A Fifth

Not a whole lot to report on the knitting front this week. But I did just finish my 20th square on the Tamarix Quilt, which means I’m a fifth of the way there.

I didn’t do as much knitting this week as I’d like. I decided to get back to riding my bike to work more, which means I get home tired and sweaty and not inclined to touch yarn – even if it’s cotton. Also, we have minor chaos at our house these days with bathroom renovations afoot. Contractors in the house make me nervous as a cat. My fellow knitters at my knitting group this morning diagnosed it as a control issue. I think they’re entirely correct. Deep breaths, deep breaths. The dogs are handling this way better than I am.

Speaking of issues – and back to knitting: at times, using the seams-as-you-go method outlined the pattern, one has to cast on and then join both the sides, knitting toward a corner. This happened twice on the second row, at squares 17 and 20. Square 17 I seamed as I went. I wasn’t entirely happy, and at Square 20, which involved seaming unmatched colors during the process, I was really unhappy. So for Square 20, I knit it independently and then seamed it afterwards. I liked this better. I’ll do that from now on. Looking at the pattern, I can see that this will occur exactly at least 19 more times. You can totally geek out numerically on this pattern, that’s for sure.

So on we go. It’s nice to see the pattern developing, especially the nested squares that occur on the corners. The second row, just completed, contained six blocks that were combinations of the yellow (primrose) and brown (VanDyke brown), which got a bit old. It was nice to get back to the moss (green) and purple (heathered pansy) again. I’m enjoying how the decrease lines create a faux seaming affect, as if squares on a quilt have been cut on the bias. This definitely looks better from a distance than it does close up. I’m still finding strange joins and weird colors showing through at points, but I”m still intrigued by the overall effect.