A Post For Denise

Yes, Denise. This post's for you. The mysteries of my knitting box are about to be revealed to your tender mind.

My knitting box was a Christmas present to me from my mom a few years back. The box has a few dents in it, but has held up well. Incredibly well, since it gets daily use and a not insignificant amount of travel. From here to Ohio to Minneapolis to Omaha to Des Moines, it has accompanied me on many a trip. Every so often - like the last ladies' craft day - I wonder why I'm lugging this big box around, and decide to take a small tote instead. But then when I try to put in everything I'll need for my project, and everything my mom will need for hers but doesn't bring since she just uses a Chubs box, and everything I'll need to help out with unknown knitting problems, and a spare yarn catalog or two ... I dump the tote in the box and make sure it can shut.

First revealed to your gaze is the tray. The tray contains a variety of tools, including jump rings, interchangeable needle tighteners and other small hardware, coilless safety pins, hand lotion, circular needles, pencils, pens, a measuring tape, stitch markers, a row counter bracelet, yarn cutter pendant, cable needle, crochet hook, and several sets of dpns.

The small pocket in the lid contains circular needles, various notations on whose foot is which size, and the Handy Guide To Yarn Requirements. Plus whatever I've stuck in there that hasn't gotten re-filed. That pocket can hold a lot of goodies, but many goodies doesn't mesh well with closing the lid firmly.

Under the tray you see the guts of the box. This is the state of the box after it's been to a craft day. Normally, I don't carry around a bolero, but mom was interested in seeing how CotLin worked up (and she took the two balls that were in there). There's my grandmother's set of crochet hooks, my Endpaper Mitts, spare Brown Sheep Sportweight (one-ply ... any guesses as to how old it is?), and Harmony Sock Needles. Gotta love 'em. Also in there is a second set of crochet needles, and my beloved Boye Needlemaster set ... 23 years old last Christmas. In the lower left corner is my emergency ration. There may be two or three in there. It also contains Filia's Cardigan in Progress, waiting for more yarn to arrive from KnitPicks. There's an entire cardigan in there, minus 1/2 sleeve and a rolled collar.

To the right of the knitting box is the rug my knitting chair sits on, and a few mittens draped over a wooden bowl I found at the local thrift store. One of the mittens you've seen before, and the other ... will be the subject of another post. In the bowl is ... more yarn. The bit of blue peeking out between the mittens is my project notebook. Project notebooks are handy things to have if you are planning on baking a mitten, melting it, and reknitting it on the same size needles a few months later. The bowl also has Latvian Mittens, spare skeins of yarn, and the directions for the cardigan marinating in the bottom of the box. Plus miscellaneous jump rings that have not found their way back home.

The Puritan Reading Challenge 2008 is going along well. I haven't gotten my books yet, but I found the first book on the web and have been reading. Some of what Richard Sibbes writes even applies to knitting!

Things of greatest perfection are longest in coming to their growth. Man, the most perfect creature, comes to his perfection by little and little; worthless things, as mushrooms and the like, like Jonah's gourd, soon spring up and soon vanish."

I completely agree with him and his original intent. But it also applies nicely if you delete the part about Man, and just consider chunky scarves and heirloom lace. And the mittens I kick out in two days as well.