Don't forget to exercise!

As my non-knitting readers may not know, knitting isn't just sitting in a chair. Oh, no, no, no. You may think you know since you might know someone who goes to a knitting group or class. That makes sense to you, the non-knitter. Socialize, brush up on your skills...perfect sense. But, as as the knitters who are reading this know, there is so much, much more out there...knitting charities, wars, Olympics, swaps and so many new and unusual ways to torture, er, amuse yourself with your needles and a bit of string.

Although I get to the Thursday meet up of the Weho S'n'B as often as I can, and I've been known to participate in a charity or two, that's about all the time I have. I'm too busy torturing myself with my own twisted ideas of what I can and cannot do on a set of needles in a given amount of time to try to conform to someone else's twisted ideas. For example, tonight I made the first 2 inches of something on circulars that, although I checked twice for twisting, somehow had twisted itself. So, I spent the last few minutes of my evening, frogging said project, to begin again tomorrow, hopeful not to twist again. (Knitters nodding, non-knitters wondering where this is going).

So, it seems, someone has unintentionally put it upon themselves to set up a sort of knitting exercise for me. For Christmas, Santa brought me yarn, Lantern Moon needles (which I'm sad to say, I broke tonight. Moment of silence....carry on) and gift certificate. I've already gushed about the needles (they really were lovely and their death was no fault of their own) and the gift certificate so I'm here to talk about the yarn.

The yarn is beautiful and was picked out so carefully I was touched. Seriously. I could see the buyer in the choices. It was so sweet. Sadly, I could not see myself. As many of us write, there are certain yarns that speak to us. I'm definitely in that camp. I dig reds and burgundies and purples, mostly in wool. That's just what talks to me. I also buy large quantities of wool in different blues because that's what speaks to the significant other, making for some excellent gift giving. But, those color or fiber choices did not talk to Santa. Although I was told I could easily return the yarn to buy whatever I want, I just couldn't bring myself to do that. It was such a kind gift that I knew I needed to figure out a way to not only use the yarn, but to use it on projects I would love. There were three yarns gifted to me. All three consist of 4 skeins in various colors and fibers.

First up, lilac ribbon yarn.

Ok, I don't do ribbon yarn. And I certainly don't do ribbon yarn with mohair in lilac topped of with a sprig of something black.

Wow.

I stared at the yarn.

It stared back at me.

As odd as it might sound, the yarn finally spoke.

SHRUG ME.

Yeah, like I'm going to argue with talking yarn.

I tore apart my knitting library and burned up the interwebs looking for the perfect pattern. I didn't find it. Such is my life. I settled on a pattern from One Skein Wonders and knitted it in one night. Yeah. When I put it on, I figured it might fit someone about 8 years old. Not the sort of outcome I had wanted for such a lovely gift.

So I did what any lazy knitter would do. I frogged the whole thing and used the same pattern but on needles 3 sizes bigger, and added 6 stitches. (What, you expected me to spend hours to try to find a better pattern. You're funny.)

Oddly, my laziness worked:

No, the shrug isn't lopsided. I am. But since I was in the little girls room taking pictures, time was of the essence.

Book: One Skein Wonders
Page: 57
Pattern: Shrug This
Needles: 13 (pattern calls for 10.5)
Stitches added to pattern at cast on: 6
Pin: Dominique Cohen for Target (yeah, like I was going to do buttons after knitting this twice)

So that was my workout for the week. I'll tackle the other two yarns later.

Don't worry, I'll bore, er, tell you all about it.