Another finished object - Twisted Tree

I haven't been able to sleep for a few weeks. The result has been a lot of early-morning knitting. My fingers are so muscular they need tiny Spartan fighting pants.

fingaaaaaaah!

I started this project on the day the problems started, and finished it a month later, on the day I bound off the cursed man-sweater. Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crisis and all that.

There were some hiccups; I ran out of yarn at the armpits. Mustered my willpower and found a Ravelry user who would send me a single ball of Stroll, instead of going out of my head and filling a basket with balls of knitpicks. A mournful victory.

Everything from the armpits up is improvised, because I skimmed the pattern, believed it when it said something like, "by now you should have the hang of the cables" and completely missed the fateful little "AT THE SAME TIME" in the instructions. Immediately screwed up the cables and missed all the short row shaping for the neck, so I just fudged it. The sweater felt sorry for me and turned out ok despite my incompetence.

Bribed the child with angry birds so he would let me get it over his head.

Modifications: ribbing on all the edges and cuffs. I hate rolling edges.

It is hot enough to boil a monkey's bum lately, but keeping warm isn't really the point of the thing. My constant motion is like someone flapping in circles, trying to fly. Better than throwing myself off something.

Suddenly project-free, I flailed around and then started scribbling in my sketchbook over a pile of my mom's spiral-bound story notebooks. Had a stroke of genius. I could save money on yarn by learning to spin! And then I could be an actual spinster, instead of just some weird divorcée mom who pretends to be one!

Because that is what I need. Another obsessive hobby. One which will double the amount of time it takes me to produce anything, and end with me spending $600 on a spinning wheel for my children to break while pretending it is an AT-AT. Instead of just working on my graphic novel, which is the thing I am always saying I really want to do.

Hmm.