I can stop anytime I want

I have a little secret.

It all started with Rachel H. benignly pointing out the Dream in Color baby sweater kits at Lettuce Knit. I saw them, and something happened. Something snapped. I suddenly felt like there was no way that I could live without one of those kits. They were so….

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Charming. The colours, the tiny sleeves, the way Megan had them all kitted up with tiny little balls of delicious little colours. I stood over the kits, helpless in the face of them, and I bent over to pick one kit up…and something happened. I’m not even sure what it was, but something just felt so right, and 5 minutes later I owned three kits and a vaguely dirty feeling. I started knitting.

I justified the three kit thing by remembering that there are three babies headed into my world soon, and besides that, even if that weren’t enough justification, there are always babies coming. Baby stuff is always worth buying. Yeah. I would knit one of the kits and I would feel better.

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Done. About this time, this time when I was thinking about letting go of the baby sweaters a little bit and maybe going back to the cardigan that only needs a sleeve to be done, Ken and I went back to Lettuce Knit where Megan had kitted up a version with more boyish colours, and out of nowhere, as he walked up to those little bags filled with wee sweater glee…. I heard myself say “Buy Two.”

“Two?”

“One for me, one for you.”

Ken gave me a look. A look that said something along the lines of “Holy crap Steph, you bought three and now you want another one and that’s four and maybe you don’t need another one?”

I stared him down, and as he got two, he gently suggested (I had that look about me) that I might be approaching that crazy line again, and why didn’t he trade me one of the girly ones for one of the boyish ones, just so I wasn’t totally whacked on this little sweater thing and perhaps agreed.

Quietly though, even though I had agreed and even nodded gravely in assent when he was talking about the line and my proximity to it, while he was paying Megan for the kits I sort of told her that meant I would be needing another girly kit so I didn’t go down a kit when I traded with Ken.

Megan asked me what I needed four kits for, and I was helpless to explain. I didn’t tell her that really I wanted to buy every kit out from under her, that four was maybe the tip of the freakin’ iceberg for this thing, that I was willing to wrestle other knitters for them, that I pinned for them and thought about them…I simply told her I just….need them.

I went home and I tried to get over it.

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I failed. This time though, now that I had knit two baby sweaters back to back, and now that I had knit both versions, I started to feel a little better. I started to thing I was moving on. I even looked at some other knitting, and then I blocked the boyish sweater and had a contact high or something. Right out of the blue, as I was feeling totally like I might be coping well with the lure of the attached i-cord and the seed stitch borders…right when I thought I had moved past the little ties and those Lilliputian sleeves….

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Mercy. That last one happened so fast that I didn’t see it coming.

Now, there’s one kit left in my house, and technically….

I am to give it to Ken. I’ve already agreed to give it to Ken, and there are witnesses and I’m probably even going to manage to hand it over. (Not really. In a moment of brilliance that acknowledges my weakness I have told him to come and take it from my home while I am away on tour this week. All I have to do now is resist the urge to stuff it in my suitcase and it will be done.) I can’t tell you how badly I feel the pangs of longing for this thing. I don’t want to give it away, because…well. Then I will not have one.

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Now, I’m usually pretty good about letting go, so good in fact that I have some, several, a lot of things that I just gave up and wandered away from, completely mid knit. There’s something about these though, something that makes me want to buy a couple of the kits and put them in the stash so that even if the yarn is discontinued or the pattern goes away or ….I don’t know what, then I will still be able to knit this again any time that I want to. (As often as that turns out to be.)

Has there ever been a pattern or yarn like this for you? One you stashed and hoarded like there was no hope for tomorrow? One that so fully met your knitting needs that you couldn’t imagine a time when you wouldn’t enjoy knitting it? I am torn between a tear to the shop to get more (before anyone else does) and pulling myself out of this rut before I am buried in wee sweaters, i-cord and scraps of rainbows while I clutch and mutter “we loves it, we knits it, we keeps it all!”

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I hope it counts for something on the karmic scale if I give the sweaters away to some babies. In the meantime, if you see me at Lettuce Knit and try to get between me and those kits? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.