Really, I knew that when I promised myself I would only knit on the blanket, that it would only be a matter of time until I tried to break that same promise. Myself and I are rather well acquainted at this time, and I know that great honking swathes of garter stitch executed in neutral colours is a recipe for knitterly infidelity, and that the deadline alone wouldn’t be enough to keep me faithful. I knew it would only be a matter of time (a short time at that) before I was trying to weasel out of all sorts of parts. I would be saying things like “I said I wouldn’t knit on anything else, but I didn’t say I wouldn’t work on socks. Socks don’t count.” or “Well, when I made the promise to only knit on the blanket, what I really meant was that I wouldn’t start anything new. Finishing things already underway doesn’t count” or even that old standby “I know I said that I wouldn’t knit on anything else but really, it would be reprehensible to ignore the fact that Christmas is in only 191 days and I’d better get cracking on that.” or how about “Holy cow, so-and-so is having a baby? That’s just cause. Allow me to drop this blanket faster than a boxful of dead gerbils and get right on that”. I knew that after a tiny little time, I would be looking for knitters with broken arms and knitting deadlines and proffering up help, exclaiming that it was my duty to help the poor souls.
I knew it. I knew that a couple of thousand stitches into an exercise in repetition, I would be begging for an excuse, so I made my promise to myself iron-clad. I promised that I would not knit on anything else. Nothing. Not socks, not emergency baby blankets (there’s irony), not Christmas, not birthdays, not rescue missions. Nothing. Knit this. Only this. Just the blanket. No other knitting. All other knitting counts. Knitting. This. Blanket.
I recognized my basic nature, copped to it and fenced myself in. So yesterday, when I really was about to run screaming into the night and had cleaned the bathroom with an old toothbrush so as to avoid the blanket… I finally found a way out.
That’s an Abby Batt (wool, silk, alpaca) being spun on a Trindle that I’m test driving. It’s a neat tool. It goes fast, but takes some getting used to.
It’s not knitting. You’ve got to admit it. I’m a genius.