I was watching the Stranded Podcast this weekend and the host, Amy, said something that really struck a chord with me.

I love setting arbitrary goals for myself!

I really love setting arbitrary goals in my making. The kind of goals that feel great to achieve but have no real or major consequences if you fail. You just revise and move on.

On Friday evening at supper, I remarked that my weekend goals were to a) finish the Eureka Cowl, b) finish the sock I had  going, and c) cast on my sweater. Kevin said that seemed like an awfully tall order. I said I planned to do an awfully lot of knitting over the weekend.

First up, I finished the cowl.

This is the Eureka Cowl, by Jessica Gore. I knit it out of Brooklyn Tweed Shelter in the postcard colorway. I absolutely adore the yarn and the pattern, I can’t wait to wear this one. I was very gentle in the blocking, but I may need to pin out that point next time. This little cowl is a great shape, it looks like you’re wearing a triangle shawl bandana style, but with a simple back that fits well.

That’s one weekend goal down. Speaking of goals (arbitrary or not), this is also another of my Make Nine projects for the year. And with the addition of mauve to my color palate, it’s definitely a simple and cozy addition to my wardrobe architect project.

The next order of business was that sock. My sock mojo has not been running very high, so I made a plan to knit down to the heel on Saturday so that I could just run with the foot during D&D on Sunday. Luckily, D&D was very intense and my stress knitting enabled me to finish the sock late Sunday night.

That leaves the sweater cast on. I was derailed in my sweater plans with the need of swatching again. This left me some time do something else so as I mentioned the other day, I finished the next brioche section on my Half Moon Oracle.

This really is squishy and lovely. On to last night. I decided to go ahead and at least cast on the sweater. It went so quickly that I dove into the colorwork, head first.

I love the yarn and the colors so much! This wasn’t quite the weekend, but hey, it was arbitrary anyway, right?

I have, of course, now discovered that I did the short rows wrong. I’m ripping out the whole thing and starting over from scratch. I’m really not very pleased with the cast on I used–long tail–and may go up a needle size for the ribbing. I also think this a great opportunity to do a better job with the colorwork, it’s a bit puckery and I want to work on that. Chalk it up to experience, right?

All in all, I’ll call it a success. I’ve now managed to cast on the second sock and do the frogging on the sweater. Now to come up with my next set of arbitrary goals.

Happy making!