2 am and i have to stop

I remember now why I took the laptop out of the bedroom. I've been online since about 9:30. I've not yet made it to my e-mail. I've been on facebook, ravelry, librarything. I've read panopticon (who is also on LT), yarnharlot and somebody else's blog (why can't I remember?). I've tried to research how to create a blog-site for multiple users - oh, masondixon...that's the other blog. I started the Mystery Crochet-Along Motif Shawl, photographed and posted it to Ravelry, had a lengthy FB conversation with Suzie, faved half-a-dozen possible knitting projects, commented on friends comments on fb... and am nowhere ready to go to sleep. Must remove the laptop from the bedroom - again.

But, I did finish the 22.5 shawl...and I love it.

lots of knitting and still no time

I just "faved" at least a dozen items to knit or crochet on Ravelry and I'll never have the time to knit all the things I want to knit. Right now I'm knitting a great scarf/not quite shawl called 22.5 degrees - thanks to Knitting Friend Tola who made one first. I see someone else's project and I just have to make it myself. Today I sighed to my Sunday BKF's that I'm such a follower. Later I sighed that I'm obsessive about yarn. That I'm crazy about needles (until I saw the pictures of the Yarn Harlot's needles at her blog) and can't have enough; but I need pointier double points. And I want metal size 2s in 7" straights. And I agonized looking for a color to harmonize with the 22.5 for its border. Why is knitting such a compulsion? If I don't have it in my hands, my hands will start to knit of their own accord.

Why don't I do this more often?

I wish I were a fearless blogger. So many do it so naturally. What holds me back?

There has been a lot going on in my life and maybe that's why I don't blog: too little time. Maybe it's that I'm so unhappy about being unemployed for a year. One year. Too long to be in this state of perpetual-what.

My friend Suzie blogs as 2sheepinthecity and she is a gifted writer. Her word pictures are bright paintings of her life, her family, her dogs and sheep, her friends, her travels, her delving into aromatherapy and reiki and diets, and her love of textiles, knitting and weaving. How grounded she is. She weaves it all together just as she does her fabrics.

Me, I spend sleepless nights and bleary-eyed days. I wake up to study the lines on my face made from mashing my cheek into my pillow as I try to find the just right position that will make the magic sleep descend. Too often the sun rises first.

90210 had a good sound track, apropos of nothing except that reruns are on TV and every once in a while great music comes on, I look up and Luke Perry is 20 years younger.

Here comes another day.

Bird's Nest Pin Cushion

I have made the sweetest little present from the book "Closely Knit" by Hannah Fettig. This is the birds nest pin cushion and it took me no time to make it and it was fun to make!

I used Lambs Pride Worsted in Sable for the nest and Nashua Creative Focus Worsted in Mint (really a robins egg blue) for the five little eggs. While the pattern calls for a size 6 dpn, I didn't have those and used 5s. I followed the pattern for the nest just as it says. I knit the first egg as it says, but I found it easier to modify the instructions so that I did the rest from the bottom up.

I love this little project and plan on making a few for Christmas gifts. I've already given one to my dear friend Suzie and I'm making one for me now!

Socks for family members are on two different sets of needles. On one set is "Second Hand Rose" a lovely hand dyed sock yarn from Woolbearers. On the other is Kroy Sock Yarn in a gray-brown. I also have a pair of mitts in Puente de Este's Java Yarn going; I'm heading towards the finish of my Shetland Shawl project and my February Lady's Sweater has about 3" to go before I start on the sleeves.

I love to knit. The needles move on their own, the fabric increases bit by bit. Sometimes I have to concentrate on a pattern, sometimes the pattern moves through my fingertips without conscious thought. It is grace.

What a Day...

What was Your Election Day like? Mine had a fun start, I stood on line at my polling place for an hour and a half. (That's an early 20th century post card of the school where I vote shown above.) That wasn't bad when you saw on the news what others had to go through in order to vote. And, of course, it is nothing when I think of the many, many people throughout the world who do not have this privilege that we do. This gift.

I was lucky enough to fall in line behind a friend from reenacting who lives three blocks away. We talked with our neighbors--complete strangers to us--about the significance of being able to vote for an African American for President. Mind you, we were two white women among a few dozen black people. We talked about blacks not being able to vote just 50 years ago. We talked about older people, white people like my 90 year old grandmother who used the term "colored," who experienced this sense of two peoples in one country in a way that I never knew and who planned to vote for Mr. Obama. Black people, like the grandmother of the woman next to me, who experienced segregation first hand and now had cast her vote for a man who's skin is the same color as hers. We talked about the awe of this day and how lucky we were to share it.

One woman said she had a recurring nightmare that she had voted for the wrong person. In the light of day, yesterday, she voted for the candidate of her choice. And her young son stood in the booth with her. I was so happy for her.

I was number 426 at about 11am. In a normal election, I've been in the mid 100 numbers, like 166, and that's usually after work at 7pm. A woman in her mid 30's voted for the first time yesterday. We applauded her and all the other first time voters in our line. It was electric to be in that line.

Then my day continued as usual. I checked my e-mails, I went through the job ads and I went knitting. I came home and I sat in front of the tv, flipping from channel to channel, seeing when cnn or msnbc turned a state red or blue. and then that magic moment. I heard Keith Olbermann's voice say historic words. And I welled with tears for Mr. Obama's mother and grandmother and wife and daughters and for him. I thought of centuries of men and women who lived and died as slaves, who were hunted, bound, sold, lynched, jailed, murdered. And now this moment when all of that is in some way redeemed.

Here is something I heard that I think says so much so simply:

Rosa sat

soMartin could walk

Martin walked

so Barack could run

Barack ran

so our children can fly

God Bless our children

and God Bless our President-Barack Obama

Many Months Between Posts

Since last I posted I started a new job and got laid off from it---best to close that chapter of the book---and I've had elbow surgery to repair tennis elbow. That's healing well, though I get frustrated that I can't knit or type as much as I want. And I'm job hunting. It is very depressing to not have a job and to never hear back after you send out cover letters and resumes. Very depressing. Luckily, I have a great circle of friends who keep my spirits up.

I traveled to Gloucester Point, Virginia to attend the Battle of the Hook on October 18 and 19 and that was a blast! I also went to Fort Ligonier in August and baked, baked, baked. My last baking weekend until sometime next Spring or Summer when the elbow is all healed. I love my reenacting weekends. They totally revive me.

And I am still managing to knit. Made the mitered felted bag in Interweave Knits (picture when I find my camera and felt the bag), I'm still working on my February Lady's Sweater and on my Shetland Shawl. But new projects are on the needles, including a very pretty, very quick shawl that's almost done...found the pattern on Ravelry...socks, mitts, the sweetest little bird's nest pincushion from the "Closely Knit" book...the list does go on. How would I live if I couldn't knit?

A Wonderful Vacation

Just Back from a Lovely Vacation and that can make for a Wonderful Life. Almost two weeks gone away, spent a day in Minuteman National Historic Park, then went to Maine for a day of bread-baking class --NIRVANA!! I learned so much that my head was spinning and I was dizzy from it all. And my last question was "when can I come back and learn more?"

Two days with nothing to do, so I did yarn shopping and sight seeing. Then Nova Scotia for three days of reenacting in the lovely town of Shelburne where many of the Loyalists were sent when the Revolution ended in 1783. More yarn shopping, a wonderful hand made oak basket to carry yarn in, and a visit to a woolen mill museum enriched the visit.

So relaxed...so happy. If only I had a job and an income, how much happier I could be!

Pix of yarn, and the pair of socks I had to start knitting, to follow...