In Real Life I Do Occasionally Knit

I’ve alluded to my knitting and even flashed a few long-finished pieces in my previous posts. That does nothing to prove I am still actively knitting and my blog is not a sham built solely upon past triumphs. If I had decided to start blogging about seven months ago, you would have been reading a knitting blog authored by someone who had touched neither yarn nor needle for nearly twelve weeks and was in no hurry to cast on for anything. It wasn’t that I suddenly lost my passion for fiber arts and really good sweaters. My longest stint without working so much as a couple rows of stockinette since I first picked up knitting happens to correspond with the end of my first pregnancy.


(I really do knit! Here's a picture to prove it!)

I never intended to abandon my knitting for as long as I did. In fact, leading up to Addie’s arrival, I spent a lot of time thinking about all the knitting I would accomplish during my twelve weeks of leave. About eight weeks into said leave, I realized how wishful that thinking was. (I am ever the optimist when it comes to fitting in knitting while also taking care of a wee one.) I had exchanged working a few rows of this sweater and that blanket for napping. Or planting myself on the couch as yet another wave of exhaustion hit me. Those, I discovered, happen a lot when there’s a newborn in the house and you’re getting acclimated to running on fewer hours of sleep a night than you thought possible.

When my girl was about ten weeks old, I began to feel that familiar itch to make something, anything. But when I returned to work just a week later, learning to balance a full time job with being a mom and managing my fair share in the household duties killed that desire . Fortunately, I did get my knitting mojo back, but the going is slower than it was before baby. A lot slower. Sometimes an entire week passes before I realize I haven’t so much as fondled a hank of yarn. I hate those weeks, because the lack of knitting usually corresponds with an especially hard run of an already difficult-to-maintain schedule. When I do get to pick up my needles and work a few rows of garter stitch or a single repeat of a colorwork pattern, I think of my daughter and express my love for her in every stitch. Every time I steal a few stitches I am filled with love and my busy mind goes quiet. I like to think that when Addie wears the knits I’ve completed in the past few months she is enclosed in a love note written in wool, signed by Mommy.

That is what keeps me returning to the design notebook, and then to the knitting needles. It guarantees that WIPs like this one, her newest dress, will not remain a WIP for too long.



Yes, that is a fold-over hem, latvian braid, and even some snazzy houndstooth colorwork. I'm excited about this little dress, and I hope to finish it in the next couple of weeks.