The O Pile!

I have a new knitting term, y'all. I decided, as I was unpacking my Yarn Room, that almost everything in my pile of "UFOs" is really finished except for the finishing.

I've decided this constitutes my O Pile, which is Finished Objects that haven't been finished yet. There's a baby blanket where all the squares are done, it just needs to be assembled and bordered. There's another baby blanket that needs a border. There is a dog sweater that is knitted, all the pieces are stitched together, it just needs some decoration.

Well, here's the story of my wavy scarf, which was just rustled up and is, right now, blocking. I hate blocking and I am totally doing it to get down my O pile.

I took the pattern from the Lizard Ridge afghan pattern on Knitty. Basically, the afghan is done up in strips–I just did one strip, added a border pattern from Nicky Epstein’s Knitting Over the Edge and voila! A scarf.

The pattern is easy to memorize and really fun.

This is the scarf pre-blocking.

This was my first Noro project. At first I loved the colorway, then I hated it, and then I just focused on one color that every time it repeated it pissed me off. Seriously. I wasn’t sure what to do with the scarf so, for the longest time, it languished in my O pile, all knitted up with no place to go.

Then I met a girl who I was really sweet on. She was visiting me from out of town but only brought one scarf with her to combat the cold NYC climate. Every time she put on her scarf I got sort of pissed at it. I couldn’t pinpoint the reason. But I realized later, after she flew back home, what I was so pissed at about the scarf was the colorway. It was a commercial scarf with a lot of the same colors as this one. But totally different and not homemade with love or whatever.

I knew, right then, I had to pull this beast out of the O pile, weave in the ends and get to blocking.

She’s going to love it.

And you know, I am going to sound all hippie woo woo for a second, but even though I didn't make it for her, as I was pinning it out to block it, I totally saw so much of her in the piece. It even prompted me to write a poetic accompaniment to the gift.

I will see her soon, at that time you'll get a modeling shot.

PS to Last One Skeining. Thank you for the prompt to post something in my blog. Even though you're in Australia, I am totally updating in your honor.