Being fancy is hard work; or, how to go from determination to despair in 16 easy steps

1. Decide you are going to learn to knit. For real this time. No, really for real.
2. Solicit opinions on Ravelry. Choose Hitchhiker as your first real knitting pattern.
3. Buy the pattern, buy the needles.
4. Stare at it for awhile.
5. Decide that the best way to convince yourself to learn to knit is to bribe yourself with really pretty hand-dyed yarn.
6. Buy some. Realize you can't knit with it (not very well plied, too splitty), but can probably crochet with it.
7. Buy some more. It is gorgeous, a fingering-weight silk-linen blend in shades of sand and aqua.
8. Begin mentally preparing yourself to actually learn to knit. For real this time. No, really. This will probably take at least a week of staring at your pretty yarn and your scary circular needles. That's okay. You have time.
9. Congratulations! You've psyched yourself up. Grab the pretty yarn, the scary circular needles, and the pattern.
10. By this time, your skein has been untwisted from the nice hank it arrived in and is now just a very large loop. This is your fault, because you couldn't stop touching it and also maybe you wanted to drape it around your neck like a very pretty silk/linen necklace. It doesn't matter. No one's judging you. (Are they?) The point is, you can't knit from that. You don't have a swift , a ball winder, a nostepinne, or really anything except a very large knitting needle. This internet assures you that this is okay.
11. This is not okay.
12. Drape your big loop of yarn around the back of the chair, which the internet assures you is an acceptable substitute for a swift.
13. This is not an acceptable substitute for a swift. Tangles may result.
14. Tangles do result.
15. Cast up a silent prayer of thanksgiving that it's the cats' naptime and all four of them are totally unaware that there are Yarn Things happening.
16. Blog about it. Or cry. Or both?