By the time you read this, I will be in the Bitterroot Valley in Montana on business.  If that, perhaps, seems like strange place to go for business travel, I can only say that I am lucky that my business takes me to a variety of nice places, western Montana included.  Nonetheless, business travel always makes knit blogging a little more difficult since I don't usually get a lot of time in front of my computer, so I'm putting this post up from the comfort of my home office.

This week I determined that I have introduced a very particular kind of project to my collection: the couch project.  In point of fact, I've had a whole history of projects that belong to this lineage, but it took me some time to identify the trend. The couch project is the project that I require myself to have if I am going to sit down and watch TV. 

Yes, I know, many knitters have "TV knitting" so that in and of itself is nothing new or special.  Knitters are multi-taskers and I think we hate the idea that we could be getting something accomplished on a project when we are doing something that doesn't really require the participation of our hands.   The twist that I realized is a part of my TV knitting and what gets it labelled "the couch project" is that the projects that I work on in front of the TV tend to be the kind of projects that had ended up in knitting purgatory.  Perfectly fine projects, but projects that I got bored with or distracted from or just found the knitting less desireable than the idea of wearing the finished garment.  They come out from where-ever they have been sadly lingering to sit on the couch.  When I sit on the couch, they get worked on.  When I get off the couch, they get put back in their containers.  The end result is that while they don't get a lot of attention, they do get some regular attention so some progress gets made and since my brain is otherwise occupied by mindless TV (I love Project Runway and Deadliest Catch, but, I must be honest, they are hardly TV that challenges me to think too much) I don't really mind whatever flaw committed them to limbo in the first place.

Habu Textiles Kushu Kushu Scarf, in progress

With the completion of my Morning Surf Scarf (thank you very much, by the way, for all your kind comments -- I hope to get to wear the scarf soon, but it's still a bit too warm at the moment for additional neck wear in Chicago) I started to think about all the various scarf projects or proto-scarf projects that I have going or planned.  It seems like of all the projects I get going on, scaves are the easiest projects for me to abandon, probably because after the first 10 inches or so, whatever pattern stitch that intrigued me has started to get boring.  In the case of the Habu Kushu Kushu scarf, it's "fatal flaw" was 200 rows of stockinette with two finer than laceweight strands (one merino, one silk stainless steel) that together can barely be considered laceweight worked on size 8 needles with tips blunter than I would like.  I got about 50 rows in right before I had Ms. Z and then just couldn't cope with it with a new baby in the house. 

But now, with fall coming, and the desire to have a few new accessories to lace my wardrobe with, this funky scarf has more appeal, even though the long expanse of stockinette still has to be dealt with.  So it's now on the couch, and progress has been made!  And while I can't say I  love  knitting with the stuff, I can say that I am looking forward to felting (yes, felting!) the thing and having this sculptural scarf whose yarn can actually be positioned in a particular way and will stay there without pins or blocking.