Recaptured

My heart is fickle when it comes to crafts. I have too many interests and have never really mastered any of them. But my knitting - my lovely, warm, safe knitting - has recaptured me this week. I have two finished objects under my belt and am getting ready to undertake the first just-for-me project I've made. It has required quite a bit of Googling to understand a few techniques I haven't really grasped yet. Namely, that dang provisional cast-on. It's this lovely trick that lets you start wherever you want to in a knitting project because you undo the starting stitches later and reveal "live" stitches that you can just pick up and knit in the opposite direction. Very useful for symmetry, like in a shawl or something. Like in the Honeybee Stole or something. I've tried this one a couple of times and always run into trouble undoing the stitches. I really, really didn't want to invest myself in this project to the tune of four-or-so feet of lace and then find that I couldn't undo the stitches in the middle to start on the other half. Did I lose all of you non-knitters? Sorry.
But I found a video today of a lady who just crocheted the starting stitches (with waste yarn...again, sorry non-knitters) right onto the knitting needle! So, if you are a lurking knitter (who never leaves a comment, shame on you!) and would like to take this opportunity to holler, "Stop! Foolish novice! This is a really bad idea!" please do it now, before I have knitted myself into a project I can't get back out of. Please? And thank you.
I'm really excited, and anytime a new project requires new equipment, well, you won't hear me complain. I hadn't been able to get started on this becasue I don't have the right needles. But I knew I'd be able to get to the store today, this being Thursday. It is ballet night, and being the last Thursday of the month, it is actually stretch class night for all ballerinas and sometimes mommies can play too. I like to play stretch class because I get lots of compliments. And she really worked us today, that Miss Michelle. I was very warmed up and she suggested working on our splits, at which point I said I needed to split to go pick up a size of knitting needle I needed for this new project and she said that she'd just like to see me try it. Just once. Please, Kiki? And I can't say no when anybody calls me Kiki - not even when grownups do. So, I tried it. And guess what? The side splits that I thought I'd lost when I was 18 are actually still there. Albeit a little shaky. So I left the dancers to do their dancing things with my head held high and, well, my thighs a little bit like jell-o, and nipped into JoAnn's for some knitting needles. Size 5, 29" circular, and wooden, please. That should do the trick and be pleasurable at the same time, which is always my aim in any endeavor.
And now I sit with my quaking and offended legs my desk, having cast on, provisionally, 101 stitches in my waste yarn and remembering that I must fill you in on absolutely the most important event of the day. I got a package today. Well, Andrew and I did. From my dear Julianna, who has left me for regions unknown (some like to call it Chicago). And she sent birthday presents and made me promise Chris would take my picture as I opened it since she couldn't be here to see my face. And let me tell you, the pictures are pretty funny. Here's the most decent one (and please notice, Amy, how really bad my house is looking and you will feel so much better about your dust bunnies):

Do you people realize what that is? It's a book by the Yarn Harlot. But you see, Julianna got to see the Yarn Harlot in Chicago on her book tour. And, well, this book? Stephanie Pearl-McPhee signed it with her very own hands. She wrote my name in it. It's autographed. And I walked around the house for the next thirty minutes randomly spewing phrases like, "Honey. The Yarn Harlot signed my book," and "Honey. She wrote my own name with her very hands," and even the less coherent, "Honey. Yarn Harlot. Book."
I am not one to be starstruck, really. I mean, people are just people, regardless of the notoriety they achieve or earn or whatever. But for a newbie knitter like myself? That's a pretty big deal.

DAILY BLISS: my funny husband - he just makes me laugh when I'm not expecting it