Amidst the bike riding, strength training, and general life-parenting, winter-movie-watching I do all the time, sometimes I have the urge to do something crafty. The hipster that lies within, and lurks about on Pinterest has been wanting to do something interesting for a while: arm knitting. I see these pictures of lumbersexual fellas with yarn wrapped around their arms, and it's enough to make me swoon. Paul and I have been chatting about lumbersexualism as of late. He was lumbersexual before lumbersexual was cool, and if I sat down and listed the things that attracted me to him when we first started dating, they'd include a list that any guy in plaid flannel and boots would envy: love of the outdoors, ability to survive in said outdoors, beardedness, and general rusticness. No, Paul does not arm knit. He can sew, though, thanks to sewing Boy Scout patches onto his shirt.
But... arm knitting. It's as kooky as it sounds. I felt like a cross between an ancient maker of fishing nets and my grandmother. A primordial matriarch! A sexy one.
It's an amazingly quick method of producing super-chunky infinity scarves. I'm not an excellent knitter with needles, but arm knitting is forgiving enough for me to churn out a scarf of decent quality. In no time. Flat. It only took me about an hour, including the
tutorial I watched.
Knitting, and crafting in general, is excellent activity for stress and sense of satisfaction and well-being, by the way. Much like physical activities (biking... yoga... running...) it's a way in which we humans who get very, very hung up on individual problems and issues can let go, and fall into a state known in the psychological community as "flow". I can't cite anything... I just know I've heard that. I learned it by osmosis. Aside from the come-four-year-old jostling for my undivided attention, I found myself forgetting about the nagging thoughts that have followed me (neglected projects, parenting, looming heart rate test time trial), and just sat. And existed. And knitted, like a rough, beautiful, primordial Amazon woman.
Here's the final product, on my decidedly non-amazonian body.
