Friday, March 31, 2006

Knitting projects that never end....

Ain't it funny how every knitting project becomes at one point or another becomes a never-ending project at least once in the larval phase of its life?

You know what I am talking about.

In the first flush of infatuation driven by the desire to create something from- well - yarn, you have cast on. Possibility colors the world a rosy gold under the illumination of which everything in the universe looks fantabulous. You get past the first awkward row and a little further up the foot, or arm or sweater back, and suddenly almost overnight, you have reached the knitting desert, where all of the mountains seem to be miles of knit stitches away.

The sun beats down on you from its zenith in the deep blue sky. The buzzards are circling, just waiting for you to cast off or frog that knitting project. You only wish you could frog it, but the sweat is dripping down your forehead stinging your eyes and rendering you blind to your stitches.

The sun starts to play tricks on you, showing you oases of merino lace-weight, cotton bulky and other yarns strewn under palm trees growing next to tall date palms just dropping their fruit. It is tempting to rest from this project, to slip into the pools of blue and green silk under the shady palms, but you know better.

That yarn is guarded by poisonous scorpions and vipers just waiting for you to stir the dirt near them before striking, injecting poison into your dehydrated knitting needles. You have been down that road.

The only solution is to carefully take a measured swig of cool water from your canteen with the Fair Isle canteen cozy on it, and knit on into the night, hoping to reach the mountains before morning.....