Stress Knitting

Tuesday night I went home and told the Philosopher that I just needed 30 minutes to nap before I tackled the current pile of things to do.

Just 30 minutes, wake me up then and we'll eat.

Curled on the bed, trying to shut my brain off, I noticed I had to forcibly relax my hands, which were tightly fisted. My fingernails aren't that long but I cannot imagine that sleeping with clenched fists was going to do anything particularly good to my palms.

I'd spent the afternoon in a research forum, listening to presentations from fellow faculty and giving two presentations of my own. I've grown weary and a little resentful of the current red sock project and was determined to use the time to get through it. I'm almost to the toe on Sock 2, so I made some significant progress but if my hands were anything to go by, it apparently that hadn't brought my stress level down enough. I worry, a bit, how much more stressed I might have been had I not been repeating those K1P1 stitches over and over and over.

Such it was that when I woke up at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday (note that the Philosopher did not wake me up on Tuesday evening), I was pretty sure that I needed something different to knit for a couple of days. The red socks are in time out and I picked up a skein of BMFA Medium Weight and some size 1.5 (2.5mm) needles that I'd stuffed into a project bag a few days ago while sorting the stash.

Oh yes, I sorted the stash a little on Monday. After nearly a year of managing to only really binge once on yarn (the sweater quantities with AudioGirl), I actually feel like I'm starting to get a handle on how much yarn I have. I also wound up another four skeins for socks once I've finished the current pair. If I knit another two sweaters and about a half dozen pair more socks, I might even be able to mostly fit the yarn in it's bins.

Yesterday and today have been a lot of attend-and-listen meetings and with that, the commute, and stress rounds, I've made some progress.

Stress rounds?  Those are those one or two rounds squeezed in when I get back from a meeting or as I read a particularly long email and try to bring my blood pressure down. Can't think clearly, knit a round. Tempted to put my fist through the computer monitor (oddly a less satisfying thought now that we don't have CRT monitors anymore--not that I miss them), knit three rounds.  At only 40 stitches and on such 'large' needles, a round goes quickly and I can set down my security knitting and go back to the problem.

It's a one-off Water from Tina's dyepot and I'm really enjoying it. Hopefully in the next day or so I can have some mittens as it's getting colder.  Maybe also I can have some sanity, but that might be too much to ask from a single skein of wool.