Thank You Kay and Ann

The Monkey family and I were at the library on Sunday, and I stole away to the second floor to find a book for myself for a change.  Usually trips to the library involve bribing The Girl with germ-laden library toys while I read books with The Boy, then chasing the toddling Girl around while The Boy knocks over the book tapes while trying to hide in them.  It’s loads of fun.

On Sunday, The Daddy had a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face when I told him I was leaving him in the children’s section with with the kids for a few minutes so I could go look at knitting books.  I am currently sock obsessed, and thought it would be nice to find a sock knitting book.

I didn’t find a sock book, but I did stumble across Mason-Dixon Knitting: The Curious Knitter’s Guide by Kay Gardiner and Ann Meador Shayne and it is so incredibly funny.  I am so relieved to hear that other knitters have embarrassing knitting projects lurking in their houses.  Not everything I’ve knit turned out quite as I had intended.  Remember those slippers I was knitting a few weeks ago?  I figured that rather than go buy more yarn, I’d use what I had on hand, and I used some yarn I had recycled from a thrift shop sweater.  But the recycled yarn didn’t felt the same as the Knit Picks yarn, and after felting, they are way too big for me and way too small for The Daddy Monkey.

Wasn’t I taking about that knitting book?  Anyway, I’m glad to hear that failure is okay.  Here’s what it says in the book:

MISTAKES YOU WILL DEFINITELY MAKE:

YOU WILL drop stitches.

YOU WILL knit in the wrong direction.

YOU WILL have a crummy looking edge.

YOU WILL have tension issues.

YOU WILL increase the number of stitches in a row without intending to.

YOU WILL knit too tightly.

YOU WILL knit too loosely.

YOU WILL have trouble holding the yarn right.

YOU WILL tangle a skein of yarn into an octopuslike mess.

YOU WILL forget to decrease.

YOU WILL forget to increase.

I have done all of those.  Thank goodness I’m not the only one.  The book is full of advice, tips, ideas, and there’s only one sweater pattern in the whole book, and it’s for a baby!  I can’t wait to do some log-cabin knitting, and I can’t wait to make one of the rag rugs.  You can visit them on the web at their blog, masondixonknitting.com.  Be sure to watch their “Pardon Me (I Didn’t Knit That For You)” country music video.  It. Is. HILARIOUS.

On the very last page of the book is the following quote:

Wish me luck on my socks.  That’s Lion Brand’s Fishermen’s Wool and I am so in love with it.  I am bummed I couldn’t find bamboo needles in the size I needed because I forgot how slippery those metal needles are.

Thank you to The Snail for inspiring me to knit once again.  I find myself wondering as I have many times before, “how does she do it all?”