The Wrath of Pinky

I dissed the Pinky in an email to my brother. Who, as it turned out, is a Pinky. He replied saying, "hello, Middle Finger. I see the assassins have failed." But I was not without injury. The assassins succeeded in breaking a wine glass in my hand as I was washing it. As a result, I sustained a frighteningly deep cut to (oh, the irony) my left pinky finger.

It gets worse. I knit in a more or less continental style. Though the index finger and thumb of my left hand play the starring roles, my left pinky is a supporting actress in that it curls inward around the working yarn, providing the gentlest bit of tension. Though the cut has mostly healed, my pinky is sore and doesn't like to curl as much as I need it to curl. I cannot knit until it is in complete working order.

Sunday night, while DH watched the Warriors game, I twitched like a little kid hopped up on Mountain Dew and Halloween candy and then dragged by her parents through The Large Museum of Deeply Boring Things That You Can't Touch. Ordinarily, I would have been knitting.

I have resorted to scrapbooking. Which, by the way, I dislike. It isn't a craft. It is essentially a chore, much like weeding or tidying the drawer I call "the tool drawer," and DH refers to as "that damned drawer full of junk." I am buoyed by two facts: (1) that this particular endeavor is the organization of our honeymoon photos, and revisiting them truly is enjoyable; and (2) unlike our wedding albums, I have dispensed with the hardcore scrapbooking methods. The vast majority of the pages are devoted exclusively to the photos, and I am making separate pages for the relatively few scrappy bits I saved from the trip. I am nearly done.

However, in support of my longed-for return to knitting and consequent avoidance of the hardcore, cult-of-scrapbooking wedding albums, I propose the following list of reasons...

WHY KNITTING IS BETTER THAN SCRAPBOOKING:

1. Knitting requires very little set-up or take-down. Pull it out of your bag or basket, and you are ready to go.

2. Knitting does not require a vast array of tools and materials. You need yarn, needles and a relatively small selection of helpers like crochet hooks, stitch markers and cable needles, all of which can be comfortably contained in a box or basket.

3. Knitting is portable. You can do it almost anywhere, which also means that almost any idle moment can be filled with crafting.

4. Knitting requires very little space in which to work. You can do it in one small corner of your sofa, or a cozy chair. Scrapbooking takes about half of a dining room table at minimum, with papers, templates, photos and scissors scattered about.

5. You can't wear a scrapbook.

6. Knitting does not make your fingers sticky with glue, or involve papercuts. Though we joke about knitting-related injuries, I do not personally know of any actual person who has been injured by her tools or materials.

7. Knitting does not resemble tidying, organizing, sorting or cleaning in any way, shape or form.

8. Knitting consists of a small, compact series of rhythmic movements, often creating a feeling of relaxation and calm. You can watch TV or let your thoughts wander, if you're working on a simple project. Scrapbooking is all reaching, cutting, gluing, placing and sorting. There's little rhythm to it, and if you want it to look halfway passable, your complete attention is required.

9. You can wing knitting and undo bad execution without ruining your materials. Wing a scrapbook, and your mistake often renders your materials unusable.

10. Scrapbooks tend to look best with a lot of planning ahead, i.e., choosing coordinating papers, building around themes, and designing specific pages. This is optional in knitting. If you don't like this much planning, most of it can be done for you by an expert in the form of patterns, the selection of which is vast and readily available.

If I missed anything, please add more reasons in the comments!