Visions of surfaces dance in my head

So, every once in a while, something happens to you that profoundly changes your understanding of a topic. The last time this happened to me was in the summer of 2000. I was an advanced beginner bellydancing student at the time, and bought Serious Belly Dance, an instructional video by Tamalyn Dallal. This video was too hard for me at the time, but just watching it opened my eyes to a more three-dimensional way to move the hip.

I had a similar experience in knitting this weekend. As I posted recently, I'm working on Soul from Rowan's Calmer Collection by Kim Hargreaves. It's my first time using cables and they're really cool. But it was a different pattern that gave me that lightbulb moment, Whisper:


The ripple effect on the collar, cuffs, and hem are created by picking up stitches several rows below the current one, creating a tuck. This completely blew my mind. I have worked with (and adore) short rows, but even then, you're still working on one row at a time (although inserting new ones), and creating one continuous surface at a time. In Whisper, you're working in two rows at once to pinch different parts of a surface together.

Wow. Must contemplate this for a while. Preferably with 11 more balls of Calmer in my stash...