A Cautionary Tale

My new resolution to blog daily is already being tested. Neither children nor pets did anything exceptionally cute today, and the roses are all covered in Japanese beetles, so I have no charming pictures. Instead, you get...

the tragic tale of ... my knitting.

Nope, I'm not kidding either.

And you should really keep reading, if only to avoid my fate!

A couple weeks ago in church, an elderly member of the congregation asked for volunteers to help her knit 80-something laprugs (36" x 36") for residents of a retirement home. (Apparently she offered to make the rugs while under the impression that there were only a few residents.)
Now, I have never knitted a stitch in my life, but somehow, filled with the spirit of Christian fellowship, goodwill towards all, etc., it seemed perfectly plausible that I should learn to knit and help out with this little project. So I told the woman that if she showed me how to knit I'd be happy to make a few blankets.

I should have listened to Ed.

He had made some skeptical sorts of remarks when I told him what I was planning, reminding me that it is all I can do to hem a pair of pants, etc., etc., but I ignored him. And the next week the knitting woman gave me a started piece and did her darndest to show me know to knit. Since it also happened to be Travis's birthday, the kids kept interrupting, wanting to go home and celebrate, which was distracting, and the woman kept snapping at them, which was annoying. But I got the general (very general) idea and escaped. And did this...The part at the bottom is where she got me started. The problematic bit is the part in the middle, where I worked out the details of how to proceed. Then the top part isn't so bad. But unfortunately the piece I am working on is supposed to go into a Real lap rug. To be given to a real person at Christmas. Obviously I needed to do something.

So I looked on the internet and, after much muttering, learned how to start a new piece of knitting.

It is coming along okay, as long as no one interrupts me mid-row.

I think the moral of this story is, "Listen to your husband," but it could be, "Think twice before you volunteer in church." I'm not sure. On the positive side, my friends find the sight of my painfully slow knitting to be hilariously funny, so I am spreading joy, if not in quite the way I had imagined.