🙂

I have started knitting again.  First because I wanted to knit a scarf for Mark after shrink-washing the beautiful one he had.   We went to THE fancy knitting and yarn store in town and picked a beautiful (and expensive) yarn which turned out to be a real Griff ins Klo.  The quality of the yarn was NOT what I would have expected from such an expensive one:  there were knots where apparently the yarn had broken and someone had just knotted it back together, etc.  The finished product looked nice but didn’t wear well at all:  after only a few days, the whole thing looked flat and matted, cheap actually.

So we went to JoAnn’s and picked a 20% wool / 80% acrylic, machine washable and dryable, nice-looking and warm and soft yarn which cost $2.99 a ball or so.  I chose a different pattern for the scarf, and when we saw that the one for Mark (in dark grey, to go with his coat) turned out quite nice, I made one for myself too, in off-white.

Next:  recently, I had bought a sweater/cardigan-type thing which had a very different cut from my other sweater/cardigan.  The new one is boxy, knitted with relatively thick yarn, and quite short.  To my surprise it looks pretty good on me, so I have decided to knit one for myself.  We went back to JoAnn’s and purchased the same 20/80 wool/acrylic yarn, except in a very thick variant (12 stitches make 10 cm).  The last couple of days, I’ve been knitting a sampler:  looks like a scarf, with different patterns – braids among them -, to see how they look, and to be able to measure how many stitches per 10 cm.   Last night, while Mark was watching The Lord of the Rings, I tentatively settled on a pattern and have started knitting the real thing now. 

The nice thing is that I feel that while I enjoy the knitting process, I am not overly attached to the things I make, so if it turns out not to my (or Mark’s) liking, we can give it away.  Someone else might then enjoy a hand-made goodie. 

As we were leaving JoAnn’s, a couple of days ago, it suddenly and spontaneously occurred to me that this was a new hobby (I haven’t had any hobbies for a long time, I think).   And that a hobby is something you do that you don’t have to do, something you spend money on but don’t expect any money back from.  

I’ve always liked gardening, but I never considered it a hobby.  It is just something I like to do. 

A hobby.  🙂 

A hobby for the stay-at-home wife.  Feels privileged.