The Feeling of a Project Done

Before leaving Portland I headed into one of my new favorite yarn stores called Happy Knits. Thinking I was going in for just a single ball of yarn, I walked by the cutest knitted shirt that was being displayed. Suddenly I stop and analyze the project. No too hard, mostly one piece (no seaming....), very cute feather and fan pattern in the front. Then I looked at the tag and saw that it was only 8 balls of yarn to do the project. Now if you have looked at a lot of projects in knitting magazines like Vogue Knitting, you will find that many of them can take up to 20 balls of yarn at some instances. Then you times that by the price of the yarn and suddenly faint! Luckily the yarn for this project was fairly inexpensive. Then, after going through this and telling myself I need to finish the projects I have going on, the woman working at the time notices me looking at the knitted shirt and mentions the yarn she used to make it. Once I felt the cotton and cashmere combo I was hooked. I suddenly was creating a good reason in my head for why I should add yet another project to the multitude of projects that are currently in the wings. So before I knew it I had the yarn at home and was getting cast on for this obviously cute project for my mom for her 50th birthday. I finished it up this past week and got it to my mom, with a sigh of relief. I had knitted so fast to get it done for her birthday that my hands were cursing me. But it turned out beautiful and I got a call from my mom later that day saying that it fit perfect.... that made the crippled hands feel a little better. Nothing is worse than knitting your heart out to end up with a project that doesn't fit the person you were knitting it for. At least with babies or kids you know someday they will fit into it (if it's a little big).... even if it may be 5 years down the road! So another project done and I have already started on the next one, a lace shawl. My first one with some awesome colored Malabrigo lace weight yarn that I purchased (yet again) at Happy Knits. Maybe it's a good thing I finally moved home to Bend. Any longer and I might have been financially supporting the whole store with each of my projects I purchased from them. They would have had to name one of the rooms after me. Scary thought.