Deja Vu All Over Again*

Truth be told, I don't much like knitting scarves. I usually need a good reward system set up to get anywhere. Failing that, a really compelling incentive, like guilt, can work.

I'm trying to get a good head of steam up over my Red Scarf. With neither a reward or an incentive in place, the going is about as slow as the proverbial molasses in January. We're talking snail's pace here. Actually, no. Even that would be faster than my knitting. Maybe a dead snail.

I thought maybe if I could mark progress in something other than inches, that could be it's own reward. I started measuring by getting the first full stripe from the left side to the right (see the green markers). Once I'd done that, I thought, I could set the starting point for the next stripe and follow that up (that would be the orange marker).

It's not working well. I've only got two such stripes done so far. While gazing down at it in mild despair this morning, I noticed something else about it. It looked familiar. This -- given how infrequently I knit scarves -- made no sense. I knit scarves so infrequently that I can count them without taking my shoes off. I couldn't figure out where I had seen this before. For that matter, I couldn't figure out why it almost felt like I had knit this before.

The penny dropped when I looked at the wrong side.

I've knit a whole blanket like it. I just didn't recognize it until I turned the scarf over. Surely, then, I can pull off a scarf's worth.

Maybe, just maybe though, it's time to investigate rewards.

*Attributed to Yogi Berra.