Patience is a virtue according to who?

In reading over my posts to date, I realized that I have talked a whole lot about parenting, not a lot about sex, and nada about the knitty. So, hope you enjoy some of my first attempts at being a knitty.

The top Sweater is the Presto Chango , and the sweater on the bottom is based on the Presto Chango Sweater by Valerie Wallis. The only difference is that the panel on the bottom sweater did not follow the pattern, as I didn't know what ssk meant, and was doing it wrong, got frustrated, a common theme you'll see, so did it whatever way I thought would be fine.

When I put the top version of the sweater on little H (doesn't he look thrilled?), my husband and I laughed hysterically while he asked "Is he the newest member of the Von Trapp Family Singers?" It was a touch more feminine than I had hoped because of the front panel. It was then that I realized the designer had made it for her little girl...duh! I love the sweater itself, and would make it again...I'm sure my neice will love it (hee hee.)

This blanket is one of the projects that I started while I was still in Oregon, working full-time, blah, blah. It's the Big, Bad Baby Blanket which was created by Lisa Shobhana Mason and featured in Stitch-n-Bitch. I felt like I was NEVER going to finish this blanket, but once I got to Mass and really started working on it, it took no time at all, was very simple, and looks GORGEOUS.

Knitting has become a haven for me, and has forced me to grow if you will. If you ask people who know me well (or not well at all) patience has not been my virtue. Prior to being a knitster, I would never have sat in one place long enough to see this many craft projects through to the end.

Growing up, my mom could get a 5 million piece puzzle for my little sister, and she would patiently work on it until the very last piece was perfectly in place. I, on the other hand, got bored after finding the corner edge pieces and was off to call a friend or play outside.

Sitting in my boss' office one day, I was showing her a sweater that I was knitting for a friend's shower that was as stiff as if I had placed cardstock in the middle and knitted around it. The baby would have looked like Randy in his snowsuit on A Christmas Story. So, at her suggestion, I uraveled the whole back panel. Because I was knitting with two strands together, it wasn't long before it was one flaming mess of yarn.

I sat patiently in her office (What? It was the end of the day and we weren't really working anyway) and unwound that yarn. Several times I looked up and announced that I was just going to cut it and start over, but she insisted that it was a good lesson for me, so I plugged away. Eventually I got both strands wound onto their respective balls, and I must say that it was the biggest sense of accomplishment I'd felt in a long time. How often to we have the opportunity to problem solve in such a short period of time? It was amazing.

Recently, darling H (formerly called Charlie for whatever reason I chose that day) has begun to have temper tantrums that are almost always the result of frustration that a task is not getting accomplished to his liking. He will start squealing and grunting like a feral animal. When I calmly say, "Are you frustrated? Do you need help?", he stops crying and lets me help him. I see myself in him so much these days...he's dramatic, stubborn, willful...it's okay, I'm a third child, aren't we allowed to be self-deprecating? (On a sidenote, when I was in third grade I wrote a short-story for my parents entitled Middle Child Nothing...my mom kept it for a long time in the cookbooks so she could have a laugh...nice, real nice.)

Anywho, in dealing with his oh so frustrating outbursts, I think back to sitting in my boss' office that day, when I really just wanted to throw the yarn across the room and stomp out in a blaze of glory. She was calm and gently teasing, but was able to talk me down. I think we all just need to be treated like two year-olds every once in a while.