From Hobby to Obsession and Back Again

You know how I’ve said before that this blog covers some of the tangible, creative side of my life?  Well, there’s a reason I haven’t posted for a while.  I have nothing tangible to show for all of my spare time creating.  No big deal, except that it sort of drives me crazy to spend all of my spare time each evening on something that gets ripped back to nothing.  I want to fix it immediately.  That’s when my evening hobby becomes my evening obsession.

It all started when I tried on my Knickerbocker Sweater for the SSKAL and found that my actual knitting tension was much more relaxed than my swatch.  It was now sized perfectly for a woman blessed with more womanly curves than myself.

Solution 1: Okay, I thought, it will make an excellent “boyfriend”sweater.  Only, I hadn’t knit it long enough to look right in that style.  Hmmm.

Solution 2: I decided to wash and blocked it to add length.  It did grow… in every way.

Solution 3: Maybe Lou Ferrigno needs a boyfriend sweater.

I threw it in the dryer where the Stroll Sport sprang right back into it’s original shape, and ripped it back entirely.  I started again with size 0s (scream) and a ruler on my lap to constantly check my gauge like I have OCD.  I believe in this design.  It will be mine.

Through all of this, my one consolation was that my Kollabora Sockalong socks were knitting up very quickly.  Then I worked the gusset and had to face the ugly truth: maybe Lou Ferrigno needed some girly socks, too.

So here is my second attempt at Hermione’s Everyday Socks.  With only 52 cast-on stitches and a slightly modified heel turn, I think they’re going to work.  Since I wasn’t finishing with the group anyway, I decided to make contrast heels and toes using some leftover Stroll Tonal.  I love the way this looks.  I may use that yarn to add a crochet stitch to the top edges when I’m done.

So here I am in the middle of knitting projects redux on size 0s.  I have been feeling sick for a couple of days and so have melded with the couch, knitting non-stop while my son is at school.  The good thing about being slightly obsessive is that you don’t easily give up.  Also, you can knit and sleep at the same time.  Can you do that?  I can.  Look at my first Hermione heel below.

It seems I invented my own ugly heel stitch pattern halfway through season 1 of Longmire, while halfway asleep.  Compare it to the photo above.  I cannot see how I got that from the pattern instructions.

When working on The Knickerbocker I found I could do short rows in my sleep.  Lots and lots of little unnecessary short rows.  It seems that turning the knitting doesn’t even wake me.  I was a little weirded out when I looked at my work the next day, but I decided to call it talent.

Or maybe it was just the sore throat/ cold thing I have coming over me and making me hyper-focused and groggy all at once, because today I feel like everything is back in the proper perspective.  I won’t finish these things when I wanted to but they will get finished eventually and be greatly enjoyed.  I’m not mad a Stroll Sport yarn anymore and I haven’t talked to my knitting in a whole day.  See, everything’s cool- it’s just a hobby.