Garter stitch is soothing and lovely. I did go through a period of my life in which I was foolish enough to call it "boring." Those days are past. Now I see garter stitch as a lovely canvas with thousands of possibilities. Now, I knit garter stitch when my brain is totally fried and my hands need something to do, or when I just want to be able to knit something really gentle on the soul.
Garter stitch is the ultimate in calming drugs. You just knit and knit and knit. There aren't any fancy tricks, or purled stitches, or anything! You just knit. Straight up knit. It is the art of knitting at it's most basic and in many ways it's most beautiful. Of course, you can make an absolutely gorgeous lace shawl that everyone you know will gawk over every time you pull it out, but were you experiencing life while you knit that shawl? No. When you're knitting garter stitch, you can just go about your day, not really paying attention to the knitting, and carrying on as you would. In this way, garter stitch is superbly beautiful, because it has the potential to carry days of your life, the memories placed lovingly into each stitch. For me, that is a far more beautiful thing than any lace shawl.
Of course, all of that peace and tranquility is totally counteracted by the fact that this freaking scarf is WHITE, so I'm constantly worried that it's going to get stained! Do stains come out in the blocking?
I have to say though, that this is a really decent amount of knitting for twenty-four hours.
Tomorrow, I start the black half.
Thing to be grateful for today: The little things that ground us.
Beautifully written post -- the best in a long time! I still feel guilty about the stain ...
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