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Thanks so much to the readers who wrote such thoughtful responses to my last post; I enjoyed reading and pondering each of them.
The reason I started thinking about this was that I recently had a week of horrible TV binging. Have you ever watched TV for so long that you feel like you have a TV hangover by the time you finally bring yourself to turn it off? That happened several times last week. I've always had a major TV addiction, but I think that my knitting exacerbates it. When I'm knitting at home, I usually have the TV on, and when I'm watching TV, I'm always knitting. The two activities seem to feed off each other. I wanna knit, so I turn on the TV; I'm watching TV, so I justify the time suckage by knitting and thereby doing something productive.
But I'm starting to be very wary of our culture's obsession with multi-tasking. My ex-boyfriend used to get really upset with me when I would knit while we were watching movies at home. He felt that I didn't pay sufficient attention to the movie (often when he was trying to show me a film that he loved), but I resented his asking me not to knit. Of course, I had to admit that I wasn't really paying full attention to the movie. But I still wanted to knit.
My friend Allana mentioned in her comment knitting as a way of making productive use of otherwise wasted time spent commuting. I have certainly subscribed to that view in the past - I always knit or read in the subway. But really, who says we need to make productive use of every moment of our days? Maybe it would be fine if I just sat there, or looked around at what's going on around me.
Anyway, I don't think I'll force myself to take a day off from knitting anytime soon. But I will try to pay more attention to whether I really feel like knitting, or if I just feel like I should be knitting.
Posted on July 27, 2004 at 09:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
For several years now, I have knitted very nearly every day. If I'm sitting somewhere (or sometimes even standing) with nothing to do, I usually reach for my knitting, which is never very far away as I pretty much never leave the house without it. And especially if I'm sitting at home watching TV or a movie, I absolutely must be knitting. Surely this sounds quite familiar to most of you.
And I've never questioned it. I have a passion for my craft, what could be wrong with that? But perhaps it's a sign that it's not so healthy when I actually feel guilty if I'm sitting around not knitting, or, god forbid, go a whole day without knitting.
Last night I started making a list of the projects I'd like to knit in the near term, and it grew so quickly that I began to feel quite anxious. Like, I'd better finish this shawl quick so I can get to the next thing, and the next thing after that. What's wrong with this picture?!
I was talking with my best friend about all this, and she gave me a stern talking to about the Sabbath (she's Jewish). The day of rest. She strongly suggested that I take a day off from knitting every once and a while. But I don't want to! Ever! However, she made some good arguments (try as I might not to hear them), and I'm considering trying it. I don't know if I can do it though. A whole day without knitting? It's upsetting just to think about.
Thoughts, anyone?
Posted on July 23, 2004 at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)
I'm delighted to report that edging for my shawl is going much faster that I'd anticipated. I'm already more than halfway done with the second of four sides! I think it sped up as I became more comfortable with the fiddly-ness of of this part, and got more practice with the pattern. Usually a 14-row lace pattern wouldn't take me long to memorize, but this one isn't very intuitive. However, now that I've done it about 45 times, I've got it down.
Also, I found an easier way to deal with the rows where I'm attaching the edging to the shawl: at the start of each repeat, I place 7 stitches from the shawl on the end of the double-pointed needle that I'm using to work the edging. That way, when I get to the end of each right-side row and have to knit together a stitch of the edging with a stitch of the shawl, I've got them both on the same needle, rather than having to fiddle with knitting a stitch from both needles. It's helping a lot, and I'm happy I thought of it!
With the end of this project in sight, I'm thinking about what will be my next major undertaking. It's been a long time since I had a new fair isle project (since Hank8 took me over a year to complete), so I'm thinking about finally starting the Swan Sweater from Norsk Strikkedesign. I've had the kit for a very long time now, and it beckons frequently. However, I'm feeling guilty about starting another project for myself when I have several projects for my husband and other family members in line as well. But... I'll probably get over this guilt and make myself another sweater!
Posted on July 19, 2004 at 04:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Damn Nicky Epstein for thinking of that clever pun before me! Someday I will learn to come up with charming titles for things on my own. Anyhoo, I've started the edging on my shawl. It's slow-going, but pretty. See?
I like that the edging is attached to the live stitches as it's knit lengthwise. That is to say, after starting with a provisional cast on, each row knit toward the shawl ends with k2tog-ing to a stitch on the shawl. Then you knit a wrong-side row away from the shawl. It was a little fiddly in the beginning, but it's gotten easier. But after several hours of work, I've only done 12 out of 120 repeats of the 14-row edging pattern! So it will be a while yet before this is finished.
Meanwhile, I started a poncho that I'm designing. This design was originally my idea for the opportunity-that-never-was, and I decided that it would be fun to knit it for myself. However, I'm still planning on trying to sell the design, so I probably won't be posting any pictures of this one.
Have a good weekend, all! I'll be knitting on the Jersey Shore this weekend. yay!
Posted on July 15, 2004 at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
I came up with the title of this entry when I was in a much better mood this morning. Now I'm in a LOUSY mood, and will make this entry a short one. But I've been feeling guilty for not blogging more, and thought I should at least keep up with my lazy-ass once-a-week pace.
The reason I was in a great mood this morning and am now a very unhappy camper is that a fantastic, too-good-to-be-true design opportunity fell in my lap on Friday, and just as I was blogging about it this morning, it was cruelly snatched away from me. Too good to be true indeed. However, I'm trying to take away from this experience inspiration to get cracking on submitting a bunch of ideas I have. In fact, I have tomorrow and Wednesday off from work and was planning on working on sketches and swatches, until this amazing project came my way and I thought I'd be working on that. So, now I'll just go back to the original plan, perhaps with some more fire (or ire!) propelling me onward.
Meanwhile, the Garden Shawl is progressing very well; I'm about 10-12 rounds away from starting the edging. They're very very long rounds, mind you. I've also done some work on the plain knit part of the Ring top, but I've mostly been doing that while watching movies.
I had a fun time yesterday knitting in The Park (that's Central Park to you non-New Yorkers) with a bunch of HYUKs (that's Hip Young Urban Knitters, according to Lily Chin). They were nice... I shouldn't be afraid of hip knitters, even though I think of myself as more of a traditionalist. (Hence the lace shawls and Fair Isle sweaters.) Perhaps all those years of adolescence never fitting in with the cool kids left a bit of a scar.
Posted on July 12, 2004 at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
I finally took a picture of the Garden Shawl in progress. Here's a little section:
It's such an enjoyable knit, I'm actually not minding for once the ever-increasing number of stitches per round with this shawl.
In other knitting, I decided that I wasn't really enjoying the "Stripes Go Round" top, so I abandoned it. (Is this a pattern forming?) However, I love the Vintage Cotton yarn, and Berta recently created a top for the upcoming Interweave crochet issue, which features a chain of crocheted rings around the top of a mostly knitted top. As I'm eager to improve my crochet skills, I decided to start making one for myself after typing up the pattern for her at work the other day. I'm currently knitting the main part, which is just stockinette in the round. It makes good movie knitting - I knit all through Spiderman 2 last night!
Posted on July 04, 2004 at 01:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)