Thursday, November 10, 2005

This doesn't bode well for The Greatest

Monogamy? Who was I kidding? Even as I typed it I didn't believe it yesterday. I couldn't even pretend to keep it up for 24 hours.

I started with Hopeful. I wanted to finish the bodice before I forgot what I was doing. But my inner perfectionist won, and I've decided to frog the bodice and reknit it. It's one thing to have issues from knitting that I just don't know how to do better. But this is something I know I can do better, and easily fix (except for the part where I frog an entire day's work), so rip it I shall. But I didn't feel like doing all that work yesterday.

So I moved on to my corset. I knit my entire new ball of yarn. The sleeve is beautiful and almost done. Don't worry, I've still got a bit of a ball dangling from the first sleeve, but I wanted to take out the bind-off and make that sleeve a smidge longer. I didn't feel up to putting the second sleeve onto waste yarn, then fiddling with the first sleeve, then finishing the second sleeve. I just didn't want to do that much thinking last night. So I moved on.

I thought about knitting on Evil. But I only entertained that thought for a fraction of a second.

So then I did this.

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You wouldn't think that winding a ball of yarn would take two hours to do, and almost result in a divorce, but it did. After winding 440 yards of lace weight yarn by hand I've realized two things.

1. I can not wait to start knitting with this tiny floss.

2. I need to make friends with someone who owns a ball winder. Or buy one. Really it would be saving my marriage. It would be for our relationship baby.

By the time I finished winding my ball I was too emotionally and physically exhausted to do anything else. But working on four projects (thinking about Evil counts right?) is enough for anyone. I really am a knitting slut.

Maybe monogamy just isn't for me. I need freedom to jump from yarn to yarn and needle to needle as my mood changes. I need to knit only stockingnette when I'm tired, and cables when I'm feeling adventurous. I have so many things I have to do in the course of a day. If I don't feel like cooking, I still have to. I might not want to change that dirty diaper, but I have to. I hate washing dishes, but I have to. My day is full of "have tos". I want my knitting to be full of "want tos". And my wants need to be free to change according to my whims. I need something in my life to be pure pleasure, therefore (getting on my soap box)I will no longer pretend to indulge in knitting monogamy, and (louder now)I will never again feel guilty for it. Can I get an "amen"?

And cause I haven't done it in a while. Here's some picture of my kids cause they're cute.

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Now I "have to" go make sure the kids aren't downstairs playing with matches. And cast on for a new project.

4 comments:

Mrs. H said...

Well, if you need an enthusiastic and heartfelt "AMEN, SISTER!!" to that post then let me be first to send one. I agree with you 100%. I have 4 kids so I can relate to the dishes, the cooking and the dirty diapers (you forgot the laundry) so I want my knitting to be PURE JOY. You can rarely do that with one project. I have at least two, usually around 4 things on the needles so that whatever mood/state of mind/level of sanity I'm in I can pull out the corresponding project and enjoy myself. So lots of support and AMENS to you from this new reader and fellow 'ho'. haha

Anonymous said...

Hi Fellow knitting slut! (wonderful term - I may adopt it!) Is it wrong of me to have 6 projects on the go? Surely not - I will finish them, honest.

Amy said...

I'm so there with you. The only thing I've found to help with the knitting monogamy is to hide projects at either end of the house. As rotundly pregnant as I am, it's just sheerly impossible to get to each one of them daily to knit a bit, so I'm actually finishing a pair of socks tonight. For my own selfish feet of course.

chris said...

Amen to that and your kids are the cutest. But then again, you already knew that.