Thursday 7 February 2013

For me

I was at the library about a month ago, and I had wandered into the adult section for just a few minutes of quiet time after attending Toddler Time with Astrin.  After wrestling her back into her winter clothes, where we alternated between her doing it herself and her stopping to watch what the other toddlers were doing, I needed just a wee break before attempting to wrench Jaelyn away from the computer screen in the kids' area.  And somehow, I stumbled upon Fresh Fashion Knits, a book with knitting projects that somehow looked accessible (no double-pointed needles), and at first glance looked like it had a promising selection of knitting eye candy (if a thick wooly sweater is your idea of eye candy).

A few days after that, I was rummaging through my stash of yarn, and I noticed that a few of the balls I had purchased in the fall from our local yarn store were the same as was called for in the patterns.  Suddenly, I realized that I would have considerably less trouble figuring out what yarn to purchase, because I could simply choose the stuff that was called for in the patterns.  I grabbed the book again and started going through it a little more thoroughly.  Would I actually wear any of these items?  Would they take me forever?  Could I actually knit something for myself?

That weekend, I practically skipped to the store, I was so giddy to find out if they had enough of what I needed for a few of the patterns that I picked as my favorites.  And they did!  I cast on that very day, and then I cast on again after Astrin ripped out the little I had done, and then a third time and a fourth for various other reasons.  I took a break for the rest of that night.

It's been pretty smooth sailing since, with little bursts of knitting happening here and there.  There was a nice hour stretch when the children were playing with clay.  There was ten minutes this morning when I sat beside Nicholas while he did his bookwork.  There have been a few evenings when I stayed up a bit too late just to get another row or two done.

And while I don't think it will be done for this winter, I'm pretty confident it will be ready for next winter.  Which is fine.  I'm loving the process, and I'm loving learning new little bits of this and that as I work through the pattern.  Most of all, I'm loving how these hands are creating something useful, beautiful, and special, just for me.

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