Is Knitting An Addiction?

Ten Key Signs of Having an Addiction
Whether it's drug use, sex or overspending, do you wonder if your behavior is crossing the line into addiction? Dr. Gary Stollman, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist who helps individuals overcome self-defeating patterns of behavior. He gives 10 key signs of having an addiction:


1) Recurrent failure (pattern) to resist impulses. 2) Frequently engaging in those behaviors to a greater extent or over a longer period of time than intended. 3) Persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to stop, reduce or control those behaviors. 4) Inordinate amount of time spent in obtaining the object of addiction and/or engaging in or recovering from the behavior. 5) Preoccupation with the behavior or preparatory activities. 6) Frequently engaging in behavior when expected to fulfill occupational, academic, domestic or social obligations. 7) Continuation of the behavior despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent social, academic, financial, psychological or physical problem that is caused or exacerbated by the behavior. 8) Need to increase the intensity, frequency, number or risk of behaviors to achieve the desired effect, or diminished effect with continued behaviors at the same level of intensity, frequency, number or risk. 9) Giving up or limiting social, occupational or recreational activities because of the behavior. 10) Resorting to distress, anxiety, restlessness or violence if unable to engage in the behavior at times.

I got this off of Dr.Phil.com.

The reason I ask the question is because I am presently reading The Yarn Harlot's newest book. There is an essay about this very question. She only thought of it because one of her family members claimed she was a Yarn Addict. So she went to the library and looked up info in the DSM to see if this was true. As with any other addiction, she was able to explain it all away, and she didn't think she has a problem.

So today I am watching Dr. Phil while plying my current spinning project. As usual, it was about some whiny, spoiled little girl who was mad at her parents for their divorce and she is a drug addict. There was a line scrolled across the bottom that led you to go to Dr.Phil.com to find the ten signs of addiction.

So, okay, we can certainly find faults with ourselves, so I called a friend that attends AA regularly (like 4 times a week), and I ran this by him. He said he didn't think I had to worry too much. Whew!

I know I have an addiction personality. I was anorexic until my middle 20's, and I was told by my therapist that I have an addiction personality. If I am not consumed with eating problems, then I substitute something else. Luckily I don't gamble (unless you talk about bad pattern selection) and I don't drink and I don't smoke and I am too old to worry about sex any more. So I knit a LOT. And I spin, and I dye, and I spend my days filled with fiber goodness.

And as for #8-I think it is pretty safe to say that attempting to do more challenging stuff like fair isle, or lace, or intarsia is not harmful to my health.

And as for #9-my social life revolves around knitting. I go to Knit Night when I need to socialize. I don't think it is so awful to decline a social event because you can't take your knitting with you.

My sweater does not seem to be growing very much. I am at the point when I want it to be done. I want it to be time to separate the tops so I can knit the yoke. I keep measuring and it doesn't seem to be growing. Hopefully soon.

I spent the day Sunday with CJE and playing with fiber. We measured out all the yarn she has done with her spindle (Navajo plied) and wound them up into yarn cakes, and then I put them in plastic zip-locks with the measurements inside. They are ready for her to knit now.

Signs of Fall are abounding. The trees are turning rapidly. The fronts are coming in sooner than I want them to. We have had clouds all day with misty rain. Temperatures dropped all day. There will be rain tonight with the front. The birds are eating at the feeder now. The geese are migrating. And this weekend is the work weekend at Mirkwood.

And the ads on TV are advertising Lay-Away for Christmas and what are you doing for Thanksgiving? Yikes! It is only a month until Thanksgiving! Hard to believe.

I tried to rearrange the kitchen today, but I don't like the refrigerator and freezer sticking out into the space so much. So I just cleaned well behind things and swept the floor well. I guess the thought of closing up the house for the winter is getting to me. I have been cleaning a lot. Maybe I will rearrange the living room.

Patty really needs to go to the groomer, but I want her hair to grow out more. I trimmed her eyebrows and around her mouth. She is really energized by all the cooler weather. Noodles has been eating more rodents and staying in more. Another sign of a change.

What a Beautiful Day!

I know this is stretching my imagination, but I saw a heart shape in my bread today while I was putting a sandwich together.

I have been enjoying this warm weather. It is so strange to know that any minute now we could be in cold weather. In fact, next week may be our first frost. It is good to get out and store up some Vitamin D. I read today that older people cannot manufacture Vit. D as well as younger humans.

We had a goodly amount of rain, even some thunder boomers. That made things a little more tolerable. I hope to goodness that today was the last day I have to mow for the season. I actually did some trim mowing as well, since I have not been keeping up with that in the heat.

CJE and I went to the weaving meeting last Saturday and then we went to Winslow to the FiberFest. She badgered me into putting a few things into the show to give support to the community of the event. Well-I won third place for my handspun socks. CF made the comment "Those aren't even your prettiest socks!" Yes, I know that, but they are handspun, handknit socks. Oh, well.

CJE won Best of Show for her shirt she made for AE. It is made from cotton they grew, she spun, she wove the fabric, and she sewed the shirt. I think she certainly deserved the award. She also won a prize for her quivuit scarf and her gloves.

I am plugging away on my handspun sweater. I have two more weeks to meet my self-imposed deadline for it. We will see. I have four more inches to knit until I divide at the armholes for the yoke. Probably not, huh? We will see.

I also started a pair of plain old socks with some self-patterning yarn in my stash bowl. I also started a Scalene scarf from some stash yarn and some black I picked up at the yarn shop. It has 5% cashmere in it, and it is SOFT!

I took my car in for service Wednesday. I normally have to wait for about 1 hour, and I get a little knitting done. This time I was there for 2 1/2 hours and I got a lot of knitting done. I worked on both the scarf and the sock in my bag, and I read a little bit of my book. I was not very patient, but I tried to think positive-"Look how much work you are getting done on this scarf and sock." "Big whoo! I can do that much at home, too!" I told self. Oh, well. The car is serviced and ready for winter.

The leaves are trying to turn color now. Unfortunately, I think the dry spell did make them unhappy. But I love to see the colors in the Fall!

Leaves are verbs that conjugate the seasons.

-Gretel Ehrlich

So this week we had a FREE day to drop off electronic stuff. I was so happy to get rid of an old computer, an old phone, a printer, and several other things. I was happy to drag them out from under the bed and out of the house. I had to figure out how to delete info from the computer, but I already had purchased the cable to transfer stuff from the old computer to the new one. I then could not figure out how to delete the info from the old computer. I Googled it, and all you do is Restore your computer back to a date before any files or programs were in it. I used the Restore program CD that came with the computer. It worked. Problem solved. Unless you are the FBI or CIA or someone that can pull something out, I think it is safe.

So this has been a busy week. CJE and JE met me at Bella Vista to go to one of the arts/craft shows yesterday. Just a bunch of STUFF! I did buy some seasoning packages for soups. There was Knit Night last night. And tomorrow is spinning group. So I am really behind in my schedule of things to get done. Yard work had to be done, and the car had to be serviced. But soon it will be time to stay inside again, and I will catch up with the work.

Have a GREAT weekend. Enjoy yourselves and get out to store up some Vitamin E.

Let's Dye!

After washing, I came out with a soft, dull, yellow. It was a clear dye, but the color is not brilliant. I tried various places and could not get a true picture of the color-sorry!

With the leftover flowers, I made a fabric bundle to dye and was hoping for some pattern to appear where the flowers were placed.

When it was completed, unwrapped, and washed, it was an allover yellow color that was pretty. It did not have any hints of pattern from the flowers. Oh, well. It was a fabric that I had already dyed with compost, so this just added a new dimension to the fabric.

And then there was clean-up. My least favorite part of the job. I always do a soap and wash job, and it is always ready for the next time. It is all put up and ready when I get another wild hair to push my luck on the natural dyeing.

Guess What I Am Doing Today!

October 1! Yikes!

Hey, Mom! Mom! Mom! Is this the Animal Planet channel? Mom!

He really does hit the button while I am watching some show and knitting, and suddenly there is some conversation or commercial that does not go with what I had tuned into. I look up and realize that Noodles has hit the button again. And yes, the sun is warm and toasty and makes everyone sleepy. Sleepy. Sleepy.

Not a lot to report. I am sure this month is going to be a crazy month. October always is. The second weekend is the weekend that there are something like 6 arts/crafts shows going on. We will be getting the leaf lurkers out, driving around checking to see what the back roads are doing for Fall color.

This weekend there have been bikers around everywhere. It is the weekend of Bikes, Blues, and Bar-b-que. They run around in gaggles. The locals that drive cars either get scared of the group of bikers and slow down really, really slow, or they get angry at the bikers and hope they run them off the road as they drive too close. Yesterday I drove up to Bentonville, and I had to watch for both kinds of car drivers and the crazy bikers who dart in and out of traffic.

I began knitting a hat with the Targhee wool yarn I won at the fiber festival in July. I loved it so much that I ordered more of it from Gail at Ozark Carding Mill. So the hat is frogged and I am waiting for the yarn. I think I will have enough to knit a sweater. It is sport weight, and is semi-worsted spun. So a tight wool yarn. I think I may knit a gansey. I am not sure yet. I have to get through with the handspun sweater first. I am half-way through with the lower body up to the armpit.

My friend OSM is visiting her property in Oklahoma and just called to find out my schedule. How come I am suddenly busy when usually I putz around day to day with no plans? I am working part-time this week helping a friend out and I am teaching a crochet class Wednesday night. O sounded so let-down when I told her I would have to let her know later this week. I guess she thought I would be available and was planning to do something.

So just a little checking in and yes, I am knitting. But nothing new or exciting to report. H got her socks and they fit and she loves them.

Kindle has a new thing called Kindle Fire. They are surely trying to compete with Nook right now. It is exciting, but I am waiting to see what happens to all this. I like my reader I have just fine.

Take care. Enjoy the cool evenings and enjoy being outside while the weather allows. Have a fun weekend. Later.

Antiques Roadshow Marvel

I am sitting here watching Antiques Roadshow. There was a pair of "handspun, handmade" Civil War socks. Yes-Civil War! They did not have any holes and were pristine. They had a US flag on the cuff, and a Confederate flag on the sole by the heel. They dated them to 1861 because of the Confederate flag. The meaning was "step on the Confederacy". They valued the socks at $1000-$1050. So go figure-huh?

So today I decided I needed to organize a little bit. I put patterns and yarn together in bags so I have projects ready to go. It scares me to see this happen. I love to spend my time looking at patterns and dreaming about projects. When the projects are lined up in bags ready to go, it just proves there is never enough time in a lifetime to do all this stuff we would like to do. I will continue looking at patterns and dreaming, but it is a waste of time.

We have had a warm-up and we are definitely in a time change. I will probably mow the yard some time this week. No need to hurry since everything was dead for so long. Amazingly things are coming back, but I think it is a little bit late in the year to be having pretty things coming up. I did a little bit of weed-eating today. Just to tidy some things.

I wanted to do some dyeing this past weekend, but I didn't. It was overcast both mornings, and one morning we had a little bit of spitting rain. By afternoon both days the sun would come out and heat things up. So dyeing is still on my to-do list.

I saw a black walnut tree down the road that might be accessible to get some nuts for dyeing. I also found a field of goldenrod down the road. I will have to make a run for materials soon. The nuts have not started dropping. The little piddly tree in my backyard had 10 nuts this year, but one the tree rodents has already harvested them.

Not much to report. I started a simple watch cap for simple, mindless carry-along knitting. I have about 6 inches on the sweater. I am spinning some more yarn for that.

Keep knitting and keep happy. Knitting makes me happy.

Sigh! Self-Discipline Wins Again!

H's socks are done! They have been washed, blocked, dried, and wrapped in tissue. All I have to do is go to the p.o. tomorrow and mail them.

These socks started out as just another sock project that I kept in my purse for a take-along knitting. Once I finished the leg of the first one, I knew they had to go to H, mainly because of the color. Once I finished the first sock, I was in LOVE with Malabrigo sock yarn. It is the softest and easiest to knit I think of any I have knitted with.

Somewhere along the way, it got cooler outside. I know, I know, it is warmer in Little Rock than up here. So I mentally made a note that I needed to start focusing on knitting the socks daily instead of only when I went somewhere. Then a week ago Friday night I was lying in bed thinking about my knitting. I do this a lot at night when I review what I have done for the day and what needs to be done.

So I mentally said, "Okay. We need to get the second sock finished by next week. I need to knit every day and get this done." So I turned the heel by Sunday night, and cruised along on the foot during the week. I pushed myself to get it done. I realized that by Tuesday I needed to knit a minimum of 2-3 inches a day. It was doable if I pushed and did not try to do too many other things.

The nicest thing about these are the feel. You want to just rub your face on them. They are soft, soft, soft. And I used a nice wooly wash that smells good, too.

Other than that, I have been working on my sweater body, the afghan, the placemats, and the weaving on the loom. I am still spinning the Oxford wool.

I also have had three cable guys here trying to figure out what to do with my cable service. So it is difficult when you have clunky guys wandering around.

We have had major raining for two days now. It is unbelievable, huh?!? First we were in late summer and drought, then wham! Fall arrived with cooler weather, and now Spring has come with thunderstorms and tornado warnings! The sky was the ugliest yellowish color right at dark, and that always makes me nervous. Lots of thunder booming and lightening and buckets of water. You know-Spring weather!

Patty and I spent yesterday with CJE and JE. We went to the opening of a new yarn shop, we went to eat Mexican food, then to JE's shop so I could get some CotLin to weave, and then finally to the nursing home where CJE's mom is having rehab. A full day to say the least. When we got home about 8:30 p.m., I fed Noodles and Patty, and Patty went to bed. She was exhausted. I had to wake her up at 10 pm to go to the bathroom before I went to bed.

So this self-discipline thing is how I finish projects that need a nudge to get it done. And this morning on NPR there was a discussion with somebody who has written a book on self-discipline. He did mention that dieting is the hardest, since we need to keep our glucose levels up to concentrate and get work done. That's when people have a tendency to cheat with a little something because their energy levels are so low.

Occasionally I get wild and set goals and push myself to get things done. It works for me. It is only a challenge for me this time, since obviously no one else is pushing me to finish these socks.
I usually set goals when I have a deadline, and I try hard to reach and obtain those goals. I don't always make it, but I can get close most times.

So no final pushes this week. I did catch myself knitting on the giraffe socks tonight and counting spots. I put it down and said, "It will get done. Don't worry about it."

Enjoy the week. The storm has passed for now. I am unsure how many more we will get tonight. Well, there is more rumbling. Weird! Spring in September.