In the laboratory

Last night I had an idea for a knitting design that really energized me. I think part of my trouble getting to sleep was because I wanted to start working on it right away; however, I had to wait until today to begin. I got cracking on it after getting home from work and have been designing and knitting all evening. Not to be coy but I'm going to keep the project secret for the time being.

I feel pretty safe in saying that probably no one has ever designed or knit what I'm making. Don't get too excited, though. While this item may be unique, I doubt interest in the design will be high. That's reality, not modesty. Still, I'm pretty excited to see how or if it turns out.

If you remember, I fried my brain trying to come up with directions for knitting the Cincinnati Reds logo. I never did carry over my work on the experimental piece into what I intended to make, but the experience was a helpful step in what I'm designing now.

Fortunately, I was able to put the graph paper and pen aside and give knitPro a spin. The free program converts images into a pattern with rows and number of stitches, although there's still a fair amount of calculation you have to do yourself, not to mention vagueness in how the image is displayed. It saved me from freehand tracing and supplied me with a general idea of size. It's a convenient way to undertake this project, but it's not a magic solution.

I've been writing a row of the design, knitting it, and moving on to the next row. It's a tedious process, so my initial enthusiasm helped carry me quite a ways. Although I'm finding it hard to figure out what to do next, mostly due to dulled mental faculties, I'm about three-quarters of the way through the trickiest part. I'm blogging in hopes of letting me look at it again with fresh eyes.

The design I envisioned is being realized, more or less. That said, I remain uncertain whether it will fully meet my expectations. I thought I'd botched it initially, realized it was indeed correct, considered whether I should have left a part out, decided it was working satisfactorily, and cycled through those opinions again. It's a project of folly, so if it isn't as perfect as I'd hoped, well, I think it will be good enough.

I figure I'll have it finished one way or another by tomorrow night, although I won't be revealing the result for awhile yet. This tease will just have to suffice.

As far as finishing goes, is there an equivalent bind off to the cable cast on?