Knitting

So, you might think that since I had a nice long weekend I must have done a lot of reading but you would be wrong. In between cooking and holiday shopping, I've been knitting. And unfortunately, you can't read and knit at the same time. Last winter I started a vest for myself but I didn't finish it. Since then I've crocheted a couple of afghans (one won a Best in Division award at the country fair). Ihave to admit I'm not very good at finishing projects since I get bored, lose interest, or get stuck. I did fine until I got to the point in the project where the armholes are and couldn't understand the directions. I thought I knew what to do but I was afraid to go ahead and possibly mess it up. I finally got up the nerve to divide the work up and leave stiches on stich holders. I continued up the back part but then realized I was forgetting to decrease stiches after about six rows. I tried to decrease the rows and then read the instructions again and found I was really messing up.
Now I was really in trouble since I needed to rip out about 13 rows (of a cable stich pattern). I laid the vest out on my ironing board and carefully ripped out the rows until I got back to the place where I divided it up. Now I could start over but I couldn't get the pattern to work on the row I thought I was. I struggled and fussed and was generally unpleasant to everyone until I realized I wasn't reading the pattern right. I finally got back on track and I am moving along nicely again.
So, why do I subject myself to such toil and trouble for a hobby? I love the feel of yarn and seeing something grow under my hands. I get a lot of satisfaction out of finally understanding the pattern. And, I hope, someday, to have a pretty vest to wear.
My daughter asked me to knit her a pair of fingerless gloves to wear when she works on her laptop in the winter. She found a pattern on the Internet and we chose a yarn for it. It will be a new challenge since the pattern involves double ended needles. I have wanted to try and knit socks using double ended needles so this should be a good way to learn the process.
In the meantime, we sit under the full sized afghan on the couch, with me knitting and her working away on her laptop.