A Model of Indecision

I've bound off the top for the Knitalong Pillowbook (loosely, I hope) in purl. While I await the miracle of blocking (and it will take a miracle to get this to measure 12.5 by 18.5 inches,

I have decisions to make. There's the whole matter of the text, you see. Larissa chose an excerpt from Sei Shonagon's pillowbook of "things that take the breath away." It's just that what worked for Sei doesn't work for me.

I've considered a list of words I like for no apparent reason except possibly the sound they make: davenport, credenza, fallow, meadow, counterpane, hobgoblin, thresh, bobolink, onomatopoeia, sliddery.

I've thought about a list of my children's favorite bedtime stories, back when they were young enough to want bedtime stories: The Woman Who Flummoxed the Fairies, Goodnight Moon, Heckedy Peg, To Think That I saw It On Mulberry Street, The Napping House, Oom Razoom, Rosie and the Rustlers, The Frog Prince.

I've debated poems: "Summons" by Robert Francis, "Myth" by Muriel Rukeyser, Puck's Speech at the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I looked up the definition of sleep in my short OED. Between the noun and the verb forms, and if you include the etymology, it takes up over a column. I'd have to abridge it.

Since this isn't getting me anywhere, I thought perhaps I should turn my mind to more practical matters, like how I'm going to turn this into a pillow. I've ordered a feather pillow (on sale at Cuddledown), so that much is done. The instructions in Knitalong have you sew the pillow-form into the case, making it into a sort of permanent soft sculpture. I''m stuck on my desire to make it into a sham.

I'm wondering if I could pick up stitches below the garter stitch border and knit a back, knitting two together down one side and along the bottom edge. If I did, I think it would have to be in pattern; I can't imaging a stockinette back would respond to the aggressive blocking the pillow front is currently undergoing.

I could, I suppose, treat the whole pillow front as a big applique and attach it to a prefabricated pillow sham. I could knit a rectangle in stockinette and sew it to 3 sides of the front. I could make a second "front" and do a series of three-needle bind-offs.

Or I could say I've done my bit to bring spring in (you're welcome) and go back to knitting sweaters and quilt squares.