Yesterday, after moving all that furniture, I settled in to do some knitting. I have finally started my first cardigan using the yarn that my friend P. spun for me all those months ago. I scoured the pages of Ravelry and asked advice from some people and found a nice basic pattern that I think I can understand.
[album 65561 First Cardigan 002.jpg]
I put in The Lord of the Rings DVD and picked up my needles.
I didn't get a lot of rows finished however. I discovered two things about this project:
First, I found out that this movie is perhaps not the best one for knitting purposes. There are too many things I want to SEE in that movie. It's not just dialog dialog dialog like many other movies. There's just too much great scenery and too many wonderful details to ignore.
And the other is that this particular yarn is not conducive to speed knitting. I'm holding it double for one thing, and the other is of course its character. It has thick parts and thin parts. Every once in a while I have to stop and trim off some fluff.
I'm using bamboo needles which are not fast needles either. So the three things have turned this into the equivalent of a 'walking meditation' of knitting.
The good news is that I think I quite like it. After a while I gave in and got all Zen with my knitting and just paid attention to each stitch. Which is a good thing considering that each stitch is very individual because of the independent nature of the yarn and I have to watch that I have gotten all the various 'parts' on the needles.
This of course left me plenty of room to pay attention to the movie. And gave me lots of room to cry when Boromir dies. Sigh. That's a sad part isn't it? I mean it's not fair to die right after you make a moral blunder and haven't had time to rectify it. Even if you have realized it right away. I have great compassion for him.
I think there might be a teardrop or two knitted into my handspun cardigan project come to think of it.
I like that.