i’ve realized the sad truth: chicago doesn’t have a spring. we leap directly from winter (which lasts until the final week of may) straight into summer. two weeks ago i was still bringing my tomato plants in at night to keep them from freezing; this week the temperatures are hovering around 90 with humidity to spare. mini skirts and tube tops evidently leap from the closet shelves of their own accord; chicago doesn’t know what to do with all the exposed winter-white flesh.

i’m not really filing a complaint, however. summer is here, and that means…free time, and that means…projects! sometime last winter i picked up knitting as a way to keep my hands busy when i’m calling shows, or on the train, and it’s a lovely meditative thing to do when i get home from work before going to bed. i wasn’t quite prepared for the ferocity with which i have taken to the hobby. now i can’t watch television or call a show or really sit still without something to work in my hands. each new project has to be harder than the last, with new tricks – last week it was intarsia and fair isle, this week it was cables. i’m not saying a don’t knit plenty of ugly, mishappen things, mind you, but i am getting better at the tricky stuff.

the difficult thing is that since knitting has long been the domain of the frumpy and has only recently been reclaimed by the crafty, hipster crowd, is that there is a shitload of ugly acrylic yarns and dumpy frumpy sweaters patterns out there. the challenge is finding the cool patterns, or devising them myself. it’s even harder to come up with projects when it’s 90 degrees out – i’m discovering that most knit things go with cold weather. which is okay, really, since chicago is hat-and-mittens weather for 9 months of the year, but does seem a little crazy to be up to my elbows in winter-weight wool right now. on the other hand, i’m just not brave enough to go out in public wearing a bikini knit by these fallible hands. one loose thread, and zip! the project that carried me through the winter was making gifts for my two pregnant co-workers: baby blankets and little hats. there were supposed to be matching booties as well, but my attempts at booties ended with one sock sized for a cat, and a second that would last into the preschool years, so i threw in the towel on that one.