Too Much Wool

my brain moves a lot faster than my hands

Thumb update: It still feels funny but after being "good" by avoiding knitting (aka bored out of my mind and a little bit twitchy, in spite of all the reading) for over a week, I am happy to announce that knitting doesn't hurt. I'll take it slow, I promise.

Now, some thoughts on Ravelry. Anyone who reads this blog and doesn't even occasionally ponder the wonder that is Ravelry, and it's impact on our world, and the (hard to imagine) concept of what we all did before Ravelry ... well, I can't relate.

I've been part of Ravelry since very early on. I've (so far) managed to ignore the possibility of "cataloguing" my stash. While it would occasionally be cool to link a future/queued project with a stash picture/link, I can't go there. A. it would mean ripping my house to shreds to find everything and photograph it and B. I really do know (more or less) what's here. If and when I allow myself to think about it. Which I rarely do.

However, I do regularly go and look at what my friends are making/queuing/favoriting and browse. I'm a few days into month #2 of not buying yarn right now. [See paragraph above.] Honestly, this has been relatively painless, in spite of working at a fabulous yarn store several days a week. One becomes blind to yarn seen on a regular basis [again, see paragraph above]  - I'm only really in trouble when I do something dangerous, like going to Rhinebeck.

What I love about browsing patterns on Ravelry, most often courtesy of my friends - and their excellent taste in ... everything - is when I find a pattern for a yarn that I already own. Even better? When the yarn that I already own is owned in enough quantity to make the pattern that I'm suddenly so excited about.

The latest? Thea Colman's Irish Coffee. I've got enough Berocco Blackstone Tweed (a birthday gift from my sister, via a gift certificate) to make it. I love the design, I love the style, I love that it's top-down. And having the yarn in the house to make it (go see the Ravelry projects - two are done in Blackstone Tweed) makes me want to cast on immediately.

But I'm going to be "good" (which honestly is getting tiresome and annoying) and wait until I've finished at least one other sweater before I even. buy. the. pattern. The upside is that having a new project singing it's sweet siren song is making me knit again.

Gotta go - sweaters to finish...

ouch

I'll put this simply:

my right thumb hurts. A lot.

I don't know if it's been too much knitting, knitting the wrong yarn, or perhaps the weather. I'm quite willing to blame damp/cold weather for this kind of thing - I'm old enough that I can get away with it, perhaps even without sounding like my grandmother.

I haven't had this kind of joint/muscle pain for years, so this took me by surprise. I'm more than willing to blame chunky yarn and fat needles, but I fear that's not the whole story.

In the meantime, while it ... gets better, I'll probably be reading a lot. I finished a book today that I started yesterday. I also knit a lot, but that didn't feel very good so I kept putting down the knitting to read instead.

I wish my fingers were as satisfied with turning pages as they are with twisting wool.