Serenity Achieved

The other night I settled in to cast-off the stitches for the Serenity blanket. After almost two weeks of squinting, re-counting and, I'm not going to lie, more than a little bit of cursing, it was complete. And, if I do say so myself, really beautiful. I love this pattern and will definitely make it again albeit not immediately. I have been committed to working on one project at a time, and not casting on stitches, printing out patterns for or even fondling the yarn of the next project. It's amazing how much more I've been able to accomplish when I focus my undivided attention on one project. Hm. Weird.

(freshly cast-off and unblocked)

I am in love with the texture of this blanket!

Recently I heard someone talking (probably while I was knitting and watching TV while listening to music) about how nobody can truly multi-task. You're always actually only working on one thing, while temporarily neglecting the others. As part of the Game On challenge, my bad habit I am trying to remedy has been that I'm on the computer too much; specifically the internet. When the kids go to bed and the house is quiet, it's so easy to get sucked into just one more game of Word Twist, or reading one more blog post and dreaming about the next knitting project on Ravelry (an invaluable social networking site for knitters and crocheters), or the next recipe from 101 Cookbooks. No more. I've dedicated my evenings now to reading, watching TV and knitting. Monday nights, I meet some knitting friends at a local coffee shop and Tuesdays I take a yoga class from my friend, the sublime Ms. Jennifer Henry. 

Yoga is a whole other post, but suffice it to say, it's been the first time I've taken it and really just been able to get over myself. Maybe it's because the instructor is my friend but honestly she's just so real, you don't feel silly or awkward. It's not that you're uncoordinated or stiff, you just can't get into that position yet.

But back to my now 'free' evenings. I completed Serenity, then immediately cast on my first of two socks and before I knew it, I'd turned the heel on sock number two. Now, I just need to finish the foot of that sock and I'm casting on the Josie Newsboy Hat. I. Can't. Wait. to get my hands back on the lovely cashmere from Pepperberry Knits with which I will knit the Josie Hat and Agnes Rose to pin on it. 

If you're wondering why you just got to see the completed Serenity, since I'm the first to toot my own horn, it's because I realized after posting about it a couple times both on this blog and facebook that the recipient sometimes reads both. Whoopsie! Since this is posting on November 7th, I've traveled back to Massachusetts to gift it to the happy couple and am safely ensconced on a cross-country flight back to my fam.