I really (really, really, really) want to swatch. And I cannot justify it. I am in the middle of a couple (okay 3 or 4) projects – including Jordan’s socks (I just have the toes to go).

I told myself I would NOT start the summer top I am designing from the yarns I bought in Spokane UNTIL I finish Jordan’s socks. Somehow, when I speak to myself so severely and set a clear limit, I usually settle down in a self-disciplined manner and finish what I have in hand. To put it another way: when I speak to myself as if myself were a child, myself generally starts to behave like an adult.

Well, so why am I blogging about swatching when I ought to be knitting the toes of Jordan’s socks? Because I hit a snag. I ran out of reinforcing nylon. There is no knitting those toes until I get to the store to buy another card of reinforcing nylon – so, suddenly, all my self-discipline has evaporated.

And the only reason I am at my computer instead of swatching the funky self-patterning yarn that I plan to use for the body of the summer top is that I am supposed to be organizing committees, programs, etc. for the club I will soon be presiding over. So, I settled virtuously at my computer to work all of this out for the up-coming meeting – figuring the lists of names, the problems to solve, the shear weight of responsibility would drive way all swatching urges.

But I cannot get onto my internet. No email. So, I cannot access the information I need to do the club work.

So, here I am: cannot knit Jordan’s toes without the nylon, cannot run out to the store to get the nylon (napping grandson), cannot work of club organization….

Swatch a little, murmur the knitting sprites. They have no more concern for the projects in my knitting bag than for the piles of dirty towels in the laundry room or the stacks of dishes on the kitchen counter. Shame on them.

Then, a light goes on in my mind and the angels in heaven coo: there is the linen yarn to wind, the lovely variegated linen yarn for the accent gussets of my summer top. Winding yarn is not swatching. It is not even knitting. I don’t even particularly like winding. It is practically the same thing as organizing or cleaning or laundering – sort of a prelude-ish maintainance thing. Virtuous, really.

I suspect that the knitting sprites are coo-ing just as contentedly as the angels, but as long as we are all in accord….