So what are you doing craftwise, anyway?

Good question.

It was to be The Year of Lace. I have a metric ton of laceweight yarn. I have a set of knitpicks Harmony needles that are pointy and slightly grippy and have a little hole where I can attach a life line. I have many, many lace projects marked in several books.

Then, I made the mistake of starting my year of lace early with a project that was very simple. It was simple. It still is simple. However, it requires a knitted on border.

Knitted-on borders can bite my butt. They are tedious and boring. I started one night and haven't picked it up since. I would rather lose a toe nail to an angrily slammed door than continue with the knitted on border.

So, what then? All my lace projects for the year have knitted on borders. My aversion to starting any more lace projects has been so strong that I haven't been doing much knitting or crochet at all lately.

Last year I did all I could to knit from stash, which was great, but my stash has only dwindled slightly because people have given me more yarn. So I still have tons of wool that has gone unused. (Yeah, ok, fine, I bought some, too, but not nearly as much as in past years.)

And then yesterday, I picked up my copy of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. And, it hit me. This year will be the Year of Elizabeth. The book contains many projects, and most of them are challenging in their own way. Several sweaters, socks, mittens, hats, baby things, heck, even tights if you can believe it. And, the best part is that ALL of the projects call for yarn that I can pull from my stash. There are a few projects in the book that I would neither wear nor expect anyone around me to wear (Srsly, wool tights in AZ?) but would make excellent donations to LDS Humanitarian Services or Afghans for Afghans. A lot of my wool that is hanging around in the stash doing nothing has been earmarked for charity knitting anyway. So, hopefully I can kill three birds with one stone: further deplete the stash, continue with my charity knitting, and pick up some really solid skills from Ms. EZ.

I am starting late, so it's going to be a bit of a push to get caught up. This month, the project was an Aran sweater, knit in the round, steeked for the arms, with an option of steeking it to make a cardigan. I've decided to forgo the cardigan option and am making it up with some old Patons Ballybrae I got from my mother's stash a long time ago. It's a very sturdy wool, suitable for outer layers. It's tweedy with a purple base and pink and white bits in it, so it's not particularly 'of the now' colorwise, but it should to very well for an Afghan winter.

I hit a stumbling block yesterday when I couldn't find my lovely Harmony needles anywhere, but I got cast on with some old circs I had lying around. And I began to knit. And I messed up in the count somehow and tore it all out and re-cast on. I wish I was exagerating when I say that I repeated this process 6 times yesterday before finally giving up past midnight and going to bed. The Year of Elizabeth had a rather dismal start.

This morning I got myself up and going. I even found my needles. They were in a Webs bag hanging on our bedroom door that has been there for so long that I'd stopped seeing it anymore. When we got back from the park, I cast on again and began to knit the first round. This time, though, as I cast on, I put a stitch marker between each of the 4 pattern repeats and Voila, I made it through the first round with no problems. I am on my way!

It's not the most conducive project for knit club or even watching TV, though I think once I have the pattern down better, I'll be able to do the latter. So, tonight at knit club, I plan to cast on for the baby blanket project for February and I'll have both on the needles to work on as the situation permits.

Incidentally, the projects for February are a baby sweater, footy-pants, and bonnety-hat thing, a baby pad (like a small blanket) and a large baby blanket/shawl. So, I'll still be getting some lace in through the year. There are quite a bit of projects, though... Later in the year it drops off a bit and I'm hoping to get caught up to schedule at that point, but for now I just don't want to get farther than the month behind I already am.

Where ya been, Anne?

So, I haven't been around, yadda, yadda.

Lemme 'splain.

For those of you new around here, and even those of you not new around here who are wondering why I haven't been posting so much, I'll fill you in.

Many of you know that my husband was in a serious car accident over the summer. He is fully recovered, has been for months now, and we've been moving forward just fine. Some things got put on hold, so after his recovery, we spent a lot of time trying to get caught up on those things, which we are about done with at this point.

But somewhere in all of that, I went through an attitude shift. Before his accident, I found nothing more entertaining that a bit of snark. I prefered that it be good-natured snark, but if it dipped into the negative at times, as long as it was funny, I'd be laughing. That's not the case anymore.

I'm not saying I've lost my sense of humor. I still laugh at the absurd, the wry, the comical. It just hit me in a very real way that life is an incredibly fragile and beautiful thing. It could all be over in an instant, which is something I knew before the accident, but hadn't fully internalized. Suddenly, I was presented with a reality that included losing a great deal of my blessings. Not just my husband, which would have been horrible in and of itself, but a whole lifestyle that I really do enjoy. I love that I can homeschool my girls. I love that I don't have to work and can be a stay-at-home mom. There is nothing that better suits me at this point in my progression. I adore watching my kids grow. Why would I complain about their shortcomings? My husband works so hard for us. Why would I knock him for it? My house may not be a mansion, but it keeps us out of the elements, maintains a fairly regulated temperature, and contains more than enough physical goods to keep us comfortable. How is there anything wrong with that?

And as far as the people around me are concerned, I am of the opinion that there is nothing more pointless than sitting around and discussing their faults. We all have faults, but I think most of us have far more good qualities than bad. And since we all have faults, why sit around pointing out the faults of others? What an extreme waste of time. We could be enjoying people for their good qualities instead of focusing on the bad when they aren't around. The funny thing is that when people are busy complaining about others, they don't realize that it is just making themselves look malicious and untrustworthy. I know I didn't.

I feel like I need to enjoy my family more. I feel like I need to be in more positive places. I feel less like I need to be 'important' in the eyes of others. People can take me as I am or they can move on. I don't feel the need to blog about my craft, I feel the need to do my craft. And even that I don't feel the need to do as obsessively anymore. I feel like I've found a balance that is serving me well at the moment.

Things are just different now, and I'm quite enjoying it.