bumps, lumps, watersheds

Under the influence of the needles, I've begun to muse how my current knitting jag is a metaphor for my life right now. I’ve been clinking along something like this: knit a row, gather speed and confidence, blink, mysteriously lose the bundle, get dispirited, give up and slunk off in the direction of the habadashery. Two days ago I tried carrying on from the point of give up. Somehow, miraculously, I resurrected the critical mess I’d made. A watershed.

Since then, I’ve been knitting like a steamtrain.

Though riddled with errant purls and unidentifiable stitches, beanie is swiftly evolving into something that resembles the beginnings of a garment. And I am snowballing. For example, I mysteriously completed a row with 103 stitches instead of 100, and then identified and ditched the three extras in the following row. Just like that. For two nights in a row I have corked my needles because it was time to go to bed… and not because I’d done my blink and lose it trick.

I will try not to gloat, since the task before me now requires changing to a new pair of needles. Then knitting a whole row and purling a whole row, instead of knit one, purl one, and I'm afraid that if I can schwing the needle swap, my hands will revert to autopilot. I smell doom. (Feel free to jump in here with any advice - please!)

Anyway, perhaps the metaphorical stuff is a little subtle. Suffice to say that learning to knit, with all its bumps and lumps, is spookily similar to the pursuit of life after desk. And perhaps by the time I finish the beanie, I’ll have found the warmer climes of my dreams and can lay my hat. (Literally, because I won’t need its woolly warmth!)