Yesterday was a very emotionally trying day. That happens sometimes when you have four girls in a house, all of whom are feeling contrary at once. So to balance the time and effort spent exercising tremendous self control in order to fulfill my role as the “adult” in the home, I spent a lot of time knitting on mom’s sweater and drinking hot chocolate. Sounds wonderful and fulfilling, doesn’t it? It would have been, were it not for the fact that it was done merely to restore/maintain my level of sanity through a challenging day. So while I feel gratitude for a hobby that is accommodating and relaxing on such days, I do not feel as indulged as I probably should.

When she wasn’t crying, screaming, or arguing with me, Olivia knit on her bunny.

Doesn’t that look lovely and peaceful? Yes, we’re focusing on the positive right now.

She has lost some of the excitement associated with knitting a new project. I think she is disappointed that it is merely a square, so she’s knitting it in short spurts of a couple rows at a time. I continue to reassure her that once the square is done, we will cinch it up into a cute, shapely bunny, but the concept is a little hard for a 5 year old to grasp. I have confidence that after the first one is done, and she sees what actually happens to the boring old square, she will be more enthusiastic about knitting more. In the meantime, she lays the pattern out next to her whenever she knits. No, she can’t read, but it makes her feel better, and it’s really cute.

I’m a centimeter and a half away from the armhole shaping on mom’s sweater. I’m reminded of a blog entry I made at about this stage of the back. “This is the (front this time) that never ends…. No it goes on and on my friend. This poor girl, STARTED knitting it not knowing what it was, and she’ll continue knitting it forever just because it is the FRONT that never ends…” Gotcha!

We went out last night and picked up some soft, pink yarn so that Olivia could knit this cute bunny for the birthday party on Saturday.

While we were out, we also bought a mini puzzle and some candy, to complete the package. Olivia loves how soft the yarn is, although she has discovered that it isn’t the easiest to knit with. I’m mildly concerned about the resulting rabbit for a couple of reasons. First of all, she’s knitting in garter stitch as opposed to stockinette. Secondly, this is hardly the “slightly fuzzy, smoothly twisted yarn” that the pattern calls for. Homespun is a very soft, BUMPY yarn. That combined with the garter stitch is going to make for one bumpy bunny. We’ll see what happens.