knitting and crochet week, Day 1: A Day in the Life

May 11, 2014tempestpilot

5KCBWDAY1 A Day In The Life
Describe a day in the life of a project that you have made, or are in the process of making.

I’m doing this again.

Rise at 5:30am. The current project is a cardigan; green and cabled and as soft as an accursed synthetic can be. Before the commute, it is stuffed into the Whole Foods shopping bag that serves as my work purse, next to a copy of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a container of leftovers, and my much-abused sketchbook.

At lunch break the sweater is hauled out, and for 45 minutes it grows by a few inches while I frown into my book during the work-side rows (the easy ones). I have gotten it into my head that I need to decipher this book, even if it means reading every chapter twice and cross-referencing names, code names, operation names, slang words, and technological terms on a detective’s crime board covered with strings and push pins. I could be applying this effort to studying Hawking, or art history, or famous poets, but no. I’ve started this 1974 spy novel and I will finish it, with 120 minutes of Benedict Cumberbatch and
Colon Colin Firth as payoff for all my weeks of mental anguish. It’s no wonder this damned cardigan still isn’t finished.

At 8pm, I have tucked the smallest child into bed, the middlest child is being read to (currently Fantastic Mr. Fox), and the oldest child is covering the weenie birds’ cage for the night. For another 45 minutes, the sweater grows another inch. Then it is stuffed into my couch-side knitting bag, and by 9pm I am in bed with Terry Pratchett on my nook. (It’s best to have boundaries with authors like Le Carré.)

And repeat. Forever.