Finger-less gloves

Learning how to knit

My drifting days were over.  I found a room to rent and discovered a knitting store less than a mile away.  Coincidence?  Maybe.  This shop offered 'knit-along' classes and one evening after work, I went.    

Knit-along classes are great.  You pay a small fee and sit in the round to work on your own personal project.  The instructor is present to provide help or feedback when needed but for knitting related conundrums only, but I found out that if you listened to the group banter, you could learn a thing or two about a thing or two.  Most of the knitters there are well practiced and working on complex patterns of hats, shawls, sweaters and scarves.  I am about thirty years younger than the eldest participant and the class is 90% female.    

The instructor, Lady J (her superhero name), suggested I knit finger-less gloves in the same knitting style my grandmother had taught me.  Damn it to hell, I couldn't recall the style!  Continental?  English?  Lady J watched me throw the yarn with my right hand and saved the day; I was an English style knitter.  Great, I thought, now I am ready to knit a sweater, right?   

Wrong.  I was ready to knit finger-less gloves.  This is brilliant!  One glove would be created using only the knit stitch and the other, with the purl stitch.  Most knitting is based on these two stitches.  Seriously?!  I quickly settled into a rhythm of listening, knitting and counting stitches.         

Pattern (to follow)
The stitches on the right edge of the fabric are loose and messy but notice the difference on the left side of the fabric.  Aesthetic improvement is always welcome especially when it is the direct result of better form.  Functional glove pic coming soon!  

Yarn from Grandma

Just write, don't over think it

Circa 2012 MLB post-season, my life unraveled.  If it weren't for the SF Giants journey to the WS, I may have gone some place dark and never returned.  Most people who have gone through or are going through a divorce will understand the previous and following statements... The SF Giants helped saved my life.  

The back-story
Up until the actual WS, I was listening to the all the post-season analysis and games on KNBR radio because I was too superstitious to watch the televised games.  When the WS began, I had to watch the games but continued to listen to hours of radio broadcasts- it helped keep the tears tied up behind my lashes.  Anyway, the point is that Murph and Mac, Kruk and Kuip, Marty Lurie and PCon, John Miller and Dave Fleming were narrated the moments that kept me sane. Those men were the first warriors against the initial, debilitating wave of pain and sorrow.

After the confetti was swept away, baseball season went into hibernation and the mere thought of the winter holidays incited many inner mental riots.  All of my beloved books and hobby supplies (both essential provisions to my life) were waiting dutifully in my sister's garage for better days.  I knew my mind wasn't calm enough to read a full paragraph so purchasing a new novel (or fifty) wasn't going to help.  I never need an excuse to start a new hobby and by God, I felt I earned the right to one.  

I love the adrenaline rush I get when I decide to start a hobby (multiple-hobby enthusiasts are adrenaline junkies, too).  It is a special moment when I dedicate limited earth moments to learning something new and I wanted to hold on to it for as long as possible, after all, I was hard put to experience anything resembling the feeling of hope.  For good reason though, the moment was fleeting; I remembered that my grandmother had very recently taught me how to knit AND given me yards and yards of her lovely home-spun yarn.  

The beginning
I did not knit well during that first lesson.  My hands didn't respond to the alien needles and almost immediately, were contorted with cramping spasms.  I was stab-yourself-in-the-eye-with-knitting needle frustrated. Needle-less to say but I will anyway, I didn't try to knit for some months after but despite the failed first attempt, I did something peculiar...  When I packed away my life into boxes, I didn't include the home-spun yarn.  I hauled it around while I drifted between my sister's house and a hotel until the day I decided to self-medicate with a new hobby.  It was then the yarn that was always within reach, called to me.