Obsessions, New & Old...

I recently added a new obsession to my life. I’ve learned to knit, after 10 or so years of being a beginning knitter, and have actually come to love doing it.

I’ve always wanted to knit, and when we were youngsters, my mom tried to teach us how to do it. We knitted Barbie scarves of varying widths – meaning that one scarf had varying widths – and usually with the yarn pulled so tightly that we had trouble getting the needle in. Mom tried, bless her heart, but she was a beginner herself, and soon we all lost interest.

Probably 10 years ago, I tried again – found a knitting book for kids and decided if a kid could do it, I too would knit a hat and mittens. I also found a revolutionary help – video! Actually seeing someone knit cleared up a lot of mysteries for me. I actually reached my goal of making a hat – even two – but when it came to the mittens, or in my case, mitten, it started getting complicated. So I made one lonely mitten that to this day has no mate and an oddly shaped and extra long thumb.

Then 2 years ago, I spied, and immediately coveted, an adorable garland of miniature striped mittens at Anthropologie. In true Anthropologie style, they were pricey! In true Dutch girl style, I would not pay that much, and decided I would find a way to make it myself.

I now have a completely different opinion about that Anthropologie price…It was a deal…considering how long it takes me to make one mini-mitten.

As luck would have it, I eventually found a book with a pattern for mini-mittens. I got the yarn, and I began…And it was slow going…SLOW going. I think I made 2 mittens that first year…which WAS a 100% improvement from my first mitten project…So I kept on. In time I realized that The Pie Principle was at play…which is to say if you wish to make consistently good pies, you have to make about 100 bad ones first. Eventually, experience will win out, and you will become a good pie baker.

Must be true for other endeavors, too, so I soldiered on…and became addicted!

I made my garland!! 

And I gave away a lot of little pairs of mittens at Christmastime.

And I found that this new obsession was a perfect companion to an old obsession – watching football!

And now I also believe that the Seahawks will not do well unless I am knitting during the game.

Sorry to HawkNation that I got a little too excited and put my knitting down during those last 31 seconds…

As they say on TV, it’s only weird if it doesn’t work…