Oh, I was tempted.  Sorely tempted.  By Jane Slicer-Smith's "Berry Patch" sweater in the Winter 2016 Knitter's Magazine. 

A beautiful design that looked like such fun to knit — and the sort of thing I would love to wear.  An ideal project — if I had started it, oh say, last August.  And had been working on it steadily since then.  In which case, it would be nearly done by now!

But I didn't and I haven't and it isn't. 

In fact, I did start a sweater in August — which got benched when Christmas knitting and baby knitting kicked in this fall.  And I have yarn for another 2 sweaters (bought at a yarn shop's going-out-of business sale last summer).  So, the Berry Patch would be something like 4th in line.  Not very promising.

And yet I did a little online yarn browsing.  Just in case I got wildly inspired by a color combination that would absolutely demand to be knit up into the Berry Patch.  And as I was trolling for yarn and envisioning and trolling and envisioning, I realized began to consider that what I found most captivating in the sweater design were the adorable miter squares around the hem.  

I bethought me of stunning black and white miter squares framing a drape of vibrant yellow — and I suddenly realized that the piece I had in mind was not, after all, the wintery Berry Patch, but a Spring/Summer/Fall q'mitl!  

A delightful warm weather design project — and this is the ideal time to start!

And, hmm,  something about the black/white/yellow colorway felt familiar.  It is not my usual direction at all — but tho I have recently begun wearing more black and white, the emerging memory went further back.

Yes, yes!  I had bought yarns in that color combination a few years ago at Stitiches West — or maybe it was Vogue Knitting Live! in Seattle…anyway, I had the perfect yarn.  Somewhere.  I dug around in my bin of "yarn with a purpose" (I vaguely remember thinking of making a vest or something with that yarn).  And then I burrowed through the armoire of hibernating projects.  And I dipped into boxes of ferocities (projects of mixed yarns that have not yet reached the design stage).  But it was only when I captured Sarah and made her dig around in bins and boxes that the yarns surfaced.

I have added some solid black and white in 2 weights (for adorable miter squares and for even more adorable tiny miter squares!) — and now let the playing about begin!