kept indoors because of the rain, i spent the day inside...knitting. i finished a 3-color checkerboard pattern i began last night (slip stitch pattern 5, page 97, color knitting the easy way by melissa leapman). what's hard to see is that between every rows of squares is a single row of dark blue that's slipped upwards to form the dark blue squares. i wonder if this pattern would be anymore difficult using strand knitting? it'd definitely requiring more yarn switches for every color change.

the next pattern i tried was one that was simply called "outlined check" from the essential guide to color knitting techniques by margaret radcliffe (page 62). it's a pattern i instantly fell in love with the moment i saw it but seemed too difficult for my first foray into knitting until i had enough experience. it involved 4 colors; up to this point i've only go as high as 3 (the checkerboard and a simple stockinette multicolored striped square). the 2 difficult things about multicolored knitting (for me anyway) is (1) starting a new color (i'm still not sure if i'm doing it right, and the starting point always seem to be on the verge of unraveling initially), and (2) keeping the dangling strands of yarn from tangling together.

i like this "outlined check" pattern because it seems organic and wild, like the exotic pattern you'd find in some undersea creature (a fish, an octopus, a nudibranch). my yarn tension was a little tight so there's puckering, especially noticeable in the beige vertical slip stitches.

for lunch and dinner i had the rest of my tonkatsu. microwaved the rice, toaster ovened the pork cutlets (recrispify), and chopped up some pickled radishes. marco came home late, close to midnight, assembling samples at the lab to take with him to his trials on long island next week. we watched 2 more episodes of breaking bad, bug and salud. there are now only 2 more episodes left in season 4.