My nephew and his wife just had their second child, who was born early. (Baby and mom are fine.) What’s wrong with these people? Don’t they understand that an early birth is very inconsiderate of those making knitted gifts? In my case, this gift is a log cabin baby blanket. I have made of number of these, and start with good intentions. They go so fast, oh this is great, I’ll have this done in no time. I mean, they won’t be taking the baby out very much in the first month anyway, will they?
Then, after the first few rounds, progress slows. OK, maybe I shouldn’t be making this in lightweight yarn at 7 sts to the inch. What a fool. I must have some nice washable worsted in my stash. When I bought the yarn, Rowan Cashsoft 4 ply, it was so soft, so lovely to look at, such a bargain. (Clearanced at 40% off.) Now I am not sure I really like the color combination, especially the Koigu in the center, which doesn’t look quite so blue in real life. No matter, I am not going back. I am slogging on.
It feels as though no matter how long I knit it never looks much bigger. So I started playing mind games with myself. What if, instead of seven ridges each color, I make them bigger. I’ll move up to nine ridges, then in the final set eleven. Yeah, that will go much faster because it will reduce the amount of binding off and picking up stitches. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Except now, it seems like each color is taking longer because there are more rows and more stitches. Right, more rows and more stitches do take longer. There appear to be some properties related to mathematical progression that I have not grasped. Will it ever end? Will I loose my love of garter stitch? Will I loose my mind? Will this baby get a gift from Target very soon? Stay tuned.
MLE










