Will the madness never end?

I've been knitting. And knitting. And knitting. And knitting. It started early in December, when I finished a baby gift for a friend, and felt at loose ends. I decided to stop by the store and see what kind of fun yarn I could find to play with. I discovered that there are lots and lots and lots of fun new novelty yarns out there. And once I started playing with them, I discovered that they were really fun to work with, yielding really surprising results. So, I went back to the store and bought more, and made more.

I made dozens of scarves and I made shawls, and I knit until I'd poked holes in my fingers. And I kept knitting. And knit some more. And I'm not done.

Now there's a pile of knitting on my armchair - three shawls, two done, one nearly so. And there's a scarf peeking out from beneath them. I made my friend Katrene a shawl out of Lion Brand homespun yarn, which comes in such yummy colors and works up so quickly and beautifully that you can't decide which color to buy, so you buy more and more and more, and end up making a shawl for all your other friends, and for yourself, too.

I made scarves out of eyelash yarn, which is really funky looking stuff in the skein, which you cannot imagine will yield such amazing results. I made three, one for each of the students who work for me. And I made another two, one for each of my nieces. Here's my beautiful but camera-shy niece, Alison, modeling hers on Christmas day.
I made myself a black one with red peeking through to go with my black leather jacket, and then I made myself another one, just like Alison's, which is black with shades of raspberry and umber and pink, to go with my raspberry cordouroy jacket. Then, I made my friend, Deb, a black one with shades of blue and purple.

And I made mountains and mountains more. Through it all, faithful by my side, laid The Crow.




Deep, deep sighs, and soulful looks failed to stop me and bring me out of my knitting mania. I'd look over, and there she'd be, trying as hard as she could to convince me that throwing a tennis ball would be a much better way to spend hour after endless hour. She's not yet convinced me. The thing is, which I can't explain to this patient and sad face, there's a zen about knitting that's simply absent from hurling a soggy tennis ball over and over again. I can't explain it, except to say that the more I knit, the calmer I feel. Oh well. Never mind. I have to stop blogging now, and go finish another shawl. (And if you click on each of the photographs, you can see more detail in the knitting!)