Buddha Blanket Update (or "Planning to Fail")

I've resolutely decided to fail at knitting. 

What I needed to do, I decided, was just to knit, over and over and over again without thinking about pattern.

Big lap throw, I thought.

At the hobby store, I bought several skeins of the nobbliest yarn I could find, with colors that take me immediately to Lake Tahoe. I selected long needles, bigger than any I had at home. 

While sitting with my mother, I cast on 125 (more or less) stitches. And then I began with abandon. 

Sometimes the needle went through the nobbles instead of the loop. "Big Whoop," I told myself. Sometimes two stitched popped off instead of one. "Whatever," I blithely considered.  But the stitches were still too tight, too crammed together on the rigid, limited needles.

So I took a big leap, returned to the hobby store, and picked up 36" circular needles. Now my stitches can breathe, and the throw is growing, helixing lushly like DNA on the curving cables.

What I've learned so far:

* Loose is better than tight.

* Holes can be repaired later or left alone as "character" and "texture."

* If you cover the sharp points when you stop, your work won't unravel.

* Soft, organic shapes make things easier.

* Knit when you want to, and stop when you don't... where ever you are.

Not bad lessons for life, either.