Sometimes a little at a time is enough.

I have reached a point of zen with the Minnesota Trip project. The back is a huge field of stockinette, on US2 needles, at nearly 7 stitches to the inch. I am not a petite woman, and there's a lot of back and forth. Progress is slow, and as I said last week, I wasn't feeling it because I got no sense of accomplishment from it. I'd knit for hours, measure, and feel like the thing had gotten shorter. (In truth, I misread the tape measure.) I walked away from it for a few weeks, and came back over the weekend and made some major progress. Now I've got the armhole decreases done, and it's plain stockinette for a few inches until I add in the short rows for the back of the neck.

But the rows are shorter now because of the armholes, and it's hot outside, and I can knit peacefully in the basement, where it's cool and a little damp. The cats don't sit on our laps so much in this weather, so I like to think that I'm knitting far less cat hair into the top than usual. I'm enjoying it. Yes, the progress is still slow, but it's so beautiful and I'm now at the point where I can't wait to wear it.

Yes, I still have the front to go, but it's got a lace panel which I assume will keep me more interested.

My initial intention was to make the top more tank-like by narrowing the shoulders more than suggested, but after reading the schematic, and measuring some of my own garments, and looking at the Ann Budd book on designing sweaters, it occurred to me that the pattern was written for someone far narrower in the shoulders than I have. Without making any changes at all, it should (and I should know better than to predict this) turn out exactly how I want it to. We'll see.

I'm not sure how I got here, to the point where I am so happy to be knitting a row, then purling a row, without caring about how little difference each row makes (about 1/12 of an inch. I said I don't care, not I don't know). It's fun. It's relaxing. It's keeping my mind settled as I plan my way through all the other chaos of my life.

I'm so glad I didn't give this one up when I got frustrated. I'm setting modest goals. I'd like to have the back done by the end of the weekend. I have 100 minutes tomorrow to knit (while my students take their final). I usually break up grading with a few rows between problems. And by doing this one row at a time, one stitch at a time, I'll get to where I need to be.