1.10.2008

Back to Normal...So what is normal anyway?

One of the reasons that I love the holiday season is that after all of the hullabaloo and special times and special treats, I enjoy being reminded of how much I like my mundane life too. It's good to have a few minutes to get back to thinking about knitting and what it means in my life.

I love this picture which appeared in Interweave Press's Knitting Daily feature, which is sent 3 times/week to anyone who wishes to sign up. It's a nice way to stay in touch with knitters all over America. This picture was taken at a Colorado Avalanche hockey game where a group of knitters gathered to cheer on their team and knit and share too. I love this "shadow knitting" technique. By combining strategically placed knits and purls in 2 colours you can build in a secret picture that is only visible from a certain angle. (Kind of reminds me of Mme Lafarge and her secret knitting...) Anyone who would like to sign up for this great feature can link here http://www.knittingdaily.com/cgi-bin/udt/um.register.account?ET=knittingdaily_blog:e944:27727a:&st=email


Any Jack Bauer fans out there? No, I'm not going to tell you that Keiffer Sutherland is a closet crafter, (although it would perhaps do him some good considering his recent escapades).

It has been a New Years tradition in our house to watch last year's entire season of "24" (a hit TV show where each of the 24 episodes represents an action packed hour in a single BAD day in the life of terrorist fighter: Jack Bauer.)

We don't watch them in 24 consecutive hours as we used to try to do, but it is done over 3 or 4 days, which is a lot of television by anyone's standards and consequently a lot of knitting time.

I was going great guns on a sweater that hubby keeps insisting that I had promised for Christmas but I say that it was intended for his August '08 birthday. Then between episodes, I took the ribs out of the oven (unlike in the TV show, we DO eat at regular intervals in a 24 hour period) and sloshed hot juice over my hand. Not a serious burn, but as you know, any fresh burn hurts like the dickens and interferes with one's ability to knit. So after supper, I spent the next couple of hours laying my hand on an ice pack for a few minutes until the pain subsided, then picking up my knitting to do a few more rows until the sting was so bad that I would need to return to the ice pack.
What struck me as odd when I look at this episode in hindsight, is that it never once occured to me to put the knitting away. How can I watch TV and not knit? It's unthinkable.
I recently had a new student come to learn to knit. She is a high energy, "DO IT" kind of person who had heard that knitting is a good right brain activity. When I saw her for a second class, she was telling me that for the first time in years, she actually sat down and watched television with her husband and she was able to do this because she had something to DO: she was knitting. Truly, what did knitters do before their was television?