Doctor Who Scarf Day 1: 14" and Ballin'

There was a box waiting when the dog and I got home from our afternoon walk yesterday about 5:30, packed tightly with the 16 skeins of yarn for this project.

I've forgotten how hard it can be for me to sit still with a project. Incidentally, this was one thing that really made me pick up knitting again in college—having the busywork for my hands during long classes kept me from mentally wandering off and climbing the walls. With my hands busy, I could actually focus on the discussion. As I pointed out to the few professors who objected, even while knitting I still participated more than most. Other professors were curious, though my favorite response came from my senior year film prof. Early on in the semester, I whipped out the sock I was knitting at the time. At the end of the class, he came over, and I was gearing up to defend my handwork when he asked a question I had never gotten: "So, what pattern are you using?" He continued, "I have a really great sock recipe I can bring in for you if you're interested." Not to be sexist, but I wasn't expecting the first professor to talk shop with me about fibercraft to be a dude. I'm still impressed by men who knit. In his case, he had learned while living in Germany, where as I understand, there is less of a gender stigma around knitting.

Anecdotes aside, when the tables are turned and knitting becomes the sole focus, especially endless garter stitch as this scarf is, I get antsy in a similar way. A short ways in I found myself making a spreadsheet doing statistical analysis on the layout of colors in the original scarf. For instance, did you know that there's a pretty consistent inverse relationship between the number of stripes of a given color and the average size of those stripes? Or that the average stripe is about 20 rows (~3¼ "), but that the standard deviation is almost equal to the median row count of 14? Also, here's a helpful chart of color distribution in the original Season 12 scarf.

But then I realized I was seriously considering trying to come up with a numerical correlation between saturation and overall presence of a given color and realized I should probably stop before I crawled up the crack in a slide rule. Also, I couldn't knit while I was typing.

In my fidgeting, I also rerolled one skein of each color on my ball winder because the skeins I got did not appear to be center-pull friendly.

Fidgeting aside, I still pulled 14" yesterday, which is on target with my minimum goal of at least a foot each day, so I would declare Day 1 successful. Now, to keep it up.