ME!!!

I have been restless and a bit lonely this week. (Nothing bad! Really!!!) I am just getting used to living alone. I've never lived alone before and while the freedom to do as I like is nice, I am not used to it. I figured that maybe casting on for a new project for ME might help with that. Not that I don't have a ton of projects on the needles already, but there are a few I am considering frogging, and I am not really in the mood to work on the others. Casting on for this hat last night did help me feel a bit calmer and happier about having time to myself, but it also helped in another way that I couldn't have predicted.

I bought this yarn (Berroco Ultra Alpaca) last winter with the intentions of making booties for some friends. Obviously, that never happened. So the skein sat in the stash basket. Call me weird, but I really like the color brown - its just such a soft, comfy color. And its Alpaca (and wool)!!! I kept looking at it and trying to figure out what to do with it. Well, work was slow yesterday so I was poking around for patterns on Ravelry - I searched by yarn properties and Garmisch popped up. It's been in my queue forever, about time I get to making it! And even though I love my slouchy blue hat, I deserve more than one hat to pick from - I am a knitter, damnit, and I am an awesome knitter - time to make something really funky for myself!

I grabbed the skein, and popped it onto my brand new swift (my brother got it for me for Xmas! best brother EVAR!) and started winding. This is going to sound dumb and melodramatic, but it was one of those moments where I was able to take a step back and see just how much my life has changed and just how good those changes are for me. Because there I was winding my yarn in the room that used to be STBX's office, a room that used to get me eyerolls, sighs and cranky faces if I walked into it or even stood in the door. Most of the contents of that room left with him, but for almost 10 years, it was his domain, and for the last year it has been a place where I have not been welcome. But I am reclaiming the room - making it into my space. When I got the swift (its a beautiful wooden umbrella swift) I decided I wanted to have it up permanently, the only logical place was in that room. When he left, it made room for the real me to come back. It also made room to surround myself with things that I love. So there I was - in that moment it changed from "the room that used to be his office" to "my sitting room." I am now aching to get some art on the walls and complete the transformation!