I finally used up all the ugly acrylic yarn. Purple and teal speckly yarn. Striped. I got a lot better with the stripes as I went along. And I can now say that I knit a complete project. Which is a great point of pride for me. Even if it is quite purple.

In person it doesn’t look that bad really. But you can definitely tell which end I started on and watch as the stitches get more even and as I get better with changing colors. Maybe I’ll send it to Donny Osmond. Thanks to my seventies’ childhood I forever associate Donny with the color purple. And pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance when Marie started talking about something stupid. Is it just me? They really weren’t either country or rock n roll.

I think I’ve got the regular garter stitch well in hand now. Binding off was pretty simple to do. After I got over my initial fear of imaginary knitting grandmothers of the world coming to get me if I didn’t knit exactly the way I was supposed to I found myself a lot more willing to experiment and just try it. Makes just giving stripes a try a whole lot more fun. This is pulling out all that artistic creativity that’s been dormant since roughly 1997. And with the Women’s Studies Judy Chicago background I can even justify this pasttime to the snottiest of art snobs. If I felt like it.

Tonight I tried out purls and after all that garter stich knitting I thought they were pretty simple to do. So right now I’m just playing around with a creamy cotton blend and a simple stockingette stitch just to see how it feels. I’m considering making a “ribbed for her pleasure” scarf from the snb book but I might make a loopy long and thin rayon scarf for Jocelyn first since she’s leaving fairly soon. But I want to play with purls a bit first.