A quarter ounce, five inches, let’s see, four ounces in the ball of Lisa Souza Mardi Gras merino/angora, that would come to 80″ long by 22″ wide, yeah, that’ll do… Except… I really didn’t like that one superfluous stitch there and that one there as the thing grew, they threw the balance off visually. And I wasn’t going to like them any better if I kept on going. They might not really have been that big of a deal, except that this was a new design idea that had been swimming around in my head for the next book–out!
(P.S. That last little bit of frogging is where I become a tad less enamored of my habit of wrapping the longtail cast-on strand across the back of each stitch along the entire first purled row. I always figure that when you give someone something you knitted them, you should give them enough matching yarn to go with it for them to be able to mend any future holes (or to bring it to you to do so). Now, who’s going to remember years in the future where they put that strand, if they even still have it? But if it’s stored right there across that row, it’s real easy to find, and there’s way more than you need for the task at hand of securing the end. See? Practical.
Till you have to frog the silly thing.)