Where Are Those Elves When You Need Them?

I need a visit from the knitterly version of those marvelous guys who bailed out the shoemaker. I've fallen behind. I doubt this is a surprise. I should have been well past half by now. I'm still on 39, 40 and 41.

With so little knitting to report, I thought I'd write about logistics. The whole how am I going to get through this with my wits intact (preferably more than less so.)

While the Weird Partial Garter Miters aren't miles of endless, mindless garter followed by acres of stockinette -- that double decrease in the middle of the garter stitch and triple decrease in the middle of the stockinette prevent that sort of numbness -- there is enough to allow time for thought. Some of the thoughts are, admittedly, bizarre. (Late last night I found my self naming color combinations in a truly scary stream-of-consciousness kind of way. Provence and Mallard had me thinking cookery thoughts. Of course, that may have been due to an excess of closet clearing and all the dust I inhaled. Who said housekeeping is good for you?) But some of them are productive.

Unlike Diane, I am a product knitter. It isn't enough to knit. I don't want to have someone admire my work while I bite my tongue to keep from pointing out what I could have (should have) done better. If I'm going to indulge in alchemy, I'm going to do it well. I tried when I started this project to let go and do the whole random thing. Not going to happen.

Once I realized a condition of the number of colors and the number of squares I needed - specifically that I was going to have to repeat color combinations - I found rules piling up. No contiguous duplicates was the first, so I figured out the placement for the 16 repeat squares.

More rules are popping up. No color repeated within a given block of 4 may be one.

No matching colors side by each may be another.

These are not carved in stone. I'm open to suggestions, or at least discussion. I think.

The only thing I'm sure of is that I don't want to have to sew strips of 5 blocks/10 squares together and will plan the assembly accordingly. In fact, I hope I won't have to sew any seam longer than 6 squares (and I'll keep to 4 for as long as I can).

Meantime, any of you with entry into elfdom, put in a good word for me, yes?

Blocked - 24
Completed - 38
On the needles - 39, 40 and 41 (still)

Edited to add: I know this is a shameless example of trolling for comments, but would the sky fall and the heavens tumble if 2 more of you pick a number between 1 and 72? Please? Pretty please? You know if you don't comment the terrorists will win. It says so on Splindarella's Blog.