I have started a baby blanket for my friends soon-to-be baby.
Pretty good? It's going to take some perseverance. For starters, you might be able to tell that it's cotton. (Patons Berber cotton, now discontinued, but living on in my stash. Please note my use of stash materials. I'm proud of that.) I know I said I didn't like to knit cotton, and I don't, but this cotton is better than most, and I've decided to knit just a little each day to avoid killing my hands or coming to hate the blanket so much that I would wish to be kicked hard by a yak to get out of it.
Also, it's a blanket. A plain, good blanket. Blankets are hard to knit. They go on for a long time with no parade moments. You know what I mean? With a sweater, you knit for a while and then TA DAH! Throw me a parade, I finished the front, or a sleeve or something. Sweaters are a series of wins. Blankets? Knit until you are done. No hurrah, no parade, just stick-to-it-iveness.
I know myself pretty well. You know me pretty well. What are the odds that this simple pattern, done over and over and over again, in an old stash yarn is going to hold my interest? Yeah. Me too.
Therefore, I'm going to bribe myself. I'm going to work one pattern repeat on this every day, just enough to get it done, not enough to hurt my hands, and at the same time, to make sure absolutely no-one dies of ennui here at the blog (Mostly me...) tomorrow I'm going to start giving out the Knitters Without Borders gifts again.
I've somehow managed to get caught up, and I believe that I've written everybody a thank you note, and the total is absolutely current. (If you didn't hear from me and you think you should have, please send me another note, the amount of mail was a deluge there, and I have to beg forgiveness for anything that got lost.)
Take a minute, read the total you have raised for MSF and then sit yourself down and feel the love. That's the feeling that you get from making a real, profound, actual difference in the world. That's the feeling that you get when you support people risking their lives to save others. Look at the amount. Know that knitters did this, and that I'm proud and deeply awed to know all of you. You don't get to $72 435 without a whole lot of knitters (I assure you. There are almost a thousand.) I hope I'm never finished adding it up.
We are knitters. Hear us roar.