Can I examine your sweater?

Has this ever happened to you?

You see a pretty sweater (or scarf, or some other knitted garment, but today it was a sweater), and you find yourself stuck in its gravitational pull. The sweater tractor beam locks on to you, pulling you closer and closer, until you feel the need to say something as you violate another's personal space. "Excuse me, can I examine your sweater?"

With any luck, this happens with someone I know, preferably someone who knows that I knit, so they won't think I am crazy. (With strangers, I try to be far more inconspicuous, finding socially acceptable excuses for close proximity: standing behind them in line, that sort of thing. I once spent an entire hour of Civil Procedure class sketching the design of someone's Fair Isle sweater.)

I simply have to mentally and knitterly dissect the sweater. What elements are attracting me the sweater? How are those elements achieved? Can I reproduce, modify, incorporate or otherwise use as inspiration for a future project?

Today, is was the color scheme. (Fitting, since I have been studying dye techniques in books and on the web, mentally preparing myself to attempt dying my own yarn.) The look had several colors, but they blended together in a colorful yet subtle palette. Thinking back, it looked like berries and cream, lightly stirred in the bowl. I looked at it closer, and realized that it was three ply: one a darker solid, and the other two varigated with several lighter versions of the same color, including white.

Some knitters are drawn to the feel of the yarn. Some texture. Me? I am a color girl. I love yarns with interesting depth of color. I love it when the colors in the yarn give the illusion of texture.

I thought about that yarn as I moved from courtroom to courtroom, status hearing to status hearing, all morning. After I was done for the morning, I went back to examine the sweater again. (The court reporter didn't even mind. What a sport!) I was glad that I did, because I noticed that it was not monochromatic, as I earlier thought. There were actually two families of color in the verigated yarns: purple to lavender, and berry to pink. A dark purple was the (solid ply.) Interesting. . . .

I did resist the temptation to take a picture of it with my cell phone.

Today, it is all about the restraint.