Obsession

I've become obsessed with knitting. When my grandmother passed away last year I inherited all her knitting needles, unfinished projects, and yarn. Let me tell you, there's enough there to keep me busy for years.

I've never been a knitter. Even though Gram taught me how to do it I kept forgetting how. It always seemed too complicated and too fussy for me to be able pick up a project when I had some time, work on it for a a little bit, and then set it aside till I had a few more minutes. That's not to say that I haven't always loved yarn and yarn crafts. I have. I have completed and gifted away many crocheted projects over the years.

During a personal crisis last fall (which I will tell you all about tomorrow - stay tuned!) I decided to set a lofty goal. I decided that in the year 2009 I would knit 100 pairs of mittens for Humanitarian Services. That breaks down to 2 pairs (4 mittens) per week, with 2 extra weeks either to not knit or to catch up on weeks I got behind.

I'm telling you, if I had nothing else to do I could be perfectly happy knitting all day long. It's kind of scary, actually, because while I'm doing all the other things I have to do, I'm thinking about knitting. I think about what I can leave undone so that I can knit instead. Isn't that the definition of obsession? I love it as much now as I used to be afraid of it. I was so anti-knitting that at one point I might have even sworn that I would never be a knitter. I'm singing a different tune now, for sure.

I've always known that knitting is an old lady thing to do. Maybe that's one of the reasons I resisted it? But I believe it's becoming more popular with a younger, more trendy and with-it crowd. I have photographic evidence to support my theory. Check this out:

I'd like to make it perfectly clear that the above is not a photo of me. That's not my rear. I wouldn't be happy if it was, especially since "alpaca" is misspelled. I'm thinking there can't be too much worse than having misspelled words permanently inked onto your can. But hey, to each his own. Live and let live, that's my motto.

So far the mitten knitting is going well. I will give you January's mitten total on the 31st. In the meantime, here's a picture of a very sweet boy wearing a pair of mittens that his mama knitted for him. I put it here because I like you. And I don't want it to be so that the last image you have in your head as you click away from my little corner on the World Wide Web is a picture of some unknown lady's tattooed arse.