Picking up stitches along an edge is right down there with doing seed stitch: things I tend to put off.

I promised myself this was the week, and today I picked up the afghan, now in its fifth month, and I did it, I picked those up. One, two, skip one, one, two, skip one, one two, skip one….

Because (and I learned this long ago the hard way) knitted stitches are not square and going sideways from the ones you’re working from in ribbing, if you pick up every single one you’ll make a ripple that will never lie flat, not to mention the extra yardage and time it takes that you could be spending picking up more stitches on the other side and getting that over with, too.

Seven rows down seven to go on this side.

It feels like a mystery that somehow after all this time, that’s all it needs and then I won’t ever get to knit on this particular afghan again. Right when it’s at its most glorious.