Ahead of myself.

i'm not sure why i do it, but i tend to get ahead of myself. The one cool thing about that is the potential of having nice things come out of it--like this prayer shawl i knit on my Ultimate Sweater Machine.

The main way i get ahead of myself in craft type things is rather than going through all the carefully planned learning steps in a craft, i start learning and then go "OOH! This would be fun!" and "OOH! i bet it would work this way too!" and off i go on my own little bunny trails.

i had told hubby when i got the machine at Christmas that my plans were to work my way through the projects in the book that came with it, so i could learn the skills in a building-up sort of way as i got more familiar with it. That thought lasted through the first scarf (which i didn't like and took apart after) and the hat (took that apart too.) It reminded me of my school sewing class where i ended up in the group who had to make a lined wool skirt since we never had. Well, i never had because i didn't want a lined wool skirt, not because i couldn't. And so my (very polite) rebellion began.

In the case of my knitting machine, by project 3 in the book i started looking on the internet for patterns of things i was interested in, and trying to figure out how to change the patterns from hand knit to machine knit. For me this is a blast of a pastime. i love that kind of stuff, not sure why. And then i print off patterns, and make notes, and start little notebooks of projects--it's silly but oh so fun for me! One of my charms is that i am easily amused. It makes me a cheap date.

So, all that to say, the picture is of friend Adina modeling my prayer shawl, made mostly in one evening (till i ran out of yarn and had to wait to finish till i bought more.) It's a simple garment, but a pretty one, i think. i wanted to make something with the cool brown boucle textured yarn i'd bought, not whatever the next project from the book was. So there i went, getting ahead of myself. (It seems i could do something cool on it like edge it in some way, or put a tie on the front--any ideas?) Anyway, model Adina is pregnant and has a little tiny baby tummy. For her, the tummy you see there is bigger than normal. Mine has not been that small in decades, even without pregnancy. And yet i still love her.

Sadly though, she and hubby and adorable 2 year old Miriel are moving--THIS WEEKEND. At first it seemed like it would never happen, they would never get a buyer for their very cute two bedroom house so they could look for something more expandable. And now all the sudden they're moving in a few days. Crazy. No longer can i walk across the rainy street in my flip-flops for a nice cup of tea. No more can she just come across to our house for a movie and company when she's got a cold and is lonely. These are disturbing losses. It has nothing to do with me and my crafty shortcomings, i don't suppose, but since i like rabbit trails, there ya go--wanting a picture of my shawl for the blog, i flip-flopped (shoes, ladies, i mean my shoes--) across the street in the rain for tea and a model. This brings up the fact that i won't be able to do that after this weekend.

And if i simply add to those last couple of sentences that the shawl i wanted modeled came as a result of my shortcutting sins, the Skimmers among us have the Reader's Digest version of the post.