I Have an FO!...

...But I have no camera!

(Its at my sister's place - pics of her youngest celebrating his First Communion are on it and its easier to download right off my memory card than to send them.)

Anyway I've already drafted the post so I'll try to get the camera this morning and put it up sometime today.

Most exciting is that I've been knitting! The FO is something that has been in the works for quite a while so it feels good to move it out of the WIP column at long last. I also started and almost finished a wee quick project with one of the balls of Manos I picked up at the DKC Frolic on Sunday.

The other projects I have in the works are pretty close to completion and all of this progress is making me feel brave enough to venture into the baskets that house them with an eye towards kicking them across the finish line too.

To a non knitter the idea of bravery probably seems utterly unrelated to knitting. The "muggles" I know seem to regard knitting as just slightly less taxing and a bit more of a bore than sleeping but in my little yarney world I've come to recognize bravery as an ingredient in successful knitting second only to yarn, needles and interest.

I never realized this until I actually started to feel brave about undertaking projects like I'd never before attempted.  The speed and success of last year's output made me brave enough this year to plan to crank out a sweater a month. Each would have to also challenge me as a knitter. So all at once I bought yarn for a sweater that had a dozen and a half colours, steeking and a zipper; yarn for a twisty, cabley, body hugging hooded cardigan; I dove head first into my first attempt at a pattern by Eunny Jang. I could see myself sooner rather than later feeling sufficiently capable to look someone like Glenna C in the eye and confidently say "yeah, I'm a knitter!" instead of "I love knitting and I'm very keen".

Then my knitting time evaporated and my fantastical timeline went with it.  In pretty short order I stopped looking at the sweater yarn or the cardi-in-progress. Then, started doubting whether I could ever get back into the swing of things again.  I began to think I'd been crazy to imagine I'd be able to undertake all those challenges, rise to them and move past them.  It occurred to me I could never, ever, really be a full blown, Glenna C.-type, "I know, I think I'll whip up "Autumn Rose" but only after changing all the colours in the chart" knitter.

One of the mantras I try to live by is if I fear something I force myself to go towards it.  Maybe not immediately but ultimately.  I try to only turn away from things I reject rather than fear. Its not easy but boy does it help me sleep at night! So once I recognized fear had seeped into and around my knitting, there was only one thing to do...sneak up on it! (Bravery doesn't always look pretty you know!)

So that's how I came to have something for an FO post (later today - fingers crossed) and another to draft and get organized. I'm not back in fighting form yet but I'm getting closer. Now if I can just get close to my camera...!