Wednesday, June 20, 2007

They're Really More Like Guidelines

This is where it gets good. With 30 mitered squares blocked and 6 more on the board, I think I have enough to start playing with color combinations.

Luni commented that no color repeated within a block of 4 might be too strict a rule. Math not being my strong point, I suspect she might be right. Nine colors probably just aren't enough to enforce that one. Much as I like the idea, it's starting to feel like a non-starter. While a rule that you get to break may be fun, a rule that you have to break is just a chore.

I'm thinking of taking a leaf from the Lord High Chancellor's Book. If I "allow an old Equity draftsman to make a suggestion. . . the insertion of a single word will do it. Let it stand that every fairy shall die who don't marry a mortal." No. That won't work. I can't think of any sentence construction that will allow me to insert a single word. Rather, I can, but they're all terminally convoluted. It will have to be the substitution of a single word. Instead of "no" color repeated, "one" color repeated within every block of 4, with the understanding that it's flexible, Carved in wet sand, as it were.

I'm sticking with no adjacent repeats, though. That one's set in stone.

At least I think it is.

Iolanthe, or The Peer and the Peri. Gilbert, W. S. & Sullivan, Arthur. 1882. [It has come to my attention that there are those with intellectual pretensions who set themselves above G & S. All I can say is, lighten up.]

Blocked - 36 Hmm. That may be less than scrupulously honest. How about:

Blocked - 30
On the board - 6
Completed - 45
On the needles - 46, 47, 48

3 comments:

Diane H said...

What about repeating at corners? Inside the 4-block and outside? I don't know what it would look like, just throwing it out there.

Susan Luni said...

Good adaptation of rules. I agree some flexibility as you go is required. How far are you going before you start sewing together? I'm remembering my own experience with 99 blocks for a 9 x 11 rectangle that became an 8 x 12 with 3 extra blocks because I got confused with so much sewing up at one time.
A week of sewing up was not fun.

Shelly said...

I looked through your old posts but couldn't find if you said what yarn that was. I love the colors, they are soft and bright at the same time. What yarn is that?