I knitted the ribbing of the next big afghan project and wanted to dive right into the colorwork. But given that I haven’t even sketched the ideas out, bad as my drawing skills are… I thought maybe I should tell myself I wasn’t quite ready?

Conference sessions called for brainless knits anyway, so I pulled out a long-stalled hat. It’s the usual Malabrigo Mecha but it’s the only skein of it I’ve ever seen that was a mess. Wads and straggles, but at least no breaks.

And yet. It could be the hat it was a few inches towards; I just had to want it to. I didn’t want to. I didn’t even love the colors in the first place, though surely someone out there would.

I picked up those needles (I wanted it off them) and…sat down and made it work. Some kluging was involved (sudden thought: doing a Russian join seems an awkward term to my ears these days. Ukrainian? Who knows where it actually came from?) The hanging-by-a-thread part is now nestled inside a nice soft wad, which got stretched a little first. In the end I got a perfectly fine plain soft washable wool beanie that has nothing wrong with it and that someone out there is going to love.

I finished it. I even ran the ends in, specifically because it was the first day of Aftober, the annual get-out-there-and-finish-something-that’s-been-lagging month named after Afton, who started the tradition.

Although. More and more I’m thinking, you know? It’s not really done. Not till it’s found its person. Because that was always the point.