is as good as a rest. Isn't that the saying? I woke up yesterday morning, made coffee and realized (with that first sip of coffee kind of clarity) that I hated everything that I was knitting with an unholy stinking passion. I loathed it. The new stripy socks? Lame. The blue socks that disappointed me with their variegated randomness? (I still think that yarn looks like it would stripe.) The Morehouse Merino that disappointed me with it's lack of variegated randomness? Gone, gone, gone.
(By the way? I know. I said that I was pissy with the Morehouse for not being random then I trashed the blue socks for being random. I'm a complex knitter. It is best not to think about these things too much. Personally, I try not to cloud the issues with facts and logic).
I can't even tell you what went wrong. I can tell you that I have knitting needs and my project load wasn't cutting it. I've had some stress this last week. I've been ill, work would have reduced a lesser woman to gibbering idiot status and just for good measure: Have you SEEN the back of my house?
For those of you still wondering, hope was renewed in my heart last night, when some supplies were procured for the room. Encouraging, isn't it?
(Please do not dash this hope. Supplies are a good sign and my heart is full. I am fragile and my happiness is dependent on carefully constructed delusions.)
So yesterday I took all of this anxiety, stress and knitterly dissatisfaction and I did the only thing that a reasonable knitter would do. I shoved all my current projects into the back of the linen closet and I went to the yarn shop.
Good thinking. Yes? This pile of yarn is destined to become Christmas things and is part of a larger plan. The larger plan looks like this.
I feel better. I have decided that stress demands a return to the most under-realized anti-anxiety project known to knit-kind.
The Latvian Mitten. That's right. I know that its complex patterning and evil little braids would make it seem as though it cannot help, that it would only promote further anxiety cursing and deterioration, but it does not. You see, the Latvian mitten is all consuming. One cannot think while knitting the mitten. You cannot worry while knitting the mitten. You must be one with the mitten, see only the mitten and sink deeply into the mitten or you cannot knit it. It demands focus. It demands single mindedness. The mitten is a respite from the world. I will knit the mittens, and I will know peace.
Having realized this, I took all of my mitten yarn, all of my patterns and my new-found Zen mitten realization and I cast on.....
Something else. A thousand curses.
It's a disease.