Finished!

Isn’t it great to finish something? Gosh, I haven’t finished much of anything lately, except that 10K. I have 3 or 4 design projects in progress, including the one I started late last year. I guess that’s what you get in software design – applications are never finished.

BUT! I started knitting a set of 6 placemats last summer, and I finished the last one this week! With knitting projects, finishing one means I have permission to start another. Not to say that I only work on one at a time – on the contrary! I usually have 3 or 4 going at once. You know those design projects I mentioned? Yeah, well, I’ve been too busy to knit. If I’m too busy to knit, I’m for sure too busy to blog! Whew. I cheat a lot by editing my post timestamps. So now I’ve admitted it. I used to be really good about writing a journal, but even then I would get behind and have to write “catch up” entries. The best eras for my journal were early college, when I often felt lonely; and when I was single and living alone, ditto. Now that I have my best friend living right in the same apartment, I get things off my chest without using a pen.

Did I ever tell you how I ramble on? You might want to see the new placemats, here they are:

I used 6 skeins of Lion Brand Cotton, to make 6 placemats with 4 colors each. I’m pretty obsessive about color (among other things!) so I made sure to make 6 unique combinations of 4 colors for each mat. I’m quite pleased with the way the checkerboard texture “blends” the colors and gives them a bit more subtlety. The checkering is accomplished by using the “linen stitch” which uses slipped stitches rather than stranding to create the effect of multiple colors in each row of knitting. In actuality, every row is knit using only one color. So, that made them fairly quick and very simple to knit. It was a good project because I didn’t have to count stitches or pay very close attention, but it wasn’t boring either because it wasn’t straight knitting and when I got sick of a color combination it was time to switch colors.

I’ve been working on them slowly and steadily for the last year – if I got bored or frustrated with my current projects or needed a “mindless” knit for some reason (like riding in the car) this was there for me to pick up again.