Who knew it would be so difficult to arrange strips of fabric in a seemingly random yet balanced manner? This is not the kind of skill I’ve had a chance to develop through knitting, although if I neglected my poor Gee’s Bend meets Mason Dixon blanket a little less, I might get more practice.

Exhibits 1 and 5 were the clear favorites, with 1 pulling ahead late in the race. (The social scientist in me wonders if this didn’t have something to do with them being the first and last options, and whether they would have gotten as much love if they’d been in the middle of the group.) Actually, they were my favorites, too. And you all made me think harder about what exactly appealed to me about each one.

Number 1:

This one has the most overt balance, I think: the diagonal parallel shift of the pink flowers and brown polka dot short strips; the strong Amy Butler browns spaced wide like columns; even distribution of lights and darks, with the lights forming a capital N if you squint at them. What bugged me: the Butlers being the same height, and the short strips along the top being equal in stubbiness.

Number 5:

I liked the energy of this arrangement, the way my eye had to move over the composition. But ultimately it was, perhaps, a little too unsettling. Plus, using the squinting trick, there’s a vast past expanse at the lower center with no dark mass to counterbalance it. This is where I got to thinking that the lower edge might look funny with a dark binding.

I also realized I probably need a ninth strip for width if I want the thing to be square.

So I went back to the drawing board. I looked in Bend the Rules again and realized that Amy Karol’s version staggers the short strips in the middle of the long ones, as I did with the pink flowers in version 5. So I thought I might give that idea more thought. I also realized I’d forgotten what I was drawn to in Moonstitches’s pleasing sheets: the horizontal continuity she achieves by varying the width of the strips and keeping those with large patterns in the order they were cut from the cloth. That ability for the eye to slide sideways across the quilt gives it order, I think. Most of my fabrics don’t have a pattern that you’d notice repeating horizontally, but the Amy Butler does. I thought I’d try making use of it.

This time I’ve tried to reduce the chaos by reducing the number of darks on lights and vice versa. Seeing it on screen, I think I might make a further change: slide the brown polka dot interrupter up the Amy Butler background strip, and move the pale twiggy one down the green strip next to it. Swap them visually, so that the brown polka dots stay together and offset the pink florals diagonally, sort of as in version 1.

What do you think?

And yeah, I’m just gonna sew the dog hair right in.

Ladies and gentlemen (okay, so -men is ambitious), I need your votes! Saturday was sunny and glorious, and I spent a happy hour in the back garden cutting fabric strips for the Bend-the-Rules Lap Quilt. That was the easy part. Now I have to decide on a pleasing arrangment, and for that I could use your practiced eyes.

Exhibit 1:

Exhibit 2:

Exhibit 3:

Exhibit 4, which is just like 3 except I’ve removed the little pedestal of the sage green to the strip second from right:

Exhibit 5:

If you have a suggestion to improve the quilt beyond what I’ve proposed here, let me have it. The backing is the sage green (which has wee polka dots, as you can see better in the original picture below).

The binding will be mostly the Amy Butler at left, since I still have so much of it, unless I decide I don’t like the edges being so dark.

I worked on my little sundress yesterday, too, which means I ripped off the skirt and cut about six inches off the side so there wouldn’t be as much fabric to gather. It was way too Baby Doll for my figure. Now it’s better, but it still needs a zipper and a hem and a cute button for the ribbon ties that aren’t long enough to tie.

But the knitting continues predictable and satisfying:

I finished Ana a good two weeks ago, but I’ve been waiting for natural light and a photographer. The hat isn’t as yellow as the afternoon sun made it in these shots, but you get the idea. I don’t know about “boho chic 4 ever,” but I think it’s a good argument for bringing back the snood.

While Mr. G was in Toronto, I had to point out to him that he was in Yarn Harlot country, and that while she herself was a stone’s throw from my own home town at the time, he should really be storing up impressions of the lay of the storied land to relate to his wife. He should especially keep an eye out lest he should happen to stroll by Her LYS.

Reader, the sainted man walked thirty-five blocks to visit said LYS. And he brought me this:

I may have suffered the most fleeting of disappointments that this is a Budweiser cap and not Molson or some other brand that’s, well, Canadian. But it’s still an awesome idea, and it’s also a magnet — a pleasingly powerful one at that.

But let’s pull back for a better look at the yarn, no?

Just imagine how improved the world of knit blogging will be if they ever invent Pat the Bunny technology for computer screens. You know, so you can feel the yarn in the picture. Because this is HandMaiden Casbah: a collective 975m of 80% merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon. Ain’t it glorious? Poor Mr. G was a little crestfallen that he hadn’t brought me something I’d never seen in the U.S., but I assured him that he’d managed to peg one of my very favorite yarn companies, and it’s a colorway I’ve never seen. It isn’t on the HandMaiden colour card – perhaps it’s exclusive to Lettuce Knit?

According to the company’s information, this is designed to be a sock yarn. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t feel like one. And I have such a wealth of it! I do believe it needs to be a sweater of some kind. I think I’ve written before that I have opinions about the use of variegated yarns in large garments. Socks can be as rangi changi* as you like. Babies can get away with anything. But it’s tough to sell me on strong random color changes in large swathes. I need regular striping or something to subdue the chaos. I’m half considering designing a sweater made out of narrow strips of garter stitch so I can figure out the color repetitions and make them stripe. That instinct, I realize, borders on the psychotic. Think of the seaming! There must be an easier way. Miters might do it, for instance. So leave me your suggestions – what patterns do you know that might make the best use of these soft desert colors?

Of course, I can always settle for a lovely lap blanket. The yarn is machine washable, after all. And no matter what it becomes, my husband is a sweetheart.

*This is a useful Nepali word with the felicitous dual meaning of “riotously colorful” and “drunk.” Honestly, is there a better descriptor for some of the sock yarn out there? Why don’t we have an equivalent word in English? Nepali fills many holes in my English lexicon. Another is kaancho, which describes the mouth feel of under-ripe bananas.

Thank you all so much for your kind words about Gram. It means a lot to me, and I’m sure to my mum, who reads here sometimes!

It’s been a drear few days weather-wise, and we’re all suffering a little cabin fever around here. Mr. G went to Toronto for five days, which means that Lark has been living in the car in the school parking lot and Mingus hasn’t been outdoors in two days, since I haven’t wanted to subject him to a whole day of huddling outside in the downpour by letting him take his morning constitutional before I leave for work. So it was an extra treat to come home yesterday and find these pushed through the mail slot:

Isn’t is marvelous how it’s still so exciting to get presents from the mailman, even if you’ve bought and paid for them? That’s a Schrodinger Original sock cube – just the thing for protecting my socks-in-progress from the cruel world of cat hair they’re born into. I love those little rosy brown sheep! Go check out Cathy’s shop – she has a couple more sheep cubes like mine, plus an adorable Japanese print of matryoshka dolls.

And as you see, I couldn’t resist ordering a copy of Lisa Lloyd’s new book as soon as it pubbed. I haven’t had time to read deeply yet, but I already learned a lot about the properties of different breeds’ wool. I’m sure there’s a wealth of information here to improve my spinning, and the cabled sweaters are truly succulent. I’m not casting on anything right away: the Ivy stole and a secret project for publication with Shibui demand my fidelity as their deadlines loom. But in the mean time, this title is joining the ranks of the books I leaf through late at night just for inspiration.