Knitting in secret

Not to sound like I'm contradicting my Thanksgiving comments, but my family is rapidly driving me insane while I'm home for the holiday.

You see, barring a major turn of events, my mom and dad will be moving to South Bend, Indiana after Christmas. When I was in college my parents switched careers to become pastors. Jobs aren't always easy to come by, especially for women in ministry, and my mom has felt for awhile that she needed to go elsewhere. Recently she was offered and accepted a job in northewest Indiana. I'm happy for her, but the timing means that coming home for Thanksgiving and Christmas equals preparing for their move.

As you might imagine, the last thing I want to do when getting a few days off is going through a bunch of old stuff. The holiday itself brought a reprieve from any work of this kind, but today they've been hounding two of my brothers and me to dig through our childhood belongings and organize the stacks of stuff cluttering their basement and garage. I understand why they're prodding us to do this, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. I've found most of my schoolwork from junior high on, which went directly to the burn barrel, but sifting through all of these things is tedious. And the thought of carting the remainder back to my place...

Would I rather be doing something else? Knitting, perhaps? Yes.

I have found a couple small opportunities to knit in secret, but it hasn't been without a few challenges. The parsonage has three guest bedrooms, two upstairs and one down. I wanted to get a room on the second level because it's the one place where I can escape from the noise my family members make. More importantly, it's location would give me some forewarning of anyone clomping up the stairs, entering the room, and discovering my secret knitting. If I was downstairs, my secret would be vulnerable to exposure in the blink of an eye.

The plan hit a snag because one of my brothers had already claimed the room in question. I'm not sure how I persauded him to let me have the room. Maybe it was because it seemed more important to me. My knitting location had been acquired, but my secret was far from secure.

I knew that someone would ask why I had wanted to know everyone's favorite colors. I didn't think it would be my mom. I played it off as something I was curious about and turned it back around by bringing up how difficult it was to get them to answer it. No one pressed the issue after that.

Still, the most daunting task awaited me: knitting in secret. My bedroom door does not lock and doesn't always stay shut tightly. My parents' dog can knock it open. Here's a look at him.

Kristin had jokingly suggested putting a dresser in front of the door, but actually, it's not a bad idea. Silly as this is going to sound, my solution was to sit in a chair and move it against the door.

I tried this on Thanksgiving afternoon when almost everybody else was napping. It wasn't the best time for me to attempt some secret knitting because I was groggy from a nap of my own and on edge because one of my brothers kept going up and down the stairs. I noticed that my stitches weren't as good as usual, so I decided to put it aside for later.

I went back to knitting in secret when I announced I was going to bed early. I set up shop in front of the bedroom door again and prepared the skeins so that they could be hidden quickly if necessary. The two skeins sat in my backpack, and a point protector was within reach of my right hand. If I needed to stash the knitting in a flash, I could dump it in the backpack and turn it over.

I knitted for an hour and a half. By midnight I was ready to go to bed, which is a bit on the early side for me. I grabbed another hour of knitting before lunch today. I expect to get some in tonight. It's not as much as I'd like, but I'll take what I can get.

Granted, it would be much simpler to tell everyone what I'm doing. I would probably have more time to knit. I'm bound and determined to keep this secret from them until Christmas because I think it will increase the surprise.

If I get really desperate for yarn while I'm here, maybe all I need is some shears. Here's a photo of some of my parents' neighbors.

I'm heading home Saturday afternoon. My knitting progress should go up in the next two days. I feel like I need it as a break from this "relaxing" visit.

Next...more secret knitting?