Warm Fuzzy Feelings for the
Warm Fuzzy Feelings for the Day
Some days my hobbies make me feel good. A long time ago when I decided I was going to go to graduate school, I made the decision because I wanted to help "save the world". I figured the best way to do it was at the bench, trying to figure out how to make the human immune system better at fighting off disease. Many years later, I am not at the bench, having discovered that there is a lot more to saving the world in that way than I anticipated. I don't think I will ever stop loving the feeling of having made a new discovery, but in the end, the bad politics indentured servitude part of the system chased me out.
It was at that point that I went back to school in computer science. I figured if I couldn't save the world I could at least make some money. My wonderful husband just smiled and encouraged me and never complained once about more tuition bills. I have a great job now and I am happy (even though I am still working on that degree) but I still feel the absence of that making the world a better place thing.
Except for my knitting.
Over the past couple of months my mom has seen me knitting and I finally encouraged her to start her own project. She's always been "crafty" and has made some beautiful fabric dolls. She knew how to knit, but wasn't inspired by it. And then she started watching some of my projects grown and decided she wanted to try something again. While in Traverse City, I helped her pick out a lovely boucle yarn in variagated blues and magentas and purples and a co-ordinating magenta merino yarn. With a nice big set of needles she knitted a beautiful and simple scarf. Before Christmas, she also found time to turn a wonderful bright red eyelash yarn into a great scarf for my aunt. And while I was home at Christmas we spent time visiting yarn shops and talking about designing things. It was really neat to feel like I had inspired someone to get back into knitting.
I got a great email from mom today. She wanted something fun and small to knit on her Carribean cruise. I pointed her to the Vegan Fox pattern in the last issue of Knitty. She loved it and decided to go to her LYS (a wonderful place in Ann Arbor called Knit A Round) for help finding the yarn.
While she was there she not only got the chance to meet the people there, but she got to share a wonderful pattern and turn more people on to Knitty! The people in the store got the URL and copied the pattern so that they could enjoy it, too.
So today I am feeling good. Even if I can't save the world through science, at least I can make the world a better place by inspiring people to knit!
On another very cool note, I can't wait to see Shetha's scarf using Noro Hashigo. Its always amazing to me how a different fiber or yarn can make a pattern look so different, even though everything is still the same but the yarn.
