Playing It Safe

I am not the daredevil type. Too old, too staid, too resistant. I therefore start every new pattern with no sense of the rhythm of it at all. It doesn't matter how many times I read it, or how doggedly I try to integrate the instructions and/or the chart with the picture. I begin by slavishly, almost obsessively, tracking the pattern, not only row by row, but stitch by stitch. I got this far on the Blessingway Blanket and decided I was out of my mind.

No right thinking person would attempt cabling, much less cabling while working on the diagonal and incorporating increases at the same time. It was time to throw in the towel, give it up as a hopeless task, admit defeat and switch to the Pinwheel Blanket.

So I ordered this from Eat.Sleep.Knit.

Dream in color Classy in Lunar Zazzle. "Hah!" I said to myself, as if I had scored some great victory instead of contemplating an ignominious defeat, "That 'll show 'em." Who I thought I was showing what to, I have no idea.

Then something happened while I was waiting for the yarn (which wasn't long). I don't want to say I've conquered cables. Hubris, don't you know, a.k.a. my besetting knitting sin. Yet, once I got into the rhythm of it, even accommodating the increases wasn't too traumatic.

Now I've gotten into the straightaway, I'm thinking some more. I picked up a couple extra sets of US 9/6 mm needles, set my swift spinning and started the first corner motif. I have 11 more rows before I have to face the chart.

I think maybe I just don't like the idea of sky-diving without a net.