What I'm Working On

• much more of the Kiri Shawl from a few months ago. Sitting, waiting for the doctor to arrive for your 9:15 am appointment, then being ushered back to the exam room at 11 am as he has called in to his nurse to say that he's in the car and on the way, is conducive to knitting lace. I don't mean to whine: this is a great doctor, and knowing him, he was probably up all night in surgery. If not, at least the wait made me sit quietly for more than ten minutes and knit.


• the last rows of the Bianca's Jacket. I'm ready to bind off, but am in a holding pattern, deciding whether to make loops for buttons or add hooks and eyes or just pin the neckline closed with some interesting sort of jewelry. The knitting store had a limited choice of buttons: a brown earthenware button with a cream-colored maple leaf, which just said Canada a bit too much; a small brass-colored button with quirky decorations; a beautiful sage green and brown button that was bigger than the pattern calls for and would limit what I can wear it with.

Here I am, once again frustrated that there are no good fabric stores around anymore. They've been driven away by video stores and quickie marts and upscale coffee places. I'm tabling the sweater for now, thinking about making a trip into the city to go to a great button store called Tender Buttons.

• no mitered squares. After a momentary sense of getting a grasp on the color theory thing, I'm back to indecision and doubt. The latest square followed the principle set out in my last post. But analysis does not necessarily produce good art. Dark red and pale yellow are not pretty together, unless you're Harry Potter or a fan of Harry Potter.

I went back and studied Cara's Madness posts about her Mitered Square blanket and realized that she sticks with one background color, while changing the stripes on some or all of the four squares that make up the one larger square. I grabbed the bright orange squares that I had laying about on my weaving bench, waiting for a destination. This is the color that has given me the most problems: it's neon bright, very strong, and orange. So assertive that it calls for special lighting and a better camera to reproduce it in a blog. Here's a sense of it.

One picture shows the contrast; the other gives an idea of the colors at play. The contrasting stripes were pink, dark red, yellow, and lavender. I laid them out together, and this is the new plan. Or not. I'm going to let it brew for a while, because anxiety about what colors to knit into a square is definitely counterproductive to the reason to be knitting in the first place.

• scarves, scarves, scarves. I'll post more about it in a day or two. Think big needles, easy pattern, all garter stitch, and a good cause.