A walk down memory yarn

Knitting is such a huge part of who I am these days that it’s funny to remember that I’ve only been at it for just shy of 3 years now.  These days, my family wears things I’ve knit, my friends are knitters, I’m constantly knitting something or planning to knit the next thing.  My husband knew me pre-knitting, but I bet he’d say it’s hard to picture me now without my “baggage.”

Today, I tackled the long-avoided task of organizing my knitting “corner.”  It was necessary, because my whole set-up is just wrong.  I’ve been avoiding the reality that I need somewhere to keep my stash other than tucked in the corner of our living room.  And not just my stash – bins of yarn are interesting to a toddler, but not easily infiltrated, and hence not dangerous.  My needles and “notions” are a different story, though.  I DO have them organized – in a nice Sterilite drawer thingie.  But lately Lila is fond of opening those drawers, pulling out fistfuls of DPNs, popping stitch markers into her mouth, and incorporating this into her favorite “You can’t get me!”, “Oh, I am going to get you!” chasing game.  Adorable, yes.  But possibly also life-threatening.  It was time to rethink, reorganize, and move some shit around.

And so I spent most of the morning knees-deep in yarn.  I opened every bin of yarn and started in.  It was nice to get everything organized, but it was more than nice to find some memories in those bins.  I found leftover yarn from every one of my projects, ever.  Most signifigantly, I found leftovers from projects for my daughter.  This afternoon, I found myself saving all these scraps and unfinished skeins in a special bin:  the Lila bin.  I’m not sure what I’ll do with all that yarn. 

One idea is that I will knit her a patchwork ’something’.  The better idea is that I am saving this bin for her, for when she wants to learn how to knit.  I could tell her, “I saved all this yarn, to get you started.  It’s yarn from things I made for you.”  If she’s anything like the teenager I was, she’ll hate that, of course.

But if she’s anything like the grown-up I turned out to be, she will get it.  Eventually.

Election Fun

So, we have a new president elect, and I for one am very pleased.  Months ago, my dear friend Shawn and I made plans to watch the results together, optimistic that we would be tearful and happy and that such an occasion warranted a party.

And so we gathered in my living room to watch and analyze.  Lucky for Tom and me, Shawn is a political history professor, and thus is a veritable font of knowledge about this and past elections.  He kept us up to speed as the results started rolling in.  

Before he even arrived, Tom and I had questions for him.  What happens to all of Obama’s leftover millions in campaign contributions?  Answer:  some is returned to donors, some is used for other DNC candidates, some is stashed for 2012.  Also, did you know that in the first few elections, the winner became president and the person with the next highest number of votes became vice president?  This worked fine when the founding fathers were basically on the same page, but in 1796 Jefferson and Adams clashed and a new system was needed.  And then my mom called and had her own question for Shawn.  She wondered why blue states used to mean republican and red states were democrats.  Shawn confirmed she was right, and that it switched at some point recently, but none of us were sure when or why.  Interested?  See here.

It was a fun night of great conversation, much silliness, and a few tears of joy at the end.

Here is Shawn showing off his electoral map – on which he accurately predicted 49 out of 50 states!

And here is Tom being silly, wearing the scarf I knit for my mom for Christmas and flanked by Lila’s monkeys: