Stitch And Bitch

Much as I used to love it in Miami when it would get down to 55 degrees (mercy!) and the folks on the radio would be all, “Get the pets inside! For heaven’s sake, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” and in California when the radio would tell people to put on their windshield wipers when it rained, I have to love it even more when the local NPR station here says “It’s going to be 87 today. Might want to dress coolly.”

I’m finding, thus far, that my enforced summer semi-widowhood has been pretty nice. All six days of it. I’ve been decently busy but have also had plenty of time to sit around my house, which I dearly love. For some reason I have been very tired the last couple of days, so I’ve now twice done this weird thing where I lay down on the couch for a nice read, and then three hours later wake up with the drool on my face sticking the book pages to my cheek. I then got up off the couch and…promptly got into bed. I’ve seen the cats do this a couple of times, which is always hilarious somehow to me. It’s a little less funny when I do it though. Maybe I need a multivitamin or something. Perhaps the all-bread all-the-time diet regimen I have been so religiously following has something to do with it. You tell me.

The really exciting thing this week thus far, the real kicker, is that I made a hat on Monday. One whole hat! In two hours! I had to buy a new set of needles…two new sets, actually, one of those weird ones with the cord that connects them and then a set of double-pointed. They were all HUGE…seriously, it was like knitting with magic markers. Pretty weird. Anyway, I got this big chunky yarn and the new needles and twenty-five dollars and two hours later I had a hat. My teacher had to help me through parts of it and at one point I had to stop and do, like, hand yoga or something because I was gripping the giganto needles so hard, but I did finish it. The lady who owns the shop came into the classroom to watch me finish up and my teacher cheered me on as though I was running a marathon or something; “Okay! You’re in the home stretch now! Now go ahead and knit two as one! Okay, get those loops off the needles! Go! Go! Go!” And then when I finally was done (“Okay, now weave in the loose ends! Weave like the wind!”) everyone in the class clapped. I have seldom been so proud. I’m talking I brought that sucker in to work the next day and modeled it for everyone. I’m talking I got home from class on Monday and was so amped up that I was running around the room looking for more yarn…I eventually started a new scarf out of some very pretty red yarn and my normal sized needles. That evening. I experimented with knitting on the bus the next day but that’s pretty hard when you have to count stitches. So I am eagerly awaiting the weekend when I can knit all day. I am flirting with the idea of bringing my scarf to book club this evening. I may also bring it to this party to which I am invited on Saturday. Do you think that would be weird? I mean, if it was my first real scarf and if the yarn was very very pretty and if I was doing a nice checkerboard pattern? I can see where this is going to lead: Stitch and Bitch at my house! Woo!

How great would that be? I would have rules, though, about duckies in bonnets and things like that. I would love to see stuff like a counted cross-stitch that read “Workers Of The Revolution: You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Chains!” That sort of thing. I know I’ve seen some cool embroidery patterns online (which I can’t seem to find right now) that had stuff like tiki torches for your kitchen towels. I have a pretty good knitting book, sent to me by my sister, that has a pattern for a cell phone cozy and a hipster kerchief (although is anyone still wearing those?) and I might try one of those next, depending on how the scarf comes out. It’s so fun to have projects. It would be even more fun to have a whole bunch of cool people at my house every once in a while to do crafts. My Friend Anna (aka The Most Talented Woman In The World) has started an artsy “salon,” where people come and read the latest chapter of their novel or bring pictures of their new art installation, and she says one of the best things about it is that the night before they meet, she’ll be all furiously working on whatever she’s doing because she doesn’t want to look like a slacker, and therefore actually gets stuff done. Isn’t that great?

And here’s where it gets embarrassing: the reason I don’t immediately start my own salon or knitting circle and why I probably will never be able to host book club is because my place is too small. I don’t even have a table. My rent is low enough that it’s really hard to think of moving, even though I fantasize about it weekly. Part of the fantasy is the ability to be a hostess, to be able to be hospitable and to be able to offer folks a table around which to sit to work on their knitting or to discuss their books. I have such admiration for people who do stuff like that; I totally wish I could do it too.

Well, maybe I could. Do you think it would be totally weird to invite people over to crowd in and sit on the floor to knit? I mean, if I served some yummy goodies (which would also have to be on the floor) and I promised to gossip? And I cleaned all the spiders out of my bathtub? Would you come over then?


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