It's In My Blood

Now, I'm a crafter. I don't mind admitting that because I come by it honestly. My sister's a crafter, my mother's a crafter, and her mother was a crafter.

The last couple years, my craft of choice has been knitting. I enjoy the magic of turning loops of string into useful and usually beautiful garments and household items. Crochet is good, too, but since it uses three times as much yarn as knitting does, I'll stick with the knitting. Beading and quilting are also quite entertaining, but "yarning" (as my daughter calls it) is my personal brand of heroin.

For the last couple of months, I've been scheming and planning an extended trip back home to the Pacific Northwest, not so much to see family and friends and avoid the nasty Texas summer weather (though those are all wonderful reasons in themselves), but mostly to attend the Sock Summit to be held in Portland, Oregon in early August.

Now most sane people, including my husband, question the desireability of attending a knitting convention unless you're a blue-haired member of AARP, much less a sock knitting convention, but I am looking forward to this with what is quickly becoming an unhealthy obsession. To be able to walk among my people, conversing fluently in knit-speak with other like-minded individuals, just makes me giggle.

Imagine my shock and surprise, therefore, when I noticed that one of the world's foremost knitting goddesses (with a wicked sense of humor to boot!) is coming to Austin on her latest book tour! The last time around she only got as close as Houston and I was unable to attend. No excuses now! I've already had hubby request the day off so that he can manage the munchkins that night.

The difficult part is that I've made it my intention to finish all current works-in-progress BEFORE I start any new projects. First, I was hoping to get out of this on a technicality, but my mother (the final moral judge in these kind of dilemas) says this includes ALL projects, not just knitting projects of which I've whittled down to two.

I have this custom sweater for my sister almost done. The pieces are blocked and ready to assemble. Since the first sleeve took me a year to finish, the second sleeve took another year to finish, and then the body of the sweater only took me six months to finish (once I figured out that staring at the yarn in my workbasket while reciting "oh yeah, I really need to finish that sweater", wasn't making any noticeable progress), I should have the sweater pieces assembled by the end of the year. Which is fine, really, since her birthday's in January, so it'll look like I had it planned all along.

My other project is a lace stole originally started back before the last Harry Potter book was released. I'm not showing a picture of that yet, since lace notoriously looks awful until it's been properly finished and blocked. This project, however, has a deadline (my niece's upcoming nuptials in October) which means that although I only have 20 rows left (out of about 800), I'll be knitting this on the flight and blocking it in our hotel room the evening before the wedding.

The only things I have standing between me and a raging case of startitis are:

a crocheted tiger with a knitted taekwondo jacket I'm designing

a beaded celtic knot magnet

a beaded basket

a quilted throw for my daughter (dated 2007) made from her great-grandmother's fabric scraps (one of a set of four - the other three were given as gifts in, yep, that's right, 2007)

a queen-size quilt for my mother-in-law for which my mother made about 24 quilt blocks a couple years ago for me to assemble (Sure would be nice to hand this off when we see her at the wedding in October)

a rag rug I plan to knit for my son's room as soon as I finish spiral cutting about twenty lumberjack-sized t-shirts I've saved for this project for, you've guessed it, a couple years

eleven sweaters to unravel for their luxury yarn

I realize that most people, when they see a pile of yarn like this, don't think "Gee, you need more yarn, don'tcha?"

But I'd like to think of myself as frugal (in the best sense of the word) and I don't mind one iota (or even two) taking the time to unravel an XXL cashmere sweater which I purchase for $1.25 when the same yarn would cost more than $100 in a yarn store. My family has one response to this kind of situation: "Duh!"

These yarn piles resulted recently from my attempt to re-sort my stash which quickly became a trip down memory lane when I was reacquainted with all those projects I was just about to start.

Once the above list of projects is done (I'm estimating around 2011), I'll be able to shop my stash like a yarn store since everything will be new to me! But that doesn't resolve my current dilema of:

What do I bring to show the Yarn Harlot? And what socks do I make to wear at the Sock Hop during the Summit?!

Ready for Hibernation

I have always had what could be described as an obsessive, anal, and perfectionist kind of personality. And I'm okay with that. It serves me well a lot of times, though my husband has a difficult time understanding how I can focus down to the nth degree on one thing, like a knitting stitch or the paint inside the bathroom cabinets, while simultaneously ignoring other things, like the laundry or lunch for the kids.

Well, right now I'm obsessing about the quality of this family's food intake, so he doesn't mind so much. In fact, he's loving it. And the kids have definitely gotten on board as well since they've been scribbling down recipes from cooking shows they want to try and are arguing about which one of them will miss things like mac n cheese from a box less.

I was just pleased that during today's grocery shopping trip we didn't buy anything in a box except lasagna noodles (which don't come any other way). I'm not quite at the point where I'm focused enough to make my own fresh pasta. I'm there with the fresh bread for pizzas, sandwiches, and breakfast cinnamon rolls, but pasta? Not so much.

So here's a quick shot of my beautiful pantry. Small, but packed. Just the way I like it.