Progress Report: Weekend Getaway Satchel

Just a quick update...I had to take almost three weeks off from knitting because of the tendonitis in my right wrist, but I was able to keep working on my mom's felted bag because the motions used in embroidery didn't hurt me at all.

As a small side note: I had all this Free Time in those three weeks. The house was clean, the nails were painted, books were read! I am wondering if I need to find a little balance now that I am able to knit again. Maybe take one or two nights off a week to do something else. Maybe. Hehe.

Anyway, the bag is knit in pieces and felted separately, then sewn together; the sides, bottom, and back are all solid black, while the front is a riot of color. The color is accomplished by knitting the main blocks for the flowers and leaves in intarsia, then embroidering on the stems and detail work. Doing that embroidery took about as long, maybe even longer, than knitting the whole 30" by 34" inch intarsia panel. But when I was done, I had gone from this:



To this!





I've also felted the whole thing but haven't had a chance to take pictures yet. After this week, I should have time to sew the whole thing up and give it to my mom! I can't wait to finish.

My Own Personal Mary Poppins

When I saw the pattern for the Weekend Getaway Satchel, it was one of those "lightning strike" moments--I knew it MUST be made for my mom. One of the first movies she saw in the theater as a kid was Mary Poppins, and she still loves it--but most importantly, this bag is a symbol of what she has been to me over the past year and a half. She and my dad, through various life circumstances, found themselves with a job that enabled them to live anywhere in Southern California, so they moved right across the street from me to help me through treatment for and recovery from a chronic illness. The many hours she's spent playing with my children, running errands for me, folding laundry, painting my walls, picking up toys, and much more, have literally made my life livable. Just as Mary Poppins seemed to have everything that could possibly be needed in that bag of hers, my mom has somehow managed to anticipate our needs and fill them even before I knew what they were. As she and my dad get ready to return to their regular lives in the next few months, I wanted to make her a carpet bag as a reminder of my appreciation.

I knew this would be a time-consuming task, but since I had never done intarsia before I didn't even really know what to expect. I knitted the solid-colored back, sides, bottom, and straps first; that way when I started the intarsia panel I knew exactly how much time I would have to finish before Christmas...so I started the colorwork with confidence. I had to laugh at myself half-way through the first row when I realized that I had only half as many little bobbins as I needed, since I didn't realize that each section of black between the colored spots on any given row would require its own little yarn supply!

I guess I shouldn't really be surprised that I chose something this big for my first colorwork, considering that my first cable project was this:


You know, though? There really is something to be said for going "all in." Sure, the first few rows of cables or intarsia were a little shaky, but when you have so much practice right at the beginning, you can't help but learn quickly how to make it look right. After about the 15th row of the colorwork, I was twisting the yarn together when switching colors like a pro! It became very natural to work with the bobbins and maneuver the whole thing on my lap, and after finishing the panel I have the confidence to tackle any intarsia! I am no longer scared of it. (Side note: I am still very afraid of Fair Isle...should I start with an adult male sweater? *cackle*). The other nice thing about starting with this particular project is that it's going to be felted, so I knew that any holes between colors could be stitched up and the washing machine would hide a multitude of sins.

Here's the front of the bag (I shared the back's tangle of ends to weave in here). It's about 33 inches from bottom to top, to give an idea of the scale.



Today, I've been working embroidering stems, flower centers, leaf veins, and more to finish up the floral pattern before felting--this might take nearly as long as knitting the intarsia did. And, in keeping with the theme, it's also my first embroidery!

Finished: Delancey Cardigan/WIP: Weekend Getaway

My Delancey Cardigan has been finished for a couple of weeks now, and I had high hopes for a real photo shoot with this one. I wanted glamour shots, darn it! But with the holidays, finding time and a willing photographer was too hard and I decided the inside photos would have to do.



The pattern is by Alexis Winslow (just a tip: it can be purchased through the Knit Picks site for a few bucks less than the Ravelry download costs), and I'd say it's a great pattern in every way. If you get gauge, you're off and running since the pattern is very specific and clear for row-by-row instructions. I mentioned my short row problems earlier--the pattern doesn't specify *how* to do some things, just that you need to do them, so I'd say it's not a complete beginner pattern, though. It's totally seamless, so if you like that sort of thing, this is a perfect cardigan!

I used my go-to yarn, Knit Picks Swish DK. I love this yarn--it's soft, washable, and comes in beautiful colors. When it's knit at more of a worsted gauge, the fabric is so light and drapy, yet snuggly too! The colors in Delancey are Beach Glass, the perfect greeny-turquoise, and Pampas Heather, a surprisingly interesting and complex neutral. I would call it green, but as you can see, bronze buttons look like they were made for it:


In that photo you can also see the slight fuzzing on the sleeve that happens with wear--I've been wearing this a ton! Usually I'd take a sweater shaver to it, but I thought someone might be interested in what the yarn looks like after a few wearings.

One thing I am not too happy about is that since this is knit at 18 sts/4 in with DK yarn, it's pretty loose, and my purse keeps catching on it! I've had to carefully work several snags back into the sweater.

Anyway, the fit is really nice. I made the 36" size, which matches my bust size with zero ease and has a few inches of negative ease on the hip--the right choice for this pattern, I would say. It's very stretchy because of the diagonal construction. After wearing it a bit, I ended up sewing down the back of the shawl collar because it wouldn't stay folded properly. Once I did, the front of the collar looked perfect, so I'd recommend doing that.



It feels good to be done with this, because I sort of fell out of love with it as I went along. I've realized that I don't have very many "plain" sweaters, the kind I can just throw on with a casual outfit and run to the park. I've got one in the works now that is really just a glorified hoodie--I'll share more about that one later!

For now, though, guess what I will be doing tonight?



(That's the back of the intarsia panel for my mom's Weekend Getaway Satchel...almost done!! I'm really having fun with that project.)

Short Row Happy Dance

I have figured out why one side of my short rows look wonky all the time!! And it turns out I could have corrected this problem months ago by simply re-reading the directions in the glossary of any number of the knitting books on my shelf.

The problem was...drumroll...I inserted the needle from front to back instead of back to front when hiding the wrap on the purl side.

AFTER I figured this out on my own by fiddling with my knitting for an hour, out of pure spite I looked up the little short row instructions at the back of Interweave Knits, Spring 2009 that I had used to learn how to do purl-side short rows just to say "Ha! You told me how to do it WRONG!!" and I found this little gem: "Purl stitch: On wrong side, work to just before wrapped stitch. Insert needle from back, under wrap from bottom up, and put on left needle. Purl them together" (p.108). *Blush*

So, all is right in the world. Interweave Knits knows what it's talking about, I know how to do the purl side short rows now, and I'm almost done with my Delancey Cardigan (this short row revelation happened while knitting the second sleeve cap).

Incidentally, this brought up an interesting knitting question. I am not a frogger. I know that the first three short rows on the second sleeve aren't perfect, and I also know that the entire back side of the short rows on the first sleeve aren't perfect, but this does not bother me one iota. I always read Ravelry notes about ripping back sleeve caps or shawl collars or cable sections three, four, or five times to get it right...and I always think "Why?" Fellow knitters, do you keep ripping until it's perfect, or just figure it's good enough?

PS I almost entitled this post "I'm still alive!" because I have noticed that any knitting blogger worth her salt has at least one post with that title. *giggle* Anyway, I am still alive and knitting, and although I've been busier than usual lately I do have some things that are just about ready to share!

Post PS I've started again with the DVD sets of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while knitting in the evenings. Bring on the witty banter and handsome, non-sparkly vampires!

Let there be color!

Don't you hate it when life gets in the way of your knitting? I sure do. Between school, work, colds, things breaking in my house, and fall fun activities like a trip to the apple orchards, I have had to stay up into the wee hours of the night if I want to spend time on my hobby...then pay for it dearly the next day when the kids are up at 6:30 am and want to come crawl in bed with me. It's adorable, but of course I can't go back to sleep. I always have to remind myself that they won't be little forever, and just squeeze them a little tighter until I am happy to be awake.

Despite the lack of knitting time, I have:

• made a very little progress on my Delancey Cardigan. WIP photo here.

• finished a Honey Cowl, for which there will be no blog post because it's ugly--there is no redeeming neon pink, yellow, and green varigated yarn!--though the free pattern is awesome and highly recommended. Ravelry pattern page for Honey Cowl by madeleine tosh.

• nearly finished a Peak's Island Hood by Ysolda Teague (Ravelry pattern page.). In a wonderful bonehead move, last year I purchased one skein of Patons Classic Wool in Aran, and one in Winter White, but didn't notice the difference until I was three inches past the skein change in my Hood. Argh. Silver lining: There will be Wilton's food coloring crock pot dye-ing to write about!

• knitted about 4 inches of the intarsia part of the Weekend Getaway Satchel (Pattern photo below from Interweave Knits, Fall 2005) .

So, leave it to me to choose a huge, involved piece for my first intarsia project! I had to giggle at myself when I started the first row and realized that although there are only 3-5 spots of color in each row, the black background in between also requires a separate ball of yarn. I had to wind about 6 balls of black as I progressed across that row! I think at this point, I am up to about 12 little bobbins at once. This picture was taken about 10 rows ago, and there are also some red and yellow patches involved now. It just tickles me to see all the colorful little bobbins of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes hanging off the back of the work.

This bag is a labor of love. It's not TV watching or social knitting now that the solid pieces are all done. I've even felted them already! As soon as I get some good pictures I have lots to share.

Finished: City Cape with Bonus WIP Photo!

Since I've been working on so many things at once it's been a little harder than usual to see progress, but I finally have something that looks like a cape and a cardigan!


I am pretty much done with the Not-a-Poncho City Cape, from the book Custom Knits by Wendy Bernard. I used Cascade Ecological Wool in color #8087, Coffee. It's a top-down, raglan shaped cape. It took me a little under two skeins, and I added several inches before beginning the arm holes, otherwise the armholes would have started half-way up my biceps. My only other modification was changing the trim to 3 x 2 rib instead of 2 x 2. This is one of the things I really wanted for my Fall/Winter wardrobe, so I'm happy it's done before the weather changes.


I don't know if the news has traveled out of Southern California, but we've been having record heat around here (113 degrees in downtown Los Angeles and at least that hot where I live!) so I just couldn't face stepping outside to model my wooly cape. It's pretty much done, but it's supposed to have ribbon facing on the front bands and around the armholes. I bought some brown and cream with blue accents paisley ribbon at Joann, but it's not exactly what I had in mind--so I might just leave it off until I find the right one. I wanted something a little more earthy, and less of a contrast with the knitted part.

I do like the Cascade Ecological Wool, if only because it's so cheap. I bought five skeins of this stuff on sale at WEBS for $11 a huge skein of heavy worsted/bulky weight yarn (depending on who you ask), and so for $55 I have knit my husband a sweater, this cape, and still have enough left for a short sleeved cardigan for me. This color is a little hairy, but I have a lighter color that isn't quite as bad. From now on I think I will stick to the lighter colors.

Just for fun, here is one of my WIP's, the Delancey Cardigan designed by Alexis Winslow. Delancey is a one-armed lady at the moment...but I love knitting with Knit Picks Swish DK, so I don't even dread the sleeves. The other one will be coming right up! I'm using Beach Glass as the main color, and Pampas Heather as the contrast color. It's a little less punchy than the pattern model, but I was good and used stash yarn.




This is such a well-written pattern, and for once it's designed for taller-than-average girls with long arms! I actually knitted my sleeves SHORTER than the model. Never happened before! I really like the way it's written, with row numbers given in all instructions. It would be difficult to modify the length without completely re-writing the pattern, though, so keep that in mind if you're considering this one. This will hit me around the bottom of my rear, and I am 5'7" tall. Once I get the bottom trim knitted on, it will not have that "V" shape anymore.

A Few Updates

Since I haven't taken knitting pictures in a while (still getting used to the new homeschooling schedule!) I thought this would be the perfect time to make a little list of things I've been wanting to blog about but haven't had the time for. Not the same as a real post, I know, but it will have to do. :)

1. The stash challenge has, quite honestly, been a complete bust. I really am an addict. I don't intend to stop trying to knit only yarn I already own, but among other purchases, last month's mad money was spent on a lot of Knit Picks Main Line (discontinued yarn) that was just too good a deal to pass up--a Raveler had it for sale for 19 skeins for $25--and a whole shipment of Knit Picks Wool of the Andes has come to live at my house. The latter was purchased for...

2. My first go at intarsia. More on this later, but I'm making a huge felted satchel for my mom. I've got the back, sides, bottom, and straps done (the solid-colored pieces) and will be starting on the colorwork soon.

3. I have been a little bit on the scattered side when it comes to my knitting lately. In the past week, I've worked on the Not-A-Poncho City Cape from Custom Knits, the Delancey Cardigan designed by Alexis Winslow, the aforementioned Weekend Getaway Satchel, and yes, I started yet another new project tonight: Sheer Poncho, an absolutely gorgeous laceweight free pattern by Amy Arifin.

I don't know why I keep starting new things--I suppose I would finish pieces more quickly if I stuck to one or two at a time, but I've decided to stop feeling bad about it and just go with it. It's fun! I'll be writing more about each of those projects as soon as I can...with pictures, I promise.

I take it back.

There will be no Zick Zack Tunic for me in the near future. I know I said I would finish it, but I am realizing that there is a very good reason it's been sitting for over a year...it's not fun for me to knit. The yarn is very skinny and slippery and dark-colored, the needles are Knit Picks Harmony (dark wood, which a dark purple yarn gets lost in), and it grows very slowly. I have picked it up twice since I said I would, but it's just not enjoyable. This is a hobby, not work, right? I have so many fun new patterns that I want to do (Delancy Cardigan, anyone??) that it's just not making me happy to sit there working on something I am not excited about. At least I have finished a few other things (pictures coming soon!) so I don't feel spread TOO thin among all of my works-in-progress.

Now my only dilemma is to frog, or to let it sit a while longer and see if I ever feel like getting back to it. I was thinking maybe, when I come back to it, to change the needle tips to nickel and see if that helped me see the stitches better (love those interchangable needles!).

Knitters, how do you decide when to give up on a project?

Forehead, meet palm.

Take a look at this lace chart key, and then I have a question for you.
_______________________________________________

/ = K2tog, knit 2 stitches together

\ =ssk, slip 2 stitches together and knit them together through the back of the loops

0 = YO, yarn over

^ = Sl2 K1, psso, slip two sts as for ssk, k1, pass the slipped stitches over the k1
_______________________________________________

If you were knitting along on the set-up row for a brand new pretty cardigan, and saw the ^ symbol on the chart, would you:

a. slip two sts as for ssk, k1, pass the slipped stitches over the k1 and move on.

b. Sl2 K1, psso and move on. (Ha! Trick question already!)

c. *Sl2 K1, psso, then slip two additional sts as for ssk, k1, pass the slipped stitches over the k1, then tear your hair out over why you can't make the lace repeat add up to the required number of stitches; rip out the set up row; do the EXACT SAME THING again and wonder yet again why the stitch count isn't adding up. Rip out again and try making all six of the stitches you've been working with turn into one stitch at the end of the process so it matches the chart.* Repeat from * to * twice. Start dinner about 30 minutes late and be an extreme grouch to your entire family all evening while you wait for kind Ravelers and the very nice designer to respond to your questions about the pattern. Realize right before bedtime that you're an idiot and fix the set up row sheepishly.



Guess which one I did?

PS. On a related note, I have cast on for Pinnet by Amy Christoffers (or Pinnate, if you believe the pattern itself over its Ravelry page) in Queensland Collection Bamboo Cotton. I got it the day I decided not to buy any more yarn for a good long while, at Tuesday Morning. (I guess you could say it was my last hurrah.) It's really silky and soft. Pattern photo below...





PS #2. Things are going very well on my finishing crusade! I will have some pretties to share very soon.

Long Lost WIP's

I was tinkering around with my Ravelry notebook tonight and was astounded to discover that several of the WIP's I keep in Ziploc bags in various places around the house have been in their current condition for OVER A YEAR. This must be remedied. So, I am resurrecting the following projects...and I hope to finish them before my seasonal editing job cranks up in September. Think I can do it? (I am not so sure, but if I can it will clear my brain circuits a little--WIP's clog my thoughts. Really.) Here are the contenders.


Featherweight Cardigan (designed by Hannah Fettig), cast on July 3, 2009. Plain stockinette got boring, but now I like having a simple knitting project on the go for the TV watching nights. This is Purewool Merino Lace in a semisolid colorway called Grass. I worked on this tonight, and I've already doubled what you see in the picture!




Zick Zack Tunic (designed by Melissa Wehrle), cast on June 5, 2009. See my hot pink lifeline? I am not sure why I became disillusioned with this one. It's really a nice design. Oh...I remember. I think I chose a size that was going to end up being too small for me. Good thing I am done nursing now, and it will fit (better)! I am knitting this in Knit Picks Gloss Lace, a silk/merino blend, in a beautiful purple called Pinot.



Looks like my hands will be busy, because I am also doing a knit-along with the Anthropologie Knits group on Ravelry. I have been looking for an excuse to knit Que Sera (designed by Kirsten Kapur) since I saw the pattern, and the KAL theme is Short Sleeved Summer Cardigans. I'm using Knit Picks Main Line (Pima cotton/wool blend) in Ivory, and I've modified the sleeve length to just past the elbows rather than full length--both to make it a lighter sweater, and avoid running out of yarn (the yarn is discontinued and it would be difficult to get more). I've got both sleeves and about 3 inches of the body done on this one.



Three very different summery projects...my wardrobe will thank me for this burst of knitting responsibility!

It's all in the details.

I am still going strong on my reverse engineering of the Allegoro Drape Front Cardigan. The miles of stockinette, instead of being boring as I might have feared, are a great canvas for trying out different increases and thinking about how the placement of shaping will effect the finished garment. Since this is my first go at doing a sweater without a written pattern, I have given in to what a favorite professor called "the paralysis of analysis" more than a few times, but overall I am pleased with how it's progressing!

On the raglan increases for a top-down sweater like this, I learned I prefer slower increases, as they are most invisible. (Those increases are shown at the top of the next photo.) I will have to play with the cast on number next time, though, because if I kept going at that rate I would have had armholes halfway down my biceps. My second favorite kind of raglan increases are [M1b, k2, M1f], done every right side row (shown at the bottom of the next photo). I like the way the center stitches raise neatly and the increases recede. I didn't like the middle section of increases I did, which were [M1f, K2, M1b], at all--I thought it looked very messy.


This project has also given me a new obsession: i-cord, both applied i-cord and as a bind off. It looks so nice and neat at the end of a stockinette swath, and as a bonus, it stops the curling that makes my perfectionistic soul cringe. I was also worried that the wide-ish neckline would stretch and refuse to stay on my shoulders if I didn't do something to stabilize it.

The neckline before picking up and knitting a few rows then doing a 2 stitch i-cord bind off:


Neckline after:



It's subtle, I admit, but less so in real life. I will be doing a matching 2 stitch i-cord bind off on the bottom of the sweater as well. I used a 3 stitch i-cord bind off on the sleeve, which is nice, but a little more obvious and I thought it might look a bit too heavy on the drapy parts.


The last few inches of this project will take a long time, I am afraid. The body length is nearing the bottom of my rear end, and the rows are upwards of 300 stitches at this point! I just broke into my seventh skein, and I am estimating that it will take about 8 1/2 total to finish the project--so that gives a rough idea of how close to finishing I am (the next picture was taken about 2 inches ago)! I can't wait to wear this.

Spring Green

Ahhhhh...silky soft single ply merino. Mmmmmmm...copper patina green. Oooooooh...flower lace. Sounds like springtime to me! It's difficult to capture the yarn (Verde Manzana from Purewool) on camera--there is a more rusty yellow-green tinge to part of the colorway, parts are electric green, and parts have a softer blueish green cast. The second (earliest) photo, showing the mock-cable rib raglan "seam", comes closest to showing the variation of color.

This is just flying by--I think partly because of the size 10 needles and partly because the pattern is so well-written that I hardly have to think while I knit! I did agonize for a while over whether I needed to make the sleeves and/or the body a bit longer, but I decided that I like the proportions of the sweater just as written, and as pictured in the pattern photo. So, for the first time ever, I am making absolutely no modifications to the pattern. It's strangely liberating.


I also love that the sleeves are not saved for last! One sleeve is already done, and the other will be done before I move on to the drapy front pieces. Genius! I don't know why I never thought to do that with other patterns--but you can bet I will be doing that from now on. No more getting stuck on the sleeves and waiting months to finish a sweater!

Queen Anne Cherries

I was looking at my WIP's yesterday and realized I have become a Knit Picks addict. Most of my projects currently on the needles are worked with Knit Picks yarn...but as far as I am concerned, they have outdone themselves with their new line of tonal hand-dyed yarns. I must confess, though it will probably make me a "bad handknitter," that I kind of hate multicolored varigated yarns. Actually, I shouldn't hedge that (something I am working on in general, actually--hedging). I HATE multicolored varigated yarns. I have used them, but only once have I been able to keep it from pooling. It might be the perfectionist in me...I don't like not being able to control the look of the finished object.

However, it is so fun to see the different colors slide through my fingers and work into stitches, combining different ways as I knit. Once I discovered semi-solid yarns, I could have most of the fun of a varigated, with a MUCH more subtle final result. Here is one of my older projects, made with a hand-dyed semi-solid:


Up to now, I have only had monochromatic semi-solids to choose from, but Knit Picks did something brilliant, I tell you. They used several shades from one little wedge of the color wheel, ie. from yellow-green to blue-green, to make a tonal yarn. I bought one called Queen Anne, inspired by the Queen Anne cherry, to make a pair of socks.

They took tones from golden through salmon pink to make the most beautiful yarn I have ever seen! I can not get a photo to do it justice. I will be making Froot Loop by Kristi Geraci--I think it will show the hand-dyed tonal yarn to perfection! (Pattern photo below).

And the colors in the yarn even remind me of Froot Loops. The whole thing just makes me happy! I imagine this will be a long term WIP...something I work on in little bits here and there when I need to be cheered up, but here is my starting-line photo. Isn't that yarn gorgeous??

Be still my heart.

The Creature Comfort Cardi by Madelinetosh is the latest pattern to take over my brain for a few weeks. The minute I saw it, I fell in love. It has three things going for it:

1. It's simple, but it has a WOW factor...the plain stockinette sides set off that gorgeous center panel so well! (Photo from madelinetosh)


2. It's a shrug. They are so great for jazzing up jeans and a t-shirt!

3. It has an oak leaf motif. It reminds me of living in the Central Valley of California, where the Valley Oak is an endangered species and can't be cut down. Otherwise completely straight roads will swerve right around the trees, and you will see large oak trees in the middle of the corn fields.

I've been enjoying the knitting. The cables are a little different than I have done before--they use short rows, a double decrease, and a huge 7 stitch increase. Always fun to learn something new!

Here's mine so far (well, actually I have twice this much done now, but I didn't feel like taking another picture):

Look at me, I'm Cameron D!

You've seen the movie The Holiday, starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet? A sweet movie, especially the half with Kate Winslet and Jack Black (though the fact that I am a sucker for Hollywood Golden Age stories probably biases me just a bit)...

I saw it in the theater with a group of college friends and friends-of-friends. It was one of those outings where we pretended we were still 19 years old, not married-with-children/grownups-with-jobs/old-enough-to-know-better. (I may or may not have giggled wildly at the pivotal and emotional scene where Jude Law describes his "package"--watch it again, you'll see what I mean!) We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, so much so that when the credits rolled we were scolded by a woman sitting three rows behind us--who was, as a result of our behavior (she claims!) "ashamed to be a woman."

Though I was not even a knitter at the time, this sweater stole its scene:



I went home and did a little googling, and amazingly enough, I found it! It could be mine, for a mere $995. (Go to http://www.tsecashmere.com/ and click Shop, then Women, then Classics. It's "The Holiday Sweater.")

Fast forward a couple of years, and I was trawling Ravelry for patterns...and I found it. THE SWEATER. Someone (Amber Allison) had watched the movie frame by frame and written the pattern. Never mind that I had only been knitting for five months. Never mind that I didn't own a cable needle and wouldn't know what to do with one if I did. I. Must. Have. That. Sweater. (Rav link: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fireside-sweater)

So, intrepid knitter that I am, I bought the pattern. Brown Cascade Ecological Wool in #8087 Coffee was swatched. But no, my dream sweater must be white. I ordered the yarn called for in the pattern--first time ever!--and off I went.

I practiced the cables on a swatch (cables weren't so hard after all!) and started the right front. The yarn (Valley Yarns Berkshire, a wool/alpaca blend singles yarn) is incredibly soft.



I didn't feel much like knitting over the summer, so my Lovely got put aside. Then there was Christmas knitting. Then I fell in love with other patterns. All told, it's been more than a year now, and I am still not finished.



This, my first pattern obsession, will always hold a special place in my heart. Sometimes I pull out the finished pieces, stare at the cables for a while, and pet them. You see, I am in no rush to finish. When it's done, I won't be able to work on it anymore!