Love and hate

So, apparently I go through many stages in my feelings toward my knitting. Everything from absolute love to abhorrence, obsession to being unable to stand looking at it, I go through it every project. Here are the stages on the first 45" of a scarf:

1) 0-2" Oh, this is such a nice project!! I love the scarf and the stitch pattern and the yarn and I can't wait to knit more.
2) 2-20" Absolute obsession. I could not put my knitting down for any reason, including to listen in class. It went with me everywhere.
3) 20-30" Come on, almost halfway there. Just keep going. You can do it, you just have to knit x more rows and you'll be done (this is also where I get the urge to constantly check number of rows per inch, how long the scarf is, how many rows and stitches will be in the finished scarf, etc.)
4) 30-43" Why did I knit this scarf in such a boring stitch pattern (doesn't matter what stitch pattern I chose, it always seems boring around this point)? Maybe if I had done cables (slip stitch, lace, colorwork...) it wouldn't be so monotonous. Whatever, I have to get this done, my mom won't let me start a new project until I finish this one.
5) 43-45" Oh, this is such a nice project!! I love the scarf and the stitch pattern and the yarn and I can't wait to knit more of it! I can finish it in x rows, which means y days!

Senior Year

So, the AP tests are over, and I have very little to do. Why am I so stressed? I guess that, as I come down to the end of the year, I feel like I should be doing more. My oldest brother moving to Houston soon doesn't help, I guess.

Anyway, knitting nearly halted today. I didn't bring my WIP to school because I had to bring the laptop, and I didn't want to risk carrying 3 bags around. I'm not that organized. I feel that especially after losing my calculator. I've had it since 8th grade, and I lose it at the end of my senior year. I must be losing my mind. Now I need to find the money to buy another. Oh, well, que será será.

My head hurts.

Scarf

Well, I'm about halfway done the scarf-at least, I'm at 30" and right now I'm aiming at 60", but who knows? I will actually take a picture of it once I find a camera, but that has not yet happened. In lieu of that, here's the picture from the source:

Someday, my scarf will be that long. Hopefully, that will be someday soon, like maybe next week? I can set my sights high, I guess.

Batman and Suppression

So, I was watching Batman Returns yesterday with some of my friends (we decided to watch the original 4 movies since Batman Begins and Dark Knight came out), and I realized many things about it that I was completely unaware of when watching as a young child.

First of all, I had no idea how very sexual the entire movie was. Of course, having Catwoman in leaves a movie open to lines like, "Here's just the pussy I was looking for," but the writer didn't miss any opportunity for innuendo.

Really, though, I'm confused as to why Catwoman is a villain. Is it because she wrecks a department store? Is it simply because she doesn't like Batman? Or is it because she represents female sexuality, a woman not willing to be dominated by a man?

This movie is about what our culture expects. A woman who obeys society is an easy target for a man, but a woman who is strong, comfortable with her own sexuality and able to protect herself is evil.

Life, thoughts, knitting

Ok, so I'm going to try this blogging thing again. Not like I have much to say, but whatever. It seems like a good enough waste of my time now that the AP tests are over and senioritis has officially gone into overdrive.

So, recently, I abandoned my sock knitting (and I don't even have SSS yet-I haven't finished the first sock) in favor of a men's scarf. The pattern-extra warm men's scarf-has p3tog without removing sts from needle, yo, p3tog through same sts every other row. This pattern forces me to slow down: instead of my normal competition to knit as fast as possible, which causes speeding up and slowing down as I work, I have to knit at a consistent pace. I've found myself meditating as I knit, knitting prayers into my stitches, and breathing in rhythm with my knitting, all things I've never really done before, and all subconsciously. I've been so worried about getting better and faster at knitting, being able to step up the knitting, that I've never really slowed down.

This has gotten me to thinking about slowing down. At my brother's graduation last weekend, one of the speakers (Bob Herbert) spoke about slowing down, mostly in terms of technology. But what about slowing down when your only "technology" are sticks and yarn, and a process that's been the same for centuries? This is where I find the need to slow down, to stop, to remember why I'm doing what I am. It isn't about getting to that finished garment (though I do love wearing the socks and sweater I've finished). If it were, I'd spend my yarn money shopping in a high-fashion boutique. It would cost less than the yarn I use. It isn't about knitting faster or better than the last time, though I do like to keep myself stimulated through interesting patterns. It's about taking one loop through another, time after time, tens of thousands of times, looking all of those loops, and seeing that somehow, magically, those individual loops have become something beautiful and unique. It's about realizing that that's what life is about-even though I might be one of those loops, doing very little, I can still be part of the fabric that makes up a great change, a great people, a great world.

Or am I wrong? Is it something different altogether? Maybe I'm not one of those stitches; maybe all of those stitches are individual events, thoughts, hopes, dreams, that make up the fabric that is me. I can feel that with every stitch, a little of me goes into the fabric, so maybe whenever I knit a gift, I'm not really giving away knitted yarn but my own knitted soul.