I’ve always been a bit of a dilettante. I get off on these wild-hare obsessions that start with a bang and end with a whimper, often accompanied by much wasting of time and money. The upshot is that I end up knowing a lot about a wide variety of arcane subjects, like African Grey parrots, fixed-gear bicycles, and marine biology. It’s good for Trivial Pursuit, or Scrabble, or amazing my husband, who likes to quiz me periodically. The downside is that it can feel a little bit defeating when you finally come to the conclusion that you don’t finish a whole lot of what you start. 

So, it’s pretty amazing when you weave in the last end on something like this:

My Lauren sweater, a Weaverknits design. It’s not my first sweater. That dubious honor belongs to Sam’s Cobblestone, still forlornly waiting for me to either graft the underarms and weave in the damn ends or frog and reknit the yoke. (Don’t put a project away for 10 months. Just. Don’t Do It. You *will* forget there is a difference between reverse stockinette and garter in the round. Or you’ll convince yourself that purls look enough like garter bumps that it won’t look like hell when your garter yoke is actually half-and-half. And you’ll be wrong.) It’s not my second or third, either. But it’s my favorite, and the first I consider a resounding success.

It’s in the spirit of Lauren that I decided: I am a sweater knitter. I always thought I’d be more about process than product. That’s just how i roll. But I keep seeing these sweaters and I want them. I don’t want to fiddle around with small projects, although I did knit us some winter wear for our Thanksgiving trip to New Mexico, a place where it actually gets and stays cold. So if I’m going to declare myself a sweater knitter, what better way to celebrate than with an arbitrary challenge that will matter to no one but me? Enter NaKniSweMoDo! NaKniSweMo originated as a knitting version of NaNoWriMo, but with a sweater instead of a novel and, obvs, knitting instead of writing. The Do tacked in the end is for Dodecahedron, or dozen. 12 sweaters, a sweater a month for a year. The rules are few: the tally can include vests or shells. The sweaters must be finished. They must be adult-sized. They can be knit at any pace (not necessarily one a month) as long as you have 12 by 12/31/2009.

GAME ON!!

Our house was built in 1930. It’s a duplex- as of right now, S and I will be living upstairs while his good friend P takes the downstairs. P went in on the house with us. I say “us” but the reality of the situation is that my current wanna-be librarian status essentially means “broke soon to be ex-grad student” and I did not actually contribute anything financially to this endeavor. All that will (hopefully) change soon; I’m on the job market and hope to be on my way to financial solvency in the near future. Here’s to hoping.

What do I want this blog to be? I want it to document my construction of a life I’m proud of, whatever shape that eventually takes. I’m laying this all out on the table, now: I want to be happy. I want to live in a comfortable, pleasing space. I want to clear myself of mental and physical clutter, live sustainably and within my means. I want to be sure and leave room for fun and whimsy. I want to take more pictures! I’m hoping to use this space to keep in touch with those goals.