I’ve been re-reading the Yarn Harlot’s books lately. I really should be reading from my backlog of novels, but lately I’ve needed light-hearted comfort reading.
Stephanie refers to the Knitting Goddess quite a bit, and the rather karmic way she works. Like how not knitting gauge swatches is an invitation for said goddess to strike you down.
I think I’ve attracted celestial attention, which is never good (but usually good for you).
Firstly the stash from my friend’s mother’s boyfriend’s son’s late mother’s closet was all cheap acrylic apart from a half made sweater ufo of the most scary, scratchy, greasy yarn I have ever encountered. I considered the possibility of felting the latter for the shortest of moments, after which it occurred to me that I’d still have to knit up the object to be felted and I’d rather lie out on the road and wait to be run over. Truly I have grown out of my desperate “all free yarn is gooood!” knitting youthfulness and inexperience.
On the up side, my stash hasn’t got any bigger and it was lovely that these friends sent the yarn my way. And they did say to op shop anything I didn’t want. And out of the three bags of yarn I did find one crochet hook in a size I didn’t have and some plastic supermarket bags to use in the kitchen dustbin.
Secondly, I decided a few days ago that I was going to finish all my wips before Good Friday next week. The moment I did, Sideways Spencer began kicking my butt big time. I’ve knit the cuffs twice each, and this morning, after fixing a mistake in the front band by dropping three annoying stitches and reknitting them with dpns (three times before I got it right) I realied that I was actually working on the right side of the front and I was supposed to be doing the left side, and had to frog the whole band. I feel quite traumatised and want to cast on something simple and soothing to knit while I recover.
Perhaps not while the Knitting Goddess is watching. And probably laughing gleefully.
I think the finding something calming and soothing to knit is the key. The true knitting goddess, Elizabeth Zimmerman says “Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn’t hurt the untroubled spirit either….
When I say properly practiced, I mean executed in a relaxed manner, without anxiety, strain, or tension, but with confidence, inventiveness, pleasure, and ultimate pride.” I think that sometimes means switching things around and working on something else. I say cast on.
Oh dear, that, um, friend’s relative thingy sounded so filled with possibility, but your loss is the op shop’s gain.
Good idea to finish your WIPS, and I think I should join you in that, although it won’t happen by next Friday. I think I might aim for finishing one UFO each week, or maybe one per fortnight. Yes, that might just work. Then I could clear the floor of the bags of many colours.
May I suggest a honkin’ big garter stitch scarf? My recent experience has informed me that even the knitting goddess will have trouble creating a smackdown on that one (now that I’ve said that, every garter stitch project I make from now on is doomed. Totally doomed).
I’m making plans to finish all my WIPs too, but am giving myself until the end of the school holidays (about three weeks) to do it. Even so, it’ll be a race to the finish line.