If There Was Ever Any Doubt

My knitting group is named Knittervention. "Because yarn is cheaper than therapy."  If I ever doubted the truth of those words, it was put to rest last night. I was a little tired, and a tightly wound pile of stress, but  it was the alternate Monday, and I didn't want to miss knitting.

I might be minimizing the tightly wound stress part. I was incredibly frazzled, distracted, one bad email away from causing bodily harm to someone. For days now, every time I did something at the office, it added three more things of the list to do. Also, the Courts have been slowly transitioning to electronic format. It started with receiving the court orders by email for civil cases.  Every day in the wee hours of the morning, I would receive a few emails from the automated system. That was manageable. Then a couple weeks ago, the juvenile court (where I have 75% of my cases) started doing the same thing, but in real time. Every sat, ten to fifteen court orders arrived throughout the day.

 The final step last week was the requirement of e-filing.  Instead of delivering motions to the court and physically stamping each document, everything is scanned and filed online as a PDF. I am sure I will like the concept eventually, right now, there is a steep learning curve. I have to learn to scan things, which requires getting my scanner/printer to be on speaking terms with my desktop. They had a falling out a couple months ago, and have only been grudgingly communicating through wifi as a mediator. I finally figured out how to scan, but now I don't know if can remember how to do it next time.

So, that was my mindset when I arrived last night. Two hours of lace knitting and pleasant conversation later, I felt more calm  and focused. I don't know why everyone doesn't knit. I know many other attorneys that would benefit from regular exposure to soft fibers.

Today's it is all about reaffirming the therapeutic value of fiber.

Re-Claiming

One of the yarns I bought last weekend was a half finished project.  A sweater, by the looks of it, neglected and unloved, with a couple other random balls of the same yarn.  I used this same yarn in my first attempt at lace.  Yarn this pretty doesn't deserve to languish half-finished, for all eternity. 

 

So I set about to reclaiming the yarn. 

 

I ripped out the sweater pieces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I gave everything a nice cool bath. 

 

I hung it all up with a towel providing gentle weight, to straighten out the kinks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wound everything into new balls. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have 800 fresh yards of pretty yarn, ready for something new. 

 

Today it is all about giving pretty yarn new life. 

Re-centering

A week ago, A judge lectured all the attorneys in a case to cool down, and start helping our clients in a case instead of keeping everyone all riled up.  On the walk back to the office, I did some thinking about how I could have handled myself differently in this case recently.  I thought that maybe I needed a personal re-aligning of my mind and spirit. 

That would be the point when I realized that while I had been knitting semi-regularly, I hadn't been WRITING about knitting.  Is this a vital part of my creative process?  Spouting on and on in a public forum about my fiber triumphs and disasters?  Is this really what my psyche had been missing?

Well, then I offer apologies to my inner Yarn Harlot and my two fans who have missed me, and pledge to do better. 

I also bought more yarn.  Can't go wrong there for a little pick me up.

Every other year, my local yarn store hosts a Customer Garage Sale.  Customers have a change to do some stash clearing: unloading the leftover balls from past projects, fibers/colors where the love has cooled, mistake purchases, and yarn where the very sight mocked your past failures.  Then the same customers scoop up these hidden treasures at bargain prices. 

This year was no exception.  A great big pile of lovely yarn. 

Today, it is all about the combination of fiber and  shopping therapy.