Moderne, Part 2

Mindless and meditative holiday knitting, as I play with my little man, write some code, cook, clean home, and do some home-moving packing...Yeah, its growing nicely, from what it was last week. Excited and close to adding in the fourth colour, the dark green!

Do you know what this type of knitting reminds me of, and gives me a feel of? Remember those thick markers, thick brushes, and thick paints in childhood art classes or school time art? There was some strange kind of joy and pleasure in slowly and gradually filling in a blank sheet of paper with solid, opaque colours, and watching an abstract play of colours simply emerge. I would lose myself in the thick quality of the paint, and how it felt on the sheets of paper (this was very a very different feel from say thin water colours on the same sheet of paper). That is what it feels like while knitting something like this: like I am holding a thick marker or brush in my hand, and slowly and surely filling up the blank sheet of air with opaque colour. 

Moderne

I have always wanted to do this one: the Moderne log cabin blanket. So, christmas and new year present this year from hubby and son was all this yummy cotton yarn. The blankie will be for our new couch, in our new home! And because we celebrate a summer Christmas and New Year in the land down under, the yarn of choice right now is cotton. Our new lounge is going to be a dark brown with some mustardy yellow kind of mixed in it, so the greens and yellow seemed good.

Ravelry link to project

The yarn is from Bendigo Woollen Mills. I think it is the only place in Australia you can buy good stuff at reasonable prices. The yarn goodie shops in Sydney that I know of are all so so so expensive, you would not dream of doing something as large as a blanket with them, unless of course in a moment of madness you go completely decadent and spoil yourself. There is course, Lincraft and Spotlight, but surprisingly, this yarn is so much yummier than anything I've ever bought from these stores.

One thing about new yarn and me is: I have to cast on right away. This is independent of how many other projects I have on my needles at a given moment. So, here is the modest beginning from last afternoon's start.

I love the texture of the good old garter stitch. My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was about 5 or 6, and millions of garter stitches down the road, I still love the way it comes out, and I still have these moments of anticipation pondering about how a particular colour and yarn is going to lend itself to the stitch.

By the way, I started this yesterday in the afternoon, and after some really feverish TV-time mindless knitting in the night, the piece is now considerably bigger than what is seen above. A word on log cabin knitting: I love the almost meditative silence in which this blanket is growing. The exciting part will come when I start to add in the second colour, then the third, then the fourth...