Surviving Winter

It is December. Technically, Winter hasn't even started yet and already I am ready for spring to come. But then I stop and force myself to remember how much work is actually involved with spring. Winter is the time to hibernate, the time to drink lots of tea, the time to take long hot baths, read really good books, sleep and write.....and knit. I have never been a tremendous knitter. Can't do a cable stitch if my life depended upon it, but I can turn the heal of a sock with the best of them. I have yet to tackle a sweater, but recently set about with my new set of bamboo knitting needles and I think I may have hit upon the makings of a sweater without really trying. I learned how to knit from my mother years ago and then promptly forgot again until the thought of having a sheep around the farm sparked my interest. As though by simply having a sheep would lead to reams and reams of yarn as if by magic...... I like to dream. I bought my daughter a book on basic stitches and then proceeded to nab it from her time and again to refresh my memory on how to do simple stitches, how to cast on and bind off, knit, pearl, etc. Then, I found my favorite of all knitting books. Knitting Rules by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. It combined no nonsense patterns with a witty delivery that led me to read most of the book just for the fun of it. I used her instructions to finally figure out how to knit a sock using 4 knitting needles. My first sock was a bit of disaster, looking more like a sock for an elephant than a sock for a person, but I got the basics down and now, I can honestly say that every one I have knit gets slightly better than the last. Can I just say, knitting socks is way too much fun, but the hardest part is that you have to do two of them! My patience is usually good for about 1 and 1/2 socks and then I get side tracked on some other project like cleaning out closets for a while until the kid that I was intending the pair of socks for has grown and will no longer fit them. It is a good thing that I have five kids - one of them can always use a pair of socks.

The biggest problem is that I get going on several projects at once and have to try to remember the patterns or counts on each one. One of these days I am going to turn a heel on a hat without thinking.

This is the current state of about four projects in my house:

One resides in my cubbie in the entryway....a half finished sock from last year....I desperately hope it still fits someone

Two new skeins of yarn with needles that my son and daughter have been toying around with. They haven't been completely bitten by the knitting bug yet, but they pick it up when I am busy in the middle of my knitting and ask me to help them get going again. Perhaps someday, when they are in their 30s and trapped in a house with a bunch of wild kids they will call me up and thank me for teaching them how to knit.

My new bamboo needles and the work in progress (even though I have no idea what it may actually become) I used to be a strictly metal needle person - the yarn seemed to slide better, but these needles are awesome! I can knit along to any movie and not have someone turn to me and say, "Man, are those things loud!" as the "tick, tick, tick" noise of the needles slowly drove them insane. These bamboo needles are silent. I am now stealth knitter.

This year....it's hats. And whatever large thing I end up making with the orange yarn on my big needles. Hats are fast and I can use up all the left over yarn from knitting socks last year. I turned this little cap out in two days while standing around in the kitchen waiting for food to cook and watching Christmas programs with the kids. Generally, it looks better when it is actually on a person and my kids are all competing for who gets to have it....it is Christmas time and I have Ella's name....hmm....I had her try it on just to be sure it fits.

And so, winter will continue to go by in a knit one, pearl two kind of fashion until I can sink my hands into the soil again and get back to the gardens.