Until November I had only three addictions: iced tea (and not just any iced tea, Lipton Iced Tea with Lemon… or un-sweet tea with lemon), chocolate, and paper – lots and lots of paper.
But last fall when Brian took off for his annual hunting trip, I got bored and decided to explore a craft I’d long thought about taking up but had been too uncoordinated chicken to try.
Knitting.
Oh I had tried to knit before… my friend’s mom tried to teach me one year when they came to stay with us for Thanksgiving. She was even kind enough to give me a lovely set of Clover Bamboo needles. They are beautiful and made knitting seem sophisticated and something that incredibly cool people did. Maybe I just liked the idea of holding them more than I did knitting at the time; either way I floundered about with the needles and never got anywhere with it… until last year.
Now I’m knee deep in love with yarn, knitting and all things yarn made. I’ve started quite a stash of yarn too. Enough that when hubs asks where the extra money went from my paycheck I just shrug and kick the bag of newly bought assortment of wool and fiber under the bed until he leaves for work and I can take it out and marvel at the colors and texture of the various yarns.
It’s not an addiction… yet.
My finds from my first fiber arts festival
A little roving and my first drop spindle.
Okay so maybe it is an addiction but that last bit was on sale, I swear!
So far I’ve been able to plan projects for nearly everything I buy and those that don’t have a project lined up are just an idea waiting to happen.
I have to admit though, I’m not very good. I’ve only dared to knit things that are of a rectangular or squared shape. Anything else scares me but the goal is to get good enough and comfortable enough to start making socks. I have dreams of walking around this winter in socks made by my own hands. I also have dreams of watching the hubs unwrap handmade socks for hunting at Christmas but maybe that’s taking this too far (though he did say that for all the money I spend on yarn, I had better make SOMETHING for him so…).
And for every purchase of yarn there is almost always a new set of needles. By far my favorite has been the rosewood needles I picked up in Asheville, NC while I was at the Type-A Conference last month. I’ve yet to see rosewood needles in my local yarn shop so this felt like a good purchase to me. They are sooo smooth to work with. I have a scarf that I’m making for a friend on them now and I can’t wait to finish it and put something new on them.
Rosewood needles in action. This will be lovely.
Until then, I still have a baby blanket for Erica to finish, (Arianne’s is done and delivered to her – YAY!), a shawl for myself, and a number of small gifts for Christmas, (mostly spa cloths). I’ve figured out how to change colors (but haven’t dared attempt it yet) and I am dying to take the yarn labeled “Nikki” in the third picture, and turn it into an amazingly gorgeous felted laptop sleeve.
I suppose there could be worse addictions than chocolate, iced tea, paper and yarn but I can’t imagine why anyone would want them.
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