Where would we be without the "Madness" -- it keeps us alive, it keeps us sane. Your Knanette idea is killer! It's taking all my self control not to flee from my keyboard to my stash and cast on with you. Perhaps a small swatch to ease the desire :-)

Yeah, you're nuts, dear, but that's what we love about you. Keep playing with color - it obviously makes you happy!

I've been thinking about making the Monkey socks. How do you think they would turn out if I made them toe-up? Can you anticipate any problems I might run into? Feel free to email any ideas you might have. Thanks in advance for your help!
kari.oswald@comcast.net

I love the square miter knit in the round idea - I can't wait to see Knanette! I may need to cast on an itsy bitsy square just to curb my curiosity. Don't you love the monkey socks pattern - Cookie is definately a genius!

I hope the feeling never ends too...it will mean you'll be dead and gone. You and Kaffe could be best friends!

One?! You never do "just one"! And some people see "madness" and genius!

I've seen something kind of similar, but she did it with all of her sock yarn. Same sized squares though. This will be equally as beautiful. I love all the colors playing with each other!

It's not madness - it's adding your own touch to the creative flow. Works inspire you, yours inspire others. If only there was a way to track it all. Other than blogs, I mean. At least we have those.

I do that occasionally (usually in response to something bad though) and I have to think myself out of it.
BTW, I didn't read the comments yesterday, but just in case no one mentioned it and you still have the zit on the day of your party, a little visine dripped on it will temporarily take the red out. :-)

Your title today made me laugh out loud! Very clever!

Um, it's never just ONE!!!!
Potato chips, M&M's, miters...
I'm in the middle of my very own Miter Madness.
You did this to me. I can't stop. Love it!
I can't wrap my head around a "miter in the round", though. HELP!

I feel this way when I go to the library, or a book storer or sale, like I need to go home and read right then for several days otherwise I'll never read all the books I want too.

Hopefully a few hours of knitting will clear you right up!
L

I totally know that feeling-- it's the best :) Have fun with it!

Good for you on the weight loss, girl. Best of luck! Once you get going on the exercise, it is the last piece to the puzzle. Join PeerTrainer with me :)

If you're starting in the center and knitting around the perimeter of a center block, you'll need to increase at the corners, right? So if you wanted to have the little holes at the corners, you could do a yo increase on either side of the corner stitch and mimic the nifty subtle lacy effect that the crochet squares have. I LOVE this idea! It's a right-angled CRAZY quilt--So you have Madness, and next you'll have complete Craziness! Laaaaaa! Along with the inability to breathe at the thought, there's also all the nerves firing on the backs of my hands. It kind of feels like holding a sparkler and having the sparks land on my skin for the briefest moment before they fizzle out.

Oh, honey, you are a woman after my own heart. Can't wait to hear more about your latest craze.

With regards to you zit problem...(I didn't see yesterday's post until this a.m.) - Mario Badescu Drying Lotion is by far the best thing ever for spot treating a zit. I swear by it. You can find it mariobadescu.com and I know his store is in New York so I'm not sure where else you might be able to find it. It smells like calamine lotion and I've often wondered if that would work as well.

I totally get the overwhelmed creativity feeling in writing and knitting. Sometimes there are just so many posssibilities and I want to do them all. Right. Now.

Oh and I had a gigantic zit this week and of course it happens the day before I have to anchor my biweekly online newscast for our paper! Grr!

i LOVE your enthusiasm.

i've DEFINITELY felt it (currently for my greypaca sweater... which has not been updated on the blog recently due to school-finishing, work-craziness), and i agree:

never let it end.

Yay more color!!! Cast on NOW!!!! ;) I am so excited to follow you while you are on this new adventure.

Go for it, girl!

I know that exact feeling! I haven't quite wiggled out from under the labels "obsessed" and "undisciplined" though, so I'm a little more tentative about celebrating it - which is one of the reasons I love reading your blog. You inspire me!

hey, I like your "THINK" flag.

I cant wait to see your blanket come together. What a cool project! Easily portable should make doing a whole blankie much more fun.

Inspiration and creativity - the breath of life. (leaving you breathless)

So wonderful to watch you in the throes of life!

Yes. Crazy, Breathless, Wild. Creativity is all that.
Wow. Just Wow.
Don't change!
(ever)
(((Hugs)))

Oh I understand what you mean! I'm feeling it as well and I bet you really can't wait what with all those tempting colors staring you in the face.

You're making it easy to justify ordering 95 colors of TCC for myself, lady! Most excellent.

hiya cara, thanks for your comment yesterday. i would be happy to work on something for you, just drop me an email and we can discuss.

I'm sure that it never ends!
ENJOY!

Oooh, I lurve Babette! I don't crochet but bought that issue of IC when it came out and I thought I might attempt it. Crochet freaks me out but I caught Lily Chin doing crochet with knitting needles on Knitty Gritty and it seemed more manageable.

Of course I love your idea of ignoring the crocket all together.

YES! YES! YES! I love that feeling! I'm in the middle of one of the more intense surges of it right now - and it is soooo decadent! :)

Oooh,how very, very fun. Love, love the "knanette" twist on Babette.

I can't wait to see these squares. . . . .

Oh I so know what you mean! I become seriously obsessed with a project, and I just HAVE to cast on or my life will be ruined! (At least that's what it feels like).

Wow, you really have some issues with squares and color! ;) A tiny addiction maybe..? Embrace it, I say! There's no better addiction out there!

I, for one, would love to see two or three... I was wondering what you would do with the surplus color resources at your disposal. As different as your blanket will be, it will still be gorgeous, I'm sure.

hahahahahahahahahaha

I cannot wait.

I'm going to be with you all the way on this just as I was with the miters. Right now, I am doing the miters using Sonata and loving it because, for me, it's all about the color too. I am just hoping that by the time I finish the miters, you will have completed Knanette and the temptation will not overcome me as it did with the miters. I swear! You are a real dope dealer! (In a good way.)

Oh, I'm so glad to have visible proof I'm not the only one who daydreams about casting on. This looks totally awesome. What you've planned sounds excellent, however, you could either do what Valerie suggested - if you wanted to get the corner holes - or do something like these short row rectangles here: http://www.jimsyldesign.com/~dishbout/kpatterns/knit3.html. But, as I said, it depends on whether you consider that an important design element or just too much trouble.

I have been staring at the Babette pattern for weeks. Even have the yarn--new stuff as well as stash stuff. I just can't bring myself to start this crocheted blanket, because I loathe crocheting.
Oh wise one, do let us know of our progress. Harriet

I've been eyeing the Babette pattern for nearly a year and I finally feel my crochet is up to it. I was putting it off, telling myself it'd be a great wedding gift for a friend and that I should buy the yarn GRADUALLY...but my resistance is fading!
Keep the madness coming!

YES!! I have felt that way! It's like some sort of creative anxiety attack! I get the fast-heart-beat-throat-closing feeling that I get with an anxiety attack. So glad I'm not the only one. Ir usually happens to me when I'm thinking about spinning fibers and spinning projects and all the possibilities.

You are insane, and I love you for it! I wish I had enough Takhi Cotton to start my own version of the madness!

Ooohh.... I LOVE that blanket... I pulled that issue out the other day, to look for something else, and it caught my attention again... I think I will crochet it, tho... I haven't reached the point of considering the yarn, tho. Can't wait to watch your progess!!

Oh hooray, we get to go on another ride with Cara. I love your creative process and your enthusiasm and that the internet allows the whole world (and by the whole world, I mean me) to share it. In the words of Vicky Howell, "Knit on, girl, knit on."

man do I wish I could have played hookie and gone out with you two! was so jealous when she had you on the phone :)

I got the Babette issue- I am a NEW crocheter-so I am soooo glad you are trying to KNIT it- I think I will, too- IF I can figure it out. AND I am on a Kaffe Fassett kick- using his Pattern Library book to make swatches and a blanket with different squares of striped patterns...lots of color.

Okay, so I've been suffocating trying to finish a stupid project for our next catalog. What I really want to be knitting is a log cabin blanket, a crocheted top from the most recent issue of crochetme.com and a babette-like blanket that I saw on a blog, that is also crocheted, but not quite babette. I am literally dreaming of these projects. I am itchy and twitchy and nearly hyperventilating. I know just how you feel. I cannot start any of these until this other thing is done. It may kill me.

Wowee! That's one ambitious project. Best of luck! Can't wait to follow your progress.

As soon as I saw that piccie of Babette I thought ... surely not more mitres?!! Cara, you are a serial obsessionist of the highest order ;-) And it's such great fun to watch!! Guess we know what you're doing with all that leftover takhi cotton now ... good luck!!!

Great idea for the leftovers! Hey, good luck with the reunion, BTW! Oh, and thanks so much for your comment on my sweater! :)

One of our knitting group made that blanket-crocheted as instructed. She used left-over sock yarn. She also drew a graph of how she wanted to place the squares. She said that it really was smaller than she wanted, so she enlarged it on her graph. It really was bootiful, and with the sock yarn, it was really crazy looking. But the colors were wonderful. She needed some green at one point, so she quickly knit her aunt a pair of socks so she would have the left-overs. Good luck! Juliann-Cozy Knitting

madness, what wonderful madness indeed.

Oh, yes! Now, take a small breath and pick up your yarn. Breathe in. Cast on. Small steps ...
Pretty soon you'll be breathing just fine and the knitting will be, too. I can't wait to see pictures!

Ha! I knew you would love this - I just started babette myself (although I am actually crocheting it) - it's totally addictive making those little squares and I love playing around with the color combos. And in crochet, they're REALLY fast. Have fun!! I can't wait to see yours!

i love this madness.
I love the colours
now which interweave crochet was that - I must go check my zine stash.
I thoght you were crazy for doing that many mitres, but those squares look fun

this is going to be good.

Maybe you've already figured out how to do the mitres in the round. If not, you might want to check out EZ's Knitter's Almanac for the blanket that she made, I forgot which month though. Good luck and can't wait to see your swatch.

Sounds fantastic. I've been crocheting a bit and it's really addictive.

Hi Cara!
Have you seen Larissa's (http://larissmix.typepad.com/stitch_marker/) square pattern that's coming out in her new book. It doesn't quite create the look of a granny square, but it's done completely in the round from the center out and would work perfectly for that blanket. Check it out: http://larissmix.typepad.com/stitch_marker/2007/01/the_next_knital.html
:) I mean, why reinvent the wheel if you don't have to!

I love this. I would even think of learning how to do granny squares for a blanket like Babette.

I can't wait for Knanette progress! I'm wondering, could you cast on from the center out, increasing around? Then you wouldn't have to cast on so many. Not sure how to make it square, tho...

Hey Cara! I am just starting my first foray into the psychedalic mitred square madness b/c I have loved them for over a year and like you, I got to the point where I HAD TO MAKE ONE OR I WOULD GO NUTS!! I totally understang that feeling-sometimes it keeps me awake at nite and I seriously debate getting out of bed to start something in the middle of the nite-why fight it-it's who we are, right?? but htis color thing has gotten ahold of me too so your idea sounds incredible and that blanket is gorgeous. I left a comment on Nona's blog, too, that the Knitpicks felted Square potholder pattern is a mitered square knit in the round from the outside in if you feel like considering any other options. I loved looking at your mitred/mitered :) square blanet, too!

Okay, I wondered if you saw this!!!!