I’m in a particularly stressful period that began in November and should end in a few more weeks. Then an even more stressful time might follow. Or it might not. Or it might be something else entirely in some other maddening form.
Who knows.
But I’ve been foggy, as has been the weather, bringing the end of snow and more snow and too cold to snow and rain and icy crusted over snow…
I was planning on continuing to knit more socks, my most recent scarfy thing, and some long suffering sweaters – easy, comfortable, brainless knitting things, but some gift needs popped up and I relaxed into a spell of more hat knitting.
I only needed one, but I’m on the third, and am going to throw in a fourth for N.
One is my old standby, and three are variations on Jared Flood’s Turn a Square, wherein instructions are given for a tubular cast on which is new to me.
I didn’t want to try something new – I didn’t want to think, just knit. But a lazy Sunday afternoon found me curious, then skeptical for six rows (feeling annoyed that it was six rows instead of one before the actual knitting started) but when it was over, I was looking at the perfect hat edge that has been missing in my life.
It’s the kind of edge you might find on commercial, but well-made hats, or done by the knitterly grand dames of the last century. Not that I want anything I make to look like it was made by anything other than a pair of hands, but I need to step up my edging and finishing game and this seems more durable and stretchy – possibly without the danger of getting stretched-out – and oh so perfectly reversible…
However, I prefer to knit hats top-down, so I am going to have to change my comfortable ways, or think harder about alternative engineering and grafting…
Speaking of which, even with my mind in a semi-shutdown state, I realized I finally memorized how to graft/kitchener my toes closed on my second to last pair of socks.
For years I had to watch the same video over and over to remember where to start in the sequence. Often I’d finish a pair of socks while traveling and either sew them shut in some unsightly but functional way or pack them home with open toes. Or at home, I’d finish everything in the evening but have to wait for daylight – usually during my lunch hour (and one of the rare times I’ve got my knitting anywhere near the computer) to close it up. The video I used was fine, and watching for the first few seconds got me back on track and soon I finished, but it just never stuck in my head.
Then I watched a new video, this video,* and bam, something in my brain clicked and it’s in there – no more unfinished toes until I get to a computer (I still don’t have a smartphone). Sure, I might need it again if I don’t need to graft for some time, but I’m confident that I don’t need a crutch for the next few pairs.
(I still use a cheat sheet for turning heels, but I think I’ve got that one down now too finally.)
I wish I could pick up and retain things in a few minutes or after a few times rather than in many years and after many projects…
*Maybe this one worked somehow subconsciously because I have the same sofa?
ASTITCHMATISM 
I too have to look up the first stitch on kitchener every time I do it. Not often enough I guess.
Usually I learn by seeing, not hearing & reading, but I think hearing that the sequence, once you’re going along, always starts with a like stitch – you’re going to k a k, then do the opposite on the next – and to begin, you’re just starting on the second part of the sequence, so your first stitch is opposite… Wow, that doesn’t really make sense once I wrote it though…!