Literate Gerunds

Today tastes like fake chocolate, “chocolate flavored” and waxy. There used to be a chocolate flavored gum that would always suck me in with glossy brown promises, but always disappointed once the stick was unwrapped. Thank goodness it’s a short day. Thank goodness we’re headed for the cabin in the mountains after lunch.

I have lots to do and no desire, which is bad. Hopefully getting up into the pines will clear out the don’t wanna cobwebs that I’m mired in.

Thinking about the permanent knitting projects and new ways to organize them. My stash achieved SABLE* status almost immediately after I began knitting, and then blew up after I discovered the internet. Ah, back in the days of the relatively strong dollar, when one could buy laceweight merino from Australia for $22 per kilo. Nope, no typo there. Buy three kilo cones, and get a discount almost high enough to cover the shipping. The shop would wait to charge my card until I verified receipt. And the best part?? I’d ask them to ship “slow boat via China” and get my goods almost three weeks later.

Do I need to go into how much merino laceweight I have stashed and waiting?? Plus, the Project Linus blanket bees with acrylic going begging (and I can’t let THAT happen, can I??) and the short-lived habit of going to the craft store and buying every color of acrylic worsted that caught my eye . . . well, you can imagine the state of the stash.

But I have a couple of projects that are too large to tote around with me so as to take advantage of the snippets of time that so much gets done in, and thus they have to wait patiently for me to get chunks to sink in, like on the weekends watching Netflix. And for the last two years I’ve confined myself to no more than five projects on the needles—one for me, one for Project Linus, one for friends/family, one with an eye to publication, and a wild card. It’s worked nicely; when I get antsy with a big project I can work a small one to completion, or choose something complex for “nexties” if I can’t stand the thought of more garter stitch.

But at the same time, I’ve been feeling like the shoemaker’s barefoot children. I wanna knit for me, ‘cause no one will appreciate the time and effort as much as I will. Sad but true, of just about anything handmade. Each person’s tastes are unique and individual, so it’s rare to find someone else who does it just like you would.

So I’m thinking about a push to finish off the projects currently on the needles, and then not replace them with anything from the Project-O-Rama, so that by New Year’s Day, all the needles are empty. (And then I will probably drop dead, having made the Faustian bargain that I would live until I completed all my projects.) (However, you will note that I did not specify FIBER projects. At the time, I wasn’t into paper. Gotta watch those clauses.)

And then, come New Year’s 2007, I wanna knit for me me me. I’m thinking shawls, shawls and socks. Little 40-day type projects, so I can do a bunch in the year to come. Lovely selfish dreams.

But first I gotta get through these last few.







*Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy