a third project into the mix. I really do depend on having an “I don’t need to look at this” project for my movie times, and now that I’ve started that tradition, it really feels like wasted time to sit through a 2-hour film and not be making something. I’ve completed the hexipuffs for Megan’s blanket, and I don’t really want to make more of them. They lost their shine for me after about the first half-dozen. I’m thinking I might work on a pair of socks - it’s been forever since I made a pair and I really started to fall in love with all of my handknit socks again towards the end of winter, as usual. I do want to make some more summer-appropriate things, like tanks and shrugs, but socks are so nice and portable.

5/8/12 - I am loving this pattern even more! After working on this pattern pretty solidly for the last few days, the chevron portion is making much more sense. My brain is much more able to look at the row I’m on, take a quick snapshot of how to remember the stitch line-up, and just go. I’m sure some knitters would just be able to follow the stitches and they way they’re lining up, but this really isn’t that easy for me to read because of the dye job on the yarn. I am loving it though! I’m a little over half done on the chevron section, so hopefully by the end of this week, that will be finished.

I think that I might have to turn around and cast this pattern on again as soon as this one is finished - I already know which yarns I’d use from my stash and everything!

5/20 - Still madly in love with this pattern. I’m on the Catkins now, which is UBER-exciting. I think one of the things I love about it is how easy it is to just go go go once you have everything set up. It’s not like the chevron pattern when I really had to concentrate. I think this is such a brilliant way to do colourwork. It’s really going to be a struggle for me not to stay up late every night until it’s done. I’m hoping to get the Catkin’s done in the next day or two so that the next time I go to the movies with Dad (surely some time this week), I can just do the mindless rows in the dark, along with the bind-off.

I must say, there are just one or two places where the wording she uses is baffling. Both of them have to do with how she tries to explain the repeats on the charts. Like on Chart Two, she says, “The ‘20 st repeat’ is repeated three times (worked four times in a row over 80 sts) each time you work the chart.” I feel like this is totally unclear. In each quadrant, you’re working the 20 stitch repeat four times. I have no concept of what she means by the 20 stitch repeat being repeated three times. She tried to explain things in a similar way for Chart One - “The ‘20 st repeat’ is repeated once (worked two times consecutively over 40 sts) each time you work the chart.” After typing it out here and reading it over, I can only presume that what she’s trying to say is - the 20 stitch repeat is shown once but you execute it a total of ____ times. I really feel like the wording here is the issue. Both times I’ve come across that particular instruction, it took me quite a chunk of time and having to really work it out on my own to figure out what was being communicated to me. I wish that the sentence had just been left out; I feel like there would have been no confusion if I had just been left to my own devices with it. But then, I’m sure that there are people for whom it was completely clear when they read it.

5/24 - Best pattern I’ve done in many many years, even with the few pieces of confusion in it. I really just want to cast on and start a second one of these. And then a third. And a fourth…and I nearly finished it in movies. I went to a matinee of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which was absolutely charming. My brightly coloured shawl totally went along with the gorgeous colours of India in the film. Then I watched some Game of Thrones with Uncle Jay and cast off nearly the whole thing, having to do just about 60 more stitches when I got home tonight. The cat wasn’t nearly as impressed with my finished object as I’d hoped.

I changed the ending just a little bit, doing 5 rows of stockinette and then just 5 of garter. I’m a bigger fan of stockinette than garter and just thought it would look neater. Now I just need buttons! I’m so happy with how it came out and cant’ wait to see it all blocked and relaxed.