As we look into the new year, I look back and notice just how much we did at Erin.Lane during the already busy season of the Christmas holiday.  This holiday season I saw many firsts.  It was quite impressive, and I have proved to myself that if I want to do it, I can.  Something my mom/other half of this dynamic duo learned as well.

A good knitter friend of mine received a set of interchangeable needles for Christmas, and was ready to get a KnitPack Interchangeable because she loathes the hedious, unfashionable, plastic pouch that came with her needles.  She hailed me on Ravelry and asked me to whip her up one of our pink KnitPacks.  I was elated, then I remembered, the seamstress, not this half of the Erin.Lane team, my mom, had just left to visit my grandmother in North Carolina, a mere 13 hours drive away!

Needless to say, I just about swallowed my tongue.  I knew my friend would understand why she would have to wait, but I, being a public school teacher, knew that once break was over, I was going to have trouble finding time to learn to sew this rather intricate KnitPack.

I called my mom with the great news of our friend’s desire for our KnitPack, and decided to steel myself and try my hand at the wild, wiley, and sometimes testy sewing machine.  EEEK!

My husband had all the faith in the world in me, and though I do know how to work a sewing machine, there were a lot of constructions in a KnitPack that I had seen made and completed A MILLION times, but actually doing these many techniques is a totally different ball of yarn.  We are talking cashmere and acrylic here.

I informed my mom that I was going to try my hand at the KnitPack, and prepared myself to spend many hours with a seam ripper and magnifying glass.  What happened next was a complete and utter surprise.

I am actually really good at sewing!  I sat down and after a few false starts and ripping out 10 or 12 seams, I started doing all the detailed work of adding ribbon and dividing pockets.

My mom delayed her trip for a day, my dad had a business call, and she came over just in time to teach me how to put the final ribbon on the outside of the KnitPack.  Needless to say, she was completely impressed with my patient fortitude to continue sewing without any guidance or help, and I have to say I was as well.  It took me about and hour, but I had NEVER MADE ONE BEFORE!! I was thrilled, and since my mom was there, since I was on such a role, I decided to take my intrepid sewing day one HUGE step futher.  I tried a CARRY ALL!

With lots of help and pointers from my ever patient and fabulous mother, I was able to make a Carry All from laying the fabric and pattern pieces to finishing touches and timing strings in just 3 hours!  And, if I do say so myself, it is quite a triumph. Carry All knitting Tote

I look at these two things that I did in just one day of putting my mind to it and remember all the lists of things I have at home and work waiting to get started, or worse, finished. (Don’t open the yarn closet; the unfinished objects might attack!)  I think, wow if I could do all of this in one day, surely I could get mounds of things done.

I sat down on my couch to ponder this very concept and promptly started knitting.  Then I thought, no….housework can wait, and kept right on working on my friends mittens.

Major accomplishments 2, New Year’s Resolutions about a million, but the joy on my friend’s face when I hand her new purple cashmerino mittens makes me not care if my house is a little dusty.  So, all in all a great revelation, but not a great follow through.

What can I say?  The yarn, it calls to me….