Mending my...

I trundled into the bathroom yesterday morning and felt the cold linoleum on my left heel. I had on my only Wollmiese socks. OH NO!!! Just the day before, my old standby socks (on the right) fell to the same fate. It's pair already saw some re-knitting on the heel. When it comes to this level of repair, the only thing that will do is knitting a patch on the heel...because I don't even have anymore of the yarn to do something like re-knit the entire heel. In general, I'm going to have to be careful about always wearing my Berks in the apartment because the floors are a rather rough textured industrial carpet.

On the subject of knitwear maintenance, I did some "re-fashioning" on a second hand cashmere sweater that I've had for years. It's a man's sweater with a high v-neck and it's just never been all that becoming on me. Yesterday took my sharp little scissors to the neck line and changed it to a lower v-neck. I had to do the whole thing by hand because there are certain types of sewing projects I simply do not trust to the
machine. My default sewing method is always by hand. So...sew...I did.

In the late Fall and Winter, I have a uniform: Silk longjohn top or cotton knit topped with one of my old cashmere sweaters and a soft scarf. Add a hat, fingerless gloves and a waterproof jacket and I'm good to go. It used to be a bit easier to find the cashmere sweaters but it's time I started looking again. The oldest one that I bought new is now 20 years old. I'm looking at a little skein of yarn that I got from unraveling a man's cashmere sweater a few years ago. The common issue with a man's sweater is that the sleeves are very wide. I think that's probably why I frogged that sweater instead of just wearing it...oh and I think it was XL! Wow, I actually found a picture of that...

Someone who is not a knitter and who doesn't make stuff was asking me about the stuff I make. She had this crazed look as I was telling her how much I make and that I may or may not wear it after I'm done. She said that thing that non-knitters say all the time: "Can't you sell your stuff?" If you are reading this blog, you most likely know just where that conversation went. You know, about the way our economy in this country is set up. How we couldn't possibly make a living wage of any kind, knitting lace shawls.There are people who do knit for pay, and I have done it but I did it for the experience, not the actual pay.

There are days when I wonder if I should  keep knitting. Especially on days like yesterday when I wanted to start 3 new projects (as I do at this time of the year) or just finish one of the sweaters I know I will actually wear when I'm done. I saw myself from the outside for a minute, asked myself WHY am I doing this?  There are so many other things I could be doing! And then, just after my existential meltdown, I pulled out some fiber and started spinning.

The End.