Monday, November 30, 2009

Breaking News

Newark, DE. May 1996. Following a stunning act of coordination, Justin Callahan of Newark, Delaware was named star galloper of the third grade class. Callahan, 8 years old, is also known for his work organizing his sock drawer and meticulously lining up his shoes. In the future, he hopes to reclaim his title, and is considering entering the skipping contest as well.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Knitting Away My Control Issues

I finally finished another knitting project! Nothing gets me motivated like a deadline. In this case, I was knitting a blanket for Baby Kyle, and while I intended to finish it earlier... like when he was born, or when Sara and Aron brought Kyle to camp... I didn't. But I did finish it in time for his baptism so that's good.

I used my favorite baby blanket pattern - the Big Bad Baby Blanket from the S'nB book. The blanket is usually supposed to be a 3x3 square (great because babies don't grow out of it too fast), but unfortunately along with the fact that I was knitting in a race against time to finish the last foot, I also ran out of yarn. I thought I had two more skeins at home, but when I returned home at 10 pm Saturday I discovered that I did not have more. Oops.

The perfectionist in me thought I should just postpone my blanket-giving yet again, but I reminded myself that I'm trying to be less anal about my projects. Not everything has to be symmetrical. I should use the yarn I have in creative ways rather than buying more yarn than I need so that things are completely uniform. So, used what I had. I stopped knitting about when I ran out of yarn, and it was actually about the dimensions of a normal rectangular baby blanket. The pattern was asymmetrical, but it actually looked kind of cool. I bound of
f the end which all green (or was it all blue, I can't remember) partly because I had more of that left, and partly for effect. Overall I liked the effect and was proud of myself for not being completely irked that it isn't completely uniform. Of course it did occur to me that Sara, being somewhat of a perfectionist like myself might try to fold it along the break in the pattern,
and then realize how off-center it is and be disoriented. But that's probably silly. Or is it?

Anyway, now that I'm done this blanket, I have a project to complete for the newest Shitama, and then I'm moving on to a new blanket that will be totally asymmetrical and fun, for a certain baby to be whose parents love things that are quirky and asymmetrical.