SpiderWomanKnits

So, the knitting of Glampyre's Bulky Cabled Cardigan was going so fast that I just completely ignored my inner voice that was saying, "Hey, dingbat, you gonna try that sweater on before you...well...CAST OFF?"! If there is anything I learned from my 20 something years on this planet it's that I better listen to my inner voice because when I don't things go bad. And bad they went. Bad news is that I can not fit my arms in these sleeves. I have pretty spindly limbs and I'll be darned if I can squeeze them comfortably into the armholes of this sweater. So, they will have to be ripped. Good news is that the sweater knits so fast it won't be such a big deal to reknit them once I get over my case of knitters remorse.

In the meantime, I had been wanting to knit a Panta for some time now. The pattern is kind of elusive but can be found on page four of this Craftster thread. There is also a Panta-along if anyone is interested. So after pulling my hair out because the sleeves of my Cabled Cardigan weren't wide enough to house a toothpick I picked up the needles and made myself a Panta.
Ah, there we go, now I feel a little better. With a little leftover Manos, size 8 needles, and about one hour I had myself a Panta to tame my unruly hair and my Bulky Cardigan broken heart.
Now I am ready to face my sweater demon and claim those sleeves for my own!

One thing about using Blogspirit is that you are required to title your post. Today, I just can't think of one so instead of spending time trying to come up with something I am just throwing in the proverbial towel and moving on.

By the time my DH gets home from work the winter sky has already taken over and made it impossible for me to get good FO pictures of the Shibori scarf I made or my completed sweater. In the meantime, I started Glampyre's Bulky Cabled Cardigan that I had been wanting to make for some time now. This was the best I could do in a room without any natural light and a toddler tugging at my pants :-)

I started the sweater last night while watching Medium (which by the way gave me some serious nightmares) and it has all the features that I love about Stefanie's patterns...they knit up intuitively, quickly, and the process is fun. I don't usually have to take too many "mirror shots" but I realized today that we only have two pretty small mirrors in our house. It made me think back to my years growing up in a home (on Long Island) where it seemed a prerequisite to have gigantic mirrors in every room, furniture made from mirrors, and of course a TV in every room which when it was off could function as a mirror in a pinch :-) After I left Long Island I lived alone in the woods for two years without any modern luxuries or mirrors at all and I found that I reclaimed a great deal of my time when I wasn't capable of focusing on what I looked like. This has absolutely nothing to do with knitting this sweater but it is just something that came to my mind. How many mirrors do you have in your house and how much time do you spend checking in with yourself? With only these two shabby mirrors I still do it quite often. Maybe you can take the girl out of Long Island but you can't take the Long Island out of the girl :-)

2005 is all a blur now but sometime before Christmas I ordered Jess Hutch's super cute creature pattern book. I finally got around to taking a serious look at it over the weekend and my son immediately requested a robot at soon as he saw it. How could I resist? All the patterns are adorable and eventually I'll get around to knitting all of them since there are a lot of little ones in our life but here is where I am starting.

It's a quick and fun knit so he/the robot should be assembled shortly. Since my last post I have finished a Shibori scarf that was a completely spontaneous and successful experiment for my first time trying this ancient technique. I have to say that I am enamored with the process which entails knitting a piece of plain 'ol stockinette (boring) and then tying rigid objects into the finished piece before you eventually felt it (exciting). The result is a 3 dimensional almost sculptural piece of knitware. I also finished a sweater that had been sitting around in the UFO pile for way too long. Now, I just have to wrangle my DH to take some FO pictures so they can be shared here so stay tuned... :-)

So, I woke up this morning to a blank blog and a concerned message in my e-mail from Julia wondering what was going on and I thought to myself...has it really been that long since I last blogged? I guess all my December posts had been archived and, well, I have been absent from the Blogiverse since the new year!

2006 has already brought some changes for my family and now is a good time to share a little more about my life outside of knitting. 2 years ago my husband started writing his first novel and in order to accomplish this he took an overnight job assisting people who have suffered traumatic brain injury. While they were sleeping he would type away and then one night about two months ago he felt his book was done. I am so proud of him and it is quite an amazing thing to hold in your hands over 600 pages of your spouses imagination. But, the schedule of him being away every night was hard for us. So, since he finished his book, he has started a "regular" i.e. 9-5 +/- job in the same field. When he was working nights I used to blog after he left for work in the evening after my son had gone to bed. With a small child this was the quietest time of the day where I could compose my thoughts without disruption. Now that we all have the nights together I have just been enjoying my time with both of them in such a lazy and leisurely way. Even my knitting has taken a back seat for the past few weeks.

Now, time to me is such an abstract concept and I rarely make New Years resolutions or give any power to the calendar. I believe each moment is an opportunity for change and that it comes from within us not some outside deadline or starting point (though I have to say that my family made one resolution last year to never set foot inside a Wal-Mart ever again and we haven't. It has been the easiest resolution to keep and a worthwhile one I believe). This year however feels different for me. I didn't make any resolutions this year but I do feel that 2006 will be a very insightful and powerful year for my family. I am making a commitment this year to do things with intention and purpose. Intention and purpose. This applies to my relationships, my creative endeavors, my movements, my career decisions...you name it. That being said I will end this post with my two last knitting projects of 2005 that were gifted to some very dear friends of mine.

Here is a pair of flip top mittens I made for my friend Bruce. We met 9 years ago at a wilderness survival school and our friendship has lasted despite distance and the busy-ness of life.

The second gift, a pair of fulled slippers, went to Bruce's dad, Sid, an equally wonderful person. I feel blessed to know them both.

I hope everyone out there had a wonderful holiday season and a magical New Year. I send my best wishes for an immensely creative and joyful 2006!