What I've Been Knitting

I promise not to make any more blog promises. I promise not to promise to be a more faithful regular blogger. I promise not to promise "pictures later." I promise not to promise that I'm going to suddenly turn into an organized, orderly, normal human being who keeps regular human hours, meets all her deadlines with time to spare, and always knows what's lurking right around the corner.

I also promise not to mention 1) politics and 2) the economy because quite frankly I'm sick of both subjects. Sometimes I look around and can't quite believe any of this is going on.

Which is the last mention of it you'll get from me.

There's an emotional component to knitting that I've been thinking about these last few years. Something deep, almost visceral, that I don't feel when I'm embroidering or needlepointing or sewing but feel in my bones when I pick up knitting needles or a crochet hook. A connectedness, for want of a better word, that so far has defied my attempts to explain it. Or even understand it for that matter. It's just there. Knitting makes me happy. It makes me feel more centered. It makes me feel part of something indefinable but incredibly important. I know that you know what I'm trying to say and if you can say it better or differently please please leave a note in comments because one way or another I'm going to figure this out.

There's been lots of knitting going on Chez Crazy the last few weeks. I'm on the second Vintage Velvet. I'm 2/3 of the way through a pair of plain vanilla white socks in Comfort for Goldisox. The Log Cabin blanket is looking beautiful. I've completed two complete EZ Garter Stitch blankets in Cascade Ecological. Now the plan is two complete two more and sew them all up into one eNORmous 80 pound blanket. The WAVY scarf in Noro Silk Garden is at the halfway point. I'm planning to start two shawls for holiday gifts for two very special friends. (Simple shawls. This is me you're talking to: the woman who is scared to death of lace.) And I'm determined to knit myself a sweater or know the reason why.

And did I tell you that I poured an entire Egg Cream into my HP laster printer Friday afternoon? You can read the sad story here. I don't have the heart to retype it for you. It's too embarrassing. No grown woman should ever have to up-end a printer then race it across the family room, across the kitchen, and into the dish drainer. No grown woman should have to drag the wet vac up from the basement and spend two hours sucking chocolate milk out of the carpet.

There's a better story here. It's all about the Good Old Days of writing romance at Harlequin American, back when I was a girl of 32 and waiting for my first book to come out. That was during my needlepoint period. I'll never be able to think about the experience of writing and selling and publishing my first book without thinking about the many, many needlepoint projects that I worked on during that time. For awhile I made sure there was a needlepoint/needlework reference in every book I wrote. Don't laugh. I always wondered about characters in novels and why so few of them had hobbies. What's life without a great hobby to give it focus?

Back to work for me.