I despise cold weather, not dislike but truly despise. Unfortunately for me I live in the Midwest which means anywhere from, four to five months out of the year, I want to hibernate. Since I am not a bear I have to figure out things to do that will keep me from becoming totally depressed. I also have found that after the first of the year it is the hardest. No more holidays to look forward to just the long wait for spring thaw and mud. Three things happen to me between January and march I go a little stir crazy, I watch about three times the amount of television I do the rest of the year and I perpetually rearrange the house. In December I started trying to come up with a plan to deal all of them. I had to do something different otherwise my husband Billy would kill me for rearranging the furniture for the hundredth time. Don’t get me wrong I have tons of other projects and hobbies it’s just that I get… restless and am always looking for something new to do. So as I was saying before, in December I started coming up with a plan to a sway my husband’s anguish over moving furniture so I decided I was going to learn to knit, or at least give it one hell of a try. Not to mention this skill would kill two birds with one stone, I can watch television while making something.

Last week I picked up a package with book, needles and other assorted goodies to learn how to knit with. I was off to the races or at least that was true until I opened the book and started looking at this form of Greek/ Latin abbreviated instruction form, at this point my heart sank. There are many things I can learn from a book anything from history, science to algebra but when it comes to the craft skills I do much better being physically shown. Someone shows me once twice maybe a third time if it is complicated, then I try, said person tells me if I am doing something wrong then I am usually good to go with some practice. Unfortunately I don’t know anyone who knows how to knit or at least not that is going to have time to come to my house and teach me. So for the last week I have walked by that bag of goodies and sighed each time thinking I will sit down and figure this out…. Tomorrow. That was until last night.

Last night Billy decided he was going to learn how to knit. LOL and yes I really laughed out loud. Honestly though it really isn’t that hard to believe if you know Billy. This isn’t because he is a girly guy it is because the man loves knots. What can I say I have knotty husband. He loves to work with Para cord, leather and whatever else he can get his hands on. Yes I meant that last part to sound that ornery. If you learn nothing else about me through my writing it should be that I have a twisted, knotty and punny since of humor. Anyway, Billy picks up things like this very quickly and he is my favorite teacher. Within an hour we had collectively learned how to cast on, knit stich, pearl stich, although I had to teach him that one, not sure why he couldn’t get it as easy as knit considering it is just a reverse. May I say he is my favorite student also, we teach each other a lot. Billy also managed binding off stiches; I will work on that tonight. I love learning new crafts especially with Billy. I believe in knitting together we are knitting more than just yarn it helps knit us together and there is always something that needs mending in a marriage.

One last thing I am constantly revising song’s lyrics to fit the situation or word of the moment and this seems to have rubbed off on the rest of the family. So last night as we knitted Billy came up with a new twist to an oldie and of course I put in my own stich too.

Original song Harry Belafonte’s great classic Day- O

Day-o, day-o
Daylight come and me want to knit at home
Day, is a day, is a day, is a day, is a day, is a day-o
Daylight come and me want to knit at home
knit all night until the morning come
(Daylight come and me want to knit at home)
knit stich, pearl stich till the morning come
(Daylight come and we want to knit at home)

Come Mister Billy Man, and knit me sweater
(Daylight come and we want to knit at home)
Come Mister Billy Man, and knit me sweater

(Daylight come and we want to knit home)

they are 6 foot, 7 foot, 8 foot scarf
(Daylight come and we want to knit at home)
6 foot, 7 foot, 8 foot scarf
(Daylight come and we want to knit at home)

Hope you all have a great Day-O

Jennifer Horton 1/23/13