Accidental Blogger

Knitting is among the few things that I do reasonably well. While I don't particularly enjoy stitching or embroidery, I have always been fond of knitting since my mother taught me the skill around the time I was five or six years old. I must have made close to a hundred garments and accessories during my life. I have knitted for myself, my family, my friends and their kids.  For the last several years however, my needles have clicked mainly for charity, focusing on easy to finish items like children's hats, scarves, mittens and cardigans donated to my neighbors' churches for their annual bazaars and overseas care packages.

Two winters ago, having come across a nice design in a pattern book, I took on a more elaborate project – an adult sized sweater for my son.  Having duly obtained an excellent yarn I started enthusiastically. The initial tempo was brisk but things soon fell by the wayside, mostly because of my furious rate of blogging during that period. In fact, I often went for months without returning to the sweater. When I would go back to it, it took me a while to figure out exactly where I was and it was dispiriting to gauge the dismal rate of progress. Normally, a pullover of this size and complexity would have taken me no more than three months to finish at a leisurely but steady pace. This one dragged on for two years – all because of my preoccupation with the blog.  A couple of months ago, after Barack Obama became president, I decided to let up a bit on blogging and concentrate instead on the never-ending sweater. Noting my uncharacteristic silence in the blogosphere, the always interesting Elatia Harris of 3 Quarks Daily wrote in an email:

 "Still in the blog doldrums? You did say you were knitting. I hope that doesn't mean endorphin mutiny."

I knew right away that I must bring the expression, "endorphin mutiny" to the attention of my readers somewhere, somehow.  Although it is true that knitting helps keep one from climbing the wall during stressful times, I assured her that this particular effort was a non-therapeutic project and that I intended to finish the job before Houston heat makes knitting an itchy pastime. Well, the sweater was at last finished and put together about ten days ago. I took a few pictures of my handiwork and am displaying them here as evidence of "mission accomplished."  Sadly though, I discovered that a charcoal colored sweater does not photograph well – the pattern does not show up at all in the photos. But here it is anyway - the sweater I sweated over.