OK, I say in the title that these are thoughts of an "untamed knitter". I suppose I'd better put some substance behind the "knitter" part. I just finished (literally, it's blocking right now) a stole for a good friend. It's a scaled-down version of the stole I knit for my wedding (10 months ago tomorrow). The pattern is the "Alpine Lace Stole" from Victorian Lace today. It's a lot of fun to knit, since there're decreases and yarnovers on both the right and wrong sides. The pattern isn't too hard to memorize, but I had to be careful, when I tried to "fly without a net" and knit without using the charts, I tended to make mistakes, and then I'd have to tink back to correct it, which kind of defeated the purpose of going a little faster and smoother because I wasn't using the charts! Anyway, I finished the stole, and when I can figure out how to upload pictures I'll post one here.

As for other stuff I've got going, well, there's the pair of socks I've started for my husband, "J". They're knit from some really nice soft wool whose name I can't think of right now. It's in his favorite colors of intense, dark blue, some purple and maybe something else, too.

I've also pulled a project out of "time-out". It's the really nice "February Lady" sweater. I started knitting it something over a year ago, in the luscious "River" yarn from Fleece Artist (or maybe Hand Maiden) yarns in Canada. I put it in time-out because I had noticed a huge difference between the colors in the different skeins. I was several inches along on the body, and, since the sweater is knit from the top down, this is quite a ways along. I came up with a way to interleave skeins and not carry yarn only on one side, but it meant knitting from three different skeins at once, and that was just too much to think about. I finally pulled it out again earlier this year, looked at it again, and Surprise! the difference in colors wasn't nearly as big as I had thought it was. So, it's come out of time-out. Maybe I can have it done to wear this fall.

I have a bunch of other stuff going, too - socks for myself, another top in time-out, a square lace shawl, a scarf, and I'm not really certain what all else. That doesn't even count the projects I'm planning to knit - that means I have the yarn and pattern, I just haven't done anything that could be construed as starting, yet. Nor does it count the yarn I've bought "just because". I will not reveal the full extent of my stash, here. We don't know each other well enough, yet :-)

So, yes, I really am a knitter. It's not the only thing I do, but it is one of my favorite things to do. As others have pointed out, it's a great way to use time that would otherwise be spent tapping my toes or twiddling my thumbs. I've also used it, with some small success, to try to calm my nerves when I go for a routine doctor visit. I'm happy to talk about it with anyone who asks me, and I'll be glad to try to teach someone to knit, just don't let me try to mix baking and knitting - it gets really messy really fast :-)