I haven’t been able to make myself knit on the mitten since Wednesday. I made it to where I need to start the main chart on Wednesday night, so technically I’m almost half done. But I just couldn’t make myself do it. I brought it to work, it sat on my desk staring at me during my breaks, and it was impossible for me to pick it up.
I feel bad about this. It’s not like it’ll take very long, really, and then they’ll be done and over and I can send them off in the mail. Plus this one is for my dad. My dad helps us out a lot when he comes up here on business, and I just hate feeling like I’m letting him down (yes, I know I’m not).
So I didn’t knit on Thursday, and I didn’t knit during my breaks today, which is really not great because there have been some stressful things going on that knitting would have been good to help deal with. Instead I did the normal yoga, I walked a little faster on the treadmill today, I wrote outlines for podcast sections, played games on my iPad, checked my email and Facebook… you get the idea.
Luckily, my swift cover came in the mail today.
Let me tell you, this was worth the wait! It’s the miSwift Cover from Slipped Stitch Studios in the teal Futurella pin-up girl fabric. [ref]Yes, I did order this myself. I’m heterosexual, but damn, I love a well-done pin-up girl. They’re so sexy. And these, they’re sci-fi retro and sexy! Did I just geek out there? :)[/ref] It’s sturdy, and well-made all around. It came with a little button which will go on my spinning apron, and I especially appreciated the little hand-written note on the invoice from the proprietor. All in all, it was just what I needed after today! So I grabbed my even-still packaged swift, the yarn from Raventwist, and a nostepinne.
I have an old ball-winder, but I have kind of a lukewarm relationship with it. I just don’t feel like balls from a ball-winder have any soul. I much prefer to hand-wind, either with or without a nostepinne, depending on whether or not I plan to work from the outside or inside of a ball of yarn. This is from the outside, so nostepinne it was. So while Mike made dinner, I set up the swift at the dining room table, sat down, and started winding.
When I was done, the swift went straight into this lovely, padded, awesomely retro bag. Then it was downstairs, where we discussed the merits of wall anchors and the best way to put up a hook for something not terribly heavy, a bit of fun with power tools, and now my swift is hanging, out of the way and protected, right near my stash.
I did say that I was going to wind yarn after I finished one mitten, and then start the project after I finished the other one, didn’t I? Um…
Well, gee, I couldn’t just leave it on the nostepinne, could I?
After all, a change is as good as a break.