Zen and the Art of Knitting in the Dark

I'm traveling right now, and we usually begin and end our driving trips at night, so that the kids can sleep through a chunk of the ride. I typically bring one of those little clip-on book lights with me so that I can knit while they sleep, but it didn't get packed this time. So rather than give up several hours of knitting, I decided I'd trying working on my Scarf Askew in the dark. I don't have Knit Lites, and I'm not a combination knitter; I'm talking about just plain old knitting in the dark. Now, this is a very easy pattern with mostly stockinette, broken up with diagonal lines of reverse stockinette. No biggie. In fact, it usually gets boring. But in the dark--well, that's different. It suddenly becomes very meditative and relaxing to keep track of where the knits and purls go. I find myself chanting, "knit 5, purl 1, knit 5, purl 1." It's a very soothing knitting chant, just like the kind I always associated with knitting from watching old TV shows and movies, before I actually knew anything about it. I got a fair amount of knitting done, but the beauty of it was that I was not in my usual mode of focusing on the product. I was able to focus on the process, and that was lovely!

I've been able to carry that over into my next project (being knit in the light). I'm using up some white Rowan Calmer from my stash to make the Summertime Tunic. It's a cute easy project. I've done the first 4-1/2" of stockinette and have almost finished the ribbing part. Normally I'd be pretty bored at this point, but I'm enjoying the 1x1 rib and rounds and rounds of stockinette. Ohmmmmm!