Knit Happens

Sometimes when you are wrapped up in feverish composition of promotional materials, or any writing for that matter, your brain needs a break. The couch calls. The Saturday NPR lineup clamor to get out of the radio and into your ears. Your hands defy your brain signals and pick up the sticks to try a new pattern. While the writerly part of your brain mulls over it's progress and recharges, knit happens.

I remember trying the classic ballband dishrag - my first! - as instructed by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne in their book Mason-Dixon Knitting. Apparently this is one of very few craft books that haven't yet found their way into my collection. (How can this be? I swear I own this book. I can't find it! Anywhere. Hmm, must remedy this situation...) But I seem to recall the ladies mentioning that a dishrag is a quick project, easy to complete in one night. As I struggled with my own wonky approximation of the ballband pattern, I thought, more than once, yeah, right. One night my arse. Try weeks. These ladies are clearly delusional.

Well. They may be delusional, I really have no way of knowing, but they were right about the one night dishrag. Depending on the pattern, it still takes me a few hours, but a dishrag is easily accomplished between finishing the dinner dishes and brushing my teeth for bed. And it's just right for a much needed brain breather, too.

a kitchen drawer of one night stands, er, dishrags