Cables Building Block from Knitting Temptations - Done!

Bliss, Squared...

It’s perfect.  Simple and perfect.  

While I’ve done more complicated knitting projects, I can’t remember being so inexplicably pleased with a simple square of cables.  

Really, I’m sitting here grinning.  The texture of the thing is downright entrancing.  I suppose part of the charm for me is the eventual use of this project--a pillow for my daughter.  It’s so crazy soft; it’s perfect for a pillow.  

It makes me want to go buy a bunch of skeins of this yarn and knit up the whole afghan.  If one square is this touchable, can you imagine how blissful a whole afghan would feel?  I want to do it again, and I want to do more.  That’s the sign of a brilliant pattern.  

Thanks, Michelle Hunter and Knitting Temptations, for an absolutely fabulous bit of knitting.

Cables Building Block from Knitting Temptations - Day 4

The Imperfect Show Off...

I admit it.  I’m a show-off.  I love it when people stare at these cables and get that all-impressed “oh, you must have such knitting skills!” look on their faces.  It happened again today whilst knitting in public.

Of course, these are never actual knitters.  Actual knitters--except for the very new ones--know that cables are all smoke and mirrors.  Razzle dazzle.  They look wildly complicated, but they’re not.  Cables are so deliciously, delightfully do-able!

The only hard part about cables is counting your rows so you know which row is the one requiring the cabling action stitch switcheroo.  And evidently, even this is beyond my mental capacity because I botched my latest cable.  It’s two rows longer than the other ones.  A finer woman than I would go back and fix it, but I am not so fine a woman. it's the cable on the top in this photo...c'mon, can you really tell?  It’s such a minor gaff and this is going to be a pillow for my daughter’s apartment so it’ll have Ramen Noodles spilled on it within weeks if not days (ooo, poor pillow!). I guess I’m not much of an artisan role model.  Do not let this fool you into thinking I don’t like this project or this yarn--they’re both downright wonderful.  I’ve just never been a perfectionist.   

Like EZ says (and I paraphrase), “If a man running for his life wouldn’t notice the error, it’s not an error.”  

It’s...character.

Cables Building Block from Knitting Temptations - Day 3

Top Ten Reasons Why I Knit on Airplanes

During my flight to and from Denver for speaking engagements (and an awesome Peter Gabriel concert at Red Rocks, not to mention time with good friends), I had the opportunity to ponder the relationship between knitting and air travel.  Much like hospitals, I don’t even consider venturing into an airport without yarn and needles.  Here, in no particular order, is why:

1. I can’t always work--as an inspirational romance author I’m neurotic about writing certain scenes on airplanes.  I’m just sure that my cardiologist-from-Minnesota-seat-mate is staring at my highly emotional/spiritual/tender text and inwardly gagging.
2. There’s a tiny tiger-mama part of me that believes if properly provoked, I could take down a terrorist with my sharp wooden circular needles.  Of course, I will vehemently deny this to any TSA representative who thinks I shouldn’t have them on board for just that reason.
3. I’m downright crabby if kept waiting or kept from food.  This means that if we’re stuck sitting on the runway for two hours, I’m knitting not for my enjoyment, I’m knitting for your protection.
4. I’m secretly waiting for you to ask me what I’m doing so I can go on at great length about the virtues of knitting and probably persuade you to take up the craft before we land.
5. Having something to do keeps me from giving into the temptation of asking you what you’re reading on your Kindle in the sick hope that you’ll say you are reading this absolutely fabulous book from someone named Allie Pleiter.  I realize the chances of this ever happening are microscopic, but a girl can dream.
6. Knitting keeps me from asking what’s on your Kindle for another good reason.  If you’re reading 50 Shades of Grey and you find out I write romance then you’ll ask me what I think of that book and quite honestly if ONE MORE PERSON asks me what I think of that book......
7. I harbor the ridiculous fantasy that if the plane goes down and we’re stranded on a desert island, I’ll at least have something rewarding to do.  Not that other tasks like finding food or building shelter will be fighting for my attention.
8. It doesn’t have an on-off switch, which means I can do it from the moment I sit down until the moment I get off the plane.
9. It justifies the absurd amount of personal care/clothing items I must forgo packing because I need room for my knitting.  Don’t ask, you don’t want to know.
10. I love to knit anywhere so of course I’m knitting on a plane.

There you have it. One woman’s obsession spread out for the world to see.  I doubt anyone’s surprised.

Cables Building Block from Knitting Temptations - Day 2

Color me happy...

I find it amazing the effect color has on me.  For a woman whose closet sports mostly grey, black, and brown, I'm genuinely impacted by color.  There is something about the bright turquoise, the cheery "Aqua Mint" of this yarn.  Truly, I have the sensation of the color choosing me rather than the other way around--hasn’t every knitter walked into a store and had a fiber pull at them in such an emotional way?

For a cable project, color is an important consideration--there's a reason the traditional Aran sweater is done in cream. Sure, it's the natural color of most sheep yarn, but the design would never show up on a darker color.  Or a patterned yarn--I tried a pair cabled mittens in a grey tweed with dismal results.

What is it about color?  Lots of things play on our emotional response to color.  The folks at LUSH, one of my favorite bath and skincare product companies, have dived into the cosmetics market with a spiffy line called "Emotional Brilliance." I fell for their wheel-spinning color choosing gimmick (much like the "turn the wheel and tell me the first thing you see” thing from Chocolat) loving the evocative names each color was given.  Try it for yourself here.

Part of what makes us yarn people is our powerful response to color and texture. We want to spend time with it, near it, pondering it.  It takes us hours to select bathroom tile, we need to touch things to purchase them, and we have trouble understanding the lure of the Home Shopping Network.  You can't touch the scarf on your television screen.  Is this true for you, too? Or are you just the opposite?

I love touching this yarn.  I crave the lushness of the bamboo, the cozy loft of my stitches, the creamy texture against my fingers.  Tactile Xanax, this stuff--a dose of calm and cheer no matter where I am and what I'm facing.  Making beauty, at least for me, is always the best medicine.

Cables Building Block from Knitting Temptations - Day 1

Hospital Knitting...

I truly believe in Providence, even when it extends to knitting.  While I can’t say I’m really surprised, I must say I am always delighted when the perfect knitting project finds its way onto my needles at just the right time.  Think what you will, I’ll always maintain that Divine Intervention made sure the Cables Building Block was this week’s project.

Three minor surgeries on three Pleiters in three days?  That’s enough stress to send anyone to their needles, wouldn’t you say?  Still, anyone who’s ever spent any time in a hospital knows how much waiting is involved.  And with an imagination like mine, waiting without occupation leads to nothing but worrying.  

As such, I’ve got four requirements of “hospital knitting:”

1) cheerful color

2) entertaining but not overwhelming pattern

3) rapid results, and 

4) a really lush-feeling fiber

My Cables Building Block from Michelle Hunter's Building Blocks knocks it out of the park on all four counts.  A Fiber Grand Slam, if you will.  I love the perky turquoise (actually, it's "Aqua Mint") of my HiKoo Simpliworsted , and its light-bright shade shows off the cables to perfection.  Cables are one of my favorite fiber parlor tricks--impressive but not terribly complicated.  Only one row in seven requires serious concentration, but oh what magic that row wields.  Size 10 needles means you see progress fast, and the lovely soft springiness of the HiKoo wove calm optimism around my fingers as I sat in procedure rooms and waiting rooms.

As coping mechanisms and sedatives go, yarn is still one of the healthiest around.  Positive, productive, and 100% calorie free. 

As for "habit-forming"...