The comforts of home

I have had cause to think quite a bit about house and home and comfort. I recently went on a bit of a binge with the online shopping. I couldn't figure out why I suddenly felt compelled to buy all that stuff. When I really thought about it, it was a comfort thing. My house is still all topsy-turvy trying to recover from "the incident". Not a single room in the house was really usable for a couple of weeks. In short, my home was not providing me with the comfort I needed. Naturally I turned to my knitting for the comfort I was lacking. No such luck. I was sick of socks. I didn't have the concentration required to knit lace. I had swatched for the sweater I was really excited about, but until I washed the swatch to make sure the gauge was in fact good, I couldn't work the sweater. Unfortunately we don't have working laundry at the house right now and I kept forgetting to take the stupid swatch to the laundromat. Without home and knitting comfort, I turned to shopping. I finally ordered some Rockin' sock yarn. I ordered three books from Knit Picks. And I subscribed to IK at long last. Several times I was able to back down from the ledge and finally asked myself, "what are you doing?" The answer was looking for comfort. Once I realized what the issue was I was able to take other steps to make things better. I moved a bunch of stuff that had been stacked up in our bedroom up to the spare bedroom that won't require any construction. My personal sanctuary was restored to some semblance of order and the compulsion to comfort shop has relaxed. Whew!

Last Saturday I ventured down to Tacoma to check out the Madrona Fiber Arts Festival. It was lovely and next year I may actually attend classes. I got my book signed by Stephanie! Then I went to the market. It was lovely wandering around the booths looking at all the wonderful fibery goodness and being wrapped in the loving comfort and wool fumes. Several things happened at the market. I was fondling some fiber when a woman behind me started explaining the properties of some yarn. I knew that voice, I just couldn't remember from where. I moved around so I could see her face and she was really familiar, but I still couldn't put my finger on it. She looked at me and said, "welcome back!" That startled me because I hadn't been there before. Eventually the epiphany hit. This was the woman who taught my mom and me to spin! What a wonderful small world. Next I met Teyani, and had a nice conversation about spinning.

It was a really great day that ended up like this... I joined Knitters Anonymous. I bought a new spindle and some fiber. I have been spinning a little bit each evening when I get home, and I am in love! Hopefully this dose of comfort shopping will hold me over until my house is back in order. If not I have set my sights on a spinning wheel asap, so perhaps that motivation will keep me from getting out of control in the internet...

We'll see!