Knitting Snack

The Sea Silk was not a keeper. It's frogged and resting, waiting for inspiration. Besides, the temperature has dropped. It's below freezing out there. Suddenly, a summer-weight scarf doesn't have the appeal it did.

The song of the Endpaper Mitts is faint and faraway as well. I think I'm still so annoyed with myself for using the wrong color for the faux seams that I can't bear to knit on them right now.

I know I said yesterday that I'm too old to be groupie or a stalker, but I begin to wonder if the same can be said for my knitting. I seem to be back to all Mason-Dixon, all the time, because I'm getting my color fix from mitered squares.

This has become my long-term, ongoing, pick-it-up-often-enough-and-some-day-I'll-have-an- afghan project. This still surprises me, since the mitered square, whether from Mason-Dixon or Domino Knitting, originally left me less than enthusiastic. Mitered squares were for other knitters. Knitters who don't mind weaving in all those ends. Knitters who are devoted to stockinette. Yet here I am. They knit up so quickly that I know if I showed any kind of persistence or self-discipline, I'd have it finished in a couple of weeks. Persistence and self-discipline, however, are, at best, infrequent visitors.

Instead, my mitered squares fill the niche most knitters seem to save for socks. Colorful. Small. Portable. Quick. Like Jays Potato Chips, once I start one, I can't stop.

I can pretend I've accomplished something every time I finish one. For some reason, this makes the humongous projects (read: Bubbly Curtain or Island Embrace Variation or Seamless Sweater) seem less interminable. It makes no sense to me, but there it is. Not working on the big project makes it go faster. Certainly paradoxical. Possibly oxymoronic. Tasty, though.