Why this journey?

I've been retired now for over a year. Husband has been sick but is now doing quite well with new pacemaker. I continue to knit and knit and crochet. Recently I became friends again with my sewing machine so you will see some of those projects, too. Thanks for reading.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Turning the corner

The variegated cowl has turned the corner.  If you remember it began with a triangle, starting with only 3 stitches.  The pattern stitch is very similar to a Fisherman's Rib, but not quite.  Get the pattern at Bernat, knitted cowl, using Bernat Mosaic.

After the triangle reached a specified measurement along one side, the pattern changed so that one side continued to add stitches while at the other end of that row the pattern takes away a stitch.  In just a few rows  you can see that this is process has created a rectangle -- which means you've turned the corner and are now working the length of the cowl.
All the color waves show in this view, plus the emerging
rectangle.  I'm still knitting across the diagonal of the
rectangle, adding a stitch at the beginning of the row and taking
one away at the end of the row.
For recall, here is the triangle where the journey began --


Eventually, I'll have to join the second ball of Mosaic yarn, as one skein is not enough to complete the project.  At that point I'll probably have to unwind the new ball to reach the point where its color wave corresponds to the color wave at the ending of the first skein.  I guess you could ignore this step, but the result would be a clear demarkation between the two skeins of yarn and right in the middle of the cowl.  Not something I would choose to interrupt the stitches and design of the cowl.  But it's a choice.

The measurements of the cowl are a bit unusual, mostly because there's no obvious place to measure, given that you begin with a triangle and then work on the diagonal of a rectangle.  The 'long side' must be 28" before I reach the end of the rectangle and begin the process to take away stitches, reducing the fabric to another triangle.

The empty needle is lying along the 'long' side
of the knitting.  The needle measures about 14".  The
instructions call for this 'long' side to be 28" so I reckon I'm
just over half way there.
This one is fun to watch as the shape escapes from the needles.  It's a bit difficult to envision, like statues sculpted from blocks of stone.  Apparently, Michelangelo could 'see' his final product -- David or the Pieta -- 'living' in the block of marble before he began with his chisels. 

Would that we each had a better sense of how decisions and choices would turn out, that we might envision ourselves along a path of life and understand better the outcome?  On the other hand, that might be  both boring and predictable, removing all the excitement of life.

The unknown is a great place in which to have a journey.

This cowl takes you gently into the unknown -- it's not that scary, really.

1 comment:

  1. I recently crocheted a scarf like this, done on the bias. It was really neat to do (and quite quick since it used huge stitches and lots of open space). I had fun watching the colors stripe and get many compliments on it when I wear it.

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