wide awake, and some rambling knitting thoughts

I already wrote this entry at about 5:15 this morning in my head. I was in bed and had been lying awake for well over an hour, startled out of a frightening dream in which I was attending a banquet with only mashed potatoes on the menu, and the entertainment was a re-enactment of the Resurrection of Christ starring George Dubya as Jesus and Hillary Clinton as Mary. Wouldn't you wake up, too? And I lay there listening to Daniel toss and turn in his crib, feeling the one in utero doing jazzercise, listening to the cars go by (where were people going at 4:30am, I wonder?) and then Stuart's nose started to whistle and I almost couldn't stand it anymore. I couldn't sleep because I was thinking through all the things I need to do in the next few weeks: all the words I have to write and all the music I have to learn. Then I tried to think about pleasant, relaxing things, like hot cocoa...and then I really wanted some hot cocoa but I didn't want to risk waking Daniel up with the noise (his room is right next to the kitchen). I thought about getting up and washing the dishes, but didn't (see previous sentence about noise and proximity of toddler's room to the kitchen.) I remembered how I had truly awful insomnia at the end of my last pregnancy (and by "end" I mean two full months) and how I would purposefully save up the dirty dishes so I would have something to do at 2:00 in the morning when I woke up fidgety and cranky and totally unable to sleep.

Then I realized that for most of this pregnancy, I've been thinking of it in terms of all the inconvenience it has caused me. I've been tired (though not sick, fortunately), I can't stay up past 10:00 at night, my back is sore, moving is awkward, and the pressure for every deadline I have right now is increased about ten-fold because anything I don't get done before Christmas, I have to get done with not one, but two very needy children. I feel guilty that my attitude isn't better and that I'm not basking in the glow of motherhood, but everything is making me anxious right now.

Then I tried thinking about knitting, because it doesn't get the anxiety juices flowing like school stuff does, and planning projects is a good way to lull me to sleep. Except that since I need to be spending every spare minute I've got either writing or practicing (does blogging count? alas, no), I just haven't been knitting much, and that made me even more restless. Still, here are a few knitting/craft-related things I have on my mind. Maybe if I get them out of my head and onto "paper" (or on the computer), it will help de-clutter my mind for all the text setting analysis (dissertation stuff that is interesting to me, but probably not to you) I have to cram into the next month:

1. I'm not much of a lace knitter, and I'm finally admitting it. I adore looking at lace. I even bought myself Victorian Lace Today last fall as a reward for passing prelims, but so far it's just been eye-candy for me. Glorious, gratuitous eye-candy, but eye-candy all the same. Lace-weight yarn makes me twitchy (it's so thin), and whenever I try knitting lace I seem to fuck it up a lot and it's hard to fix mistakes and I don't ever wear shawls (with the exception of a beautiful one my mom made me for Christmas two years ago)...so mostly I admire lace and don't knit it (despite having a couple skeins of lace-weight yarn in the stash I've been meaning to knit up since last winter). Does that make me less of a Knitter? Maybe, but so what? I knit what I want. HOWEVER, I looked at the new Knitty yesterday, and fell in love with Muir. I have enough lace-weight baby alpaca in the stash for this project, so I'll keep it in mind, maybe to gift to someone.

2. It got cold last night, nearly record lows, a couple degrees above freezing, which reminded me that Daniel needs some winter things soon. He's got a hat I made for him last year that still fits, barely, but he could use another and some mittens to match. I designed that hat all by myself and then tweaked the pattern for a hat for Stuart, and I keep meaning to write up the pattern and post it. Originally, I'd intended to submit it somewhere, but good grief, there are hat patterns everywhere more clever than the design I did, so I'll just put it here.

3. I've finished two socks for Daniel out of that skein of Trekking, and I'm nearly done with a third; in fact, those little socks are all the knitting I've done the last couple weeks. There's also a sweater I started for him a year ago that I need to finish so he can wear it this winter. At least I was smart when I started it and chose a size I knew he wouldn't fit for a while, eh?

4. Here's a pretty picture:



It has nothing to do with knitting, except that due to the chill of autumn, this poor sunflower is probably not long for this world, and even if I don't have time for it, my thoughts are turning to wool.