What is it about real life that makes you feel like you have to abandon your knitting? It's therapeutic as hell when you're not cursing the yarn gods for tangled strands or if someone interrupts your counting.
I love college. I love my little cell of a room. I love my solitude. I do like being around cute college boys. It's a perk. But there are some things I miss. I always feel the need to put it on the back burner during the year, along with my recreational reading, heavy television marathons and general slothiness.
Did I mention that summer's here? It is! I've allowed myself to read Dead Reckoning in full, finish all of Deadwood and Timothy Olyphant's entire body of work (not quite, but close enough), and organize my Ravelry account, window shop a few (see also: hundreds) patterns with techniques I've been dying to use. Bobbles! Beading! Cables! Short-Rows!
All those results and no, well, results... I was at the end of my rope. I couldn't find the summer project. The dramatic music played on, the sky flashed with lightning, rainwater poured down my face and onto my keyboard as I typed.
"Why?" I screamed, to no one in particular.
"Why must I go on?" I shook my fist at the sky and scowled, scowled like the wind.
"This hat is too small! These fibers, inappropriate for summer! These needles are in use! I want something more challenging! But not too challenging! This weather is ridiculous!"
(Music swells.)
I typed, I cried, I narrowed search results -- 10,000 -- 4,000 -- 43 -- 1.
The sky cleared. A wonderful silence emerged, a birds chirped in the distance. I cleared my eyes and smiled.
It was a sweater. A lovely sweater. Cardigan. Lightweight. Cables. Lacey, yet sturdy. Challenging, yet simple. My style entirely. My favorite example project was modeled by a grandmother.
EUREKA.
A few more clicks and I'd requested the book from the library. And in that surge of purpose I had a summer goal. I will find you, love you, marry you, and knit without shame, Cardigan. (Just finished Atonement and I'm feeling emotional.)
This will be my summer blockbuster. I will atone for the knitting and blogging negligence of the past. I will knit the crap out of that thing. Yes, all the while, I will have to defend my life choices to my parents who want me to be either one of the girls on The Jersey Shore or Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock (they haven't decided yet). But I can't deny the thrill of the knit. Or my fondness for television.
Summer is a time of super attractive people on super hot summer shows. Game of Thrones is keeping my interest lately, though slightly less so after the melting of Harry Lloyd (though a creeper, a long-time favorite on Robin Hood -- so it's legit). And God knows I'm counting the days until True Blood, Torchwood: Miracle Day and Haven. If it weren't for Doctor Who on Saturday nights, I might have to admit to not having much of a nightlife.
This summer, I just want to knit my nights away, sharing plot theories with my friends over instant messages, warming my hands against the total-lack-of-cold with a cup of tea. And have a lovely sweater at the end of it all.
I saw the Cozy Cardi from Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines and I thought, "I want you on my body." Let this be one thing I refuse to procrastinate. This is love. I have two hanks of Gypsy Shadow Tonal and a pair of idle hands. You know what they say about idle hands... they love to knit.
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