Saturday, July 9, 2011

Mindless Knitting



We knitters, being normal humans, like to classify our world. The yarn and projects we have are classified as stash, UFOs, and WIPs, and become FOs when they go out of the project room and into the closet or into a gift recipient's hands. We also tend to classify the difficulty of our projects.


Currently, I am on a mindless knitting jag. I have a mindless portable project, perfect for bringing along for car rides and endless soccer/hockey/name-your-sport games. This cowl is in Noro Chirimen (a finer gauge version of Taiyo) and is a 2 row lace pattern that is a 3 stitch repeat. You can't get much simpler than that, and since it is a one ball project, it certainly qualifies as portable. My rule for mindlessness in portable projects is that I need to be able to figure out where I am in the pattern within a minute of putting the project in my hands. This guy falls into the 10 second category. The other qualification (which also goes for the nonportable projects) is that I should be able to avoid staring at my knitting. I do look down at this one, but I can knit a fair amount in the dark.

This cowl is living on my bedside table when it isn't in the car.


I am also working away on a mindless project which quickly grew out of the portable phase. This is the Moderne Baby Blanket (Mason-Dixon Knitting) that I am making for my brother and his wife. Since it is pure garter stitch, the mindless factor is high. I only need to look at what I'm doing when I'm picking up for a new color.

I hope the enjoyment of mindlessness lasts long enough to finish this big guy off.

2 comments:

Carol said...

What is the name of the pattern for the cowl you are working on?

Jamie Wang said...

There is a pattern in the new Interweave Weekend called Mixt Cowl. I took that pattern, cast on a lot fewer stitches (only 120), eliminated the double twist at the cast on (that makes the original into a mobius variant), and used a needle size appropriate to my yarn.