I've been bitten by the knitting bug again.  I have yarn fever; some of the money I got for Christmas I spent on yarn...beautiful, silky, soft and fuzzy yarn in gorgeous colors and textures.

It all started with that Mobeius strip (that I'm still working on).  Then LW asked me to knit His Empness a snood (which is pretty much complete, I just have a couple more rounds and then I can bind off and get it in the mail).  Then I decided that once I was done with His snood, I was going to start on one for her that would match the scarf I made for her earlier this year.  Then I saw a ball of yarn and immediately associated the color with someone else, so once the snoods and the mobeius are finished I'm going to start on a cowl for that person.  In the meantime I have plans for an bias knit eyelash scarf for yet another person...and somewhere in the middle of all that I promised Shea I'd knit her neon pink and black striped socks.

I don't know quite what it is about knitting that draws me to it.  It's a combination of many things...the feel of the yarn in between my fingers, the way the bamboo of the needles gets shinier and shinier the more you knit with it....the quiet click of those bamboo sticks as they come together to make another stitch...the way an entire garment is created from one single string.  It's a very unique experience. 

Then you have the love and the thought that goes into knitting a garment for another person.  When I'm knitting for someone else, I have that person in mind when I sit down to knit, and they stay in my mind the entire time I'm knitting.  I guess you could say that there's a little love in every stitch of the piece that I'm working on....which adds up to a whole lot of love in the finished piece.

I've likened knitting to meditation before, but I think it was an erroneous comparison.  When I meditate, I try not to think of anything, I try and clear my mind.  When I knit, I do just the opposite.  Rather than try to empty my head, I try to fill it with thoughts of the person I'm knitting for.  So, it's not meditation in the traditional sense, but it is a way for me to focus and to still my mind and my body.  I focus on the needles, the yarn and the piece, and I shut everything else out.

It's just me, the yarn and the needles, and nothing else matters.