that guy who knits.: twenty-six

I do love garter stitch.

It's reversible. It's easy. It blocks beautifully.

Knitting back and forth in garter stitch is, for me, just like meditation... If I'd ever taken the time to try meditation. Knit, knit, knit... Turn, knit some more. When I'm knitting garter stitch, my mind wanders, and I think that's what I like the most about it. I love those moments when my head is clear, and my thoughts are quiet. It seems that as I get older, my mind has less and less time to wander. I suppose that with age comes wisdom, but I never feel that wise. Just old. It's not that I have a ton of worries, I just have a ton of thoughts. There's work, house, dog, and all the little lists in between. Then there's lists within the lists. There is a chance that I'm being a stitch dramatic, but my brain is the only frame of reference I have on the subject.

So, back to the knitting. I went to Natural Stitches last weekend without a single project on the needles, but I knew I was going to start something while I was there. And not just trouble! I brought some stash yarns and pattern ideas, my notions bag and a couple needles, so I was ready for anything. I decided on a shawl (shocking, I'm sure) in sock yarn, and I only needed to buy one more hank.

I started working on a new pattern by Veera Välimäki called Happy Street. As is usually the case with her shawls, there's lots of garter stitch and some short row shaping. I'm using two colorways (curry & gun metal) of Shalimar Yarns Zoe Sock that I picked up at the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival this year. The third is Dream in Color Smooshy in the navy zeal colorway, which I picked up at NS last weekend. The pattern is totally intuitive and working on it is a dream. Sadly, I haven't had much time to work on it this week. I do have plans for lots of knitting this weekend, though. There's some progress pictures and all the fun details on my ravelry project page.

Speaking of lots of knitting, James and I are going on a road trip to Mississippi next weekend. My baby sister is graduating, so we're driving down to Oxford for the occasion. My dad rented a house for the weekend and we're going to be there celebrating my sister from dawn 'til dusk. This trip is going to be amazing! Also, the weekend will be sandwiched in between two extra-super-long car trips, on which I plan to knit until I can't see. To make packing easier and more efficient, I need to make some decisions about what I may want to knit. I'm open to suggestion, as I'm having a hard time narrowing it down. As long as I have the yarn in my stash, I'm good to go. As far as packing constraints go, I'm forcing myself to only take what I can fit in my new favorite knitting bag, that you can see below.