Excuses

It would seem that I have been a delinquent writer, so I thought I would post a few photos to make excuses for the poor documentation of the last few weeks, ha! 

Sometimes, an Idea paces the grey pathways of my frontal lobe. Paces. It refuses to meander off and reminisce with the Memories in the temporal lobe, or be distracted by balance games in the cerebellum. Instead, it constantly kicks and prods and cajoles until I am compelled to action. The latest Idea to haunt the halls of my head was The Knitted Afghan. 

Now, I have been a prolific knitter of all things ugly for most of my life. I once knit a pair of socks that would have accomodated the feet of Goliath and had enough holes and mistakes to be used as a colander. I also knit plenty of dish cloths, the kind you wrap and gift to relatives who exclaim about your talent and creativity before quietly slipping them on the bottom of the rag drawer. Perhaps I wanted to prove to myself that I could follow through and make something actually substantial and attractive. 

So I started my project the way I start many things... with no definitive plan. I walked into Caserta, found a shop with yarn, {foolishly} allowed myself to be talked into a lovely soft wool skein (wool is expensive!), selected a needle gauge at random (9mm), and returned home. I then carefully considered the width I wanted to make the blanket by casting on stitches until I was tired and/or no more stitches would fit on the needle. And I started knitting/purling.

 It didn't take long to burn through the first 10 skeins of yarn, so last week I returned to the shop for more wool (this blanket's value is quickly approaching equivalence with a gold ingot). This time, I went for an ivory white, and  decided I wanted to try knitting a pattern. I spent much of this weekend watching youtube tutorials, reading patterns online, and mentally chastising myself for not counting when I cast on (I have an odd number of stitches--171).

I am having fun though, and it has been exciting to see the results slowly developing. I think in order to save space in my suitcase, I am going to have to wear it as a cape on the plane home! Stay tuned for that fashion disaster! 

Happy Monday to you!