If you can't be with the one you love....

The big Christmas project of 2010 is out of the bag. After years of ignoring what I was working on with my needles, the spouse decided to actually ASK me what I was working on. He suggested at one point that perhaps it was for my Dad? But, weren't those cables pretty?

A few days ago he mentioned that he thought it was too big for my Dad, and was I sure I was making it for him?

After an exasperated sigh and a deep mumbling about men who are only observant when they SHOULDN'T be observant, I confessed. I also had him try it on.

I'm making the Hedge Fence Pullover by Elinor Brown. It's a delightful pattern - well-written - with scads of yummy cables. Although it wasn't finished it time for me to claim NaKniSweMo victory (National Knit a Sweater in a Month for those on the outside of my Tribe's coolness), I haven managed to finish all but one sleeve.

And emotionally, I'm done with it.

I've reached that point in the pattern when all I want is to knit something else. Cables cross and uncross in my dreams... and I found myself looking at our picket fence out back and thinking how what was needed wasn't a paint job, but rather an artful crossing of two of the beams.

When I pick up the project now, I want to weep. Hell with weeping... I want to CAST ON my next project.

HOWEVER, even though I don't win NaKniSweMo points and even though he knows it is for him, I still have the pull of this being a Christmas gift to help me learn to love the project I'm with. It has to be enough.

This is a common enough theme in my life - whether it be knitting or a project for work. I swear, sometimes I think I preach only because each week it's a new challenge and a new pericope to play with. I don't want to resent my current projects, spending my passion fantasizing the next thing on the needles (only to look at it with disdain a month or so later). Somehow, in some way, I need to learn to love the one I'm with.

You know?

What indeed is the point?

This blog is like one of those UFO's sitting in the bottom of my knitting box. I'll pick it up from time to time, knit a stitch or two, and then pull out something shinier. I guess I'd rather be knitting than writing?

But this is important work too. Ravelry, admittedly, has taken some of the work away. One of the intents of this blog was to track projects. Ravelry offers such a great way of connecting with other folks as well - and I love how my project joins a sister project from across the globe.

Still.

This is *mine*. It's a place where I can not just post my current work, but also the musings and thoughts that come with knitting. So, today I dust it off and look at it again in hopes to learn something of the intersection between ME and fibre. ;-)