Knitting vicariously through others.

Summer is half gone, and all my hopes of cool hours spent near the air conditioner vent knitting away peacefully are laid to rest once and for all. I got no time.

Neither, it seems do many others. All over the internet, knitblogs are full of posts of excuses for not knitting, apologies for non knitting content, pictures of anything but knitting. I will make no excuses or apologies, I won't make myself feel guilty for not knitting more, like it is some bad thing, or that I have failed somehow, when in actuality life is good, just busy.

Now, there's always time to buy yarn, against those days to come when good yarn might become scarce (or at least the good money you need to buy good yarn might). And living in Atlanta, this weekend was a banner weekend for yarn acquisition. On Saturday I made it to Knitch, the new store in the Virginia Highlands area. It has a really neat atmosphere and a good range of yarns that doesn't overlap any of the other local stores much at all, which is always nice. Unfortunately I went right after acupuncture (actually only 3 or 4 blocks away from the store) which meant I was really spacey at the time and that probably saved me from going hog wild with new cool yarns. I got away with a new set of Addi Turbos and that was it. I thought I might have recognized someone whose blog I read, but people never look enough like their pictures in person and I was too shy to speak up. Maybe we should all wear pins with our blog names on them when we go out in public so we can recognize each other.

Anyway, today was the glorious trifecta of yarn shop sale happiness in the back lot of Why Knot Knit, and there I admit I did drop the load of moolah. Stash properly enhanced against future yarn shortage, I must return to my regularly scheduled insanity.

So I have decided to knit vicariously through others till life calms down. Doing this, I will knit far better than I would if I actually had the time to commit to it myself anyway. For example, if I knit vicariously through, say, Grumperina, I can instantly achieve far more thorough understanding of the mechanics and techniques than I actually have time to bother with right now. Through Monkee, I will knit lace to perfection without all that nagging practice (read: frogging, tinking, swearing), through Claudia I will crank out socks by the dozen and maybe a sweater or two. Hey, if I include archives, the sky's the limit. Do you know how good this sounds to my weary brain right about now?

Yes, I have gone right round the bend, but I'm ok with that. And when I get some time to knit again and do it, I will thank myself for not flogging myself over not accomplishing much, and I'll undoubtedly enjoy the process a great deal more. Meanwhile, at the request of a few friends, here's a pic of me with my latest needles. Not the knitting kind. If you are squeamish, look away now.