I Am Most Chilled, and I'm Knitting and Binge-ing

(With all due respect to the Beastie Boys, who I like to think might be tickled by my post title)

(Because it's a riff on their lyrics, ya see)

(Kind of both rhymin' and stealin', if ya think about it)

(I'll stop now)

*

ANYWAY, this post is about my fall and winter hobby of knitting on various sizes of knitting loom while watching various sizes of internet entertainment. Basically it's my excuse to roll out a list of shows I've binge-watched. 

The thing is, I don't like to just sit and watch a show, because I feel like I should be doing something more interesting than that. I also don't like to just sit and knit, because even though I'm making something I want to make, the kind of knitting I do is not complicated. It's repetitive and time-consuming, and I like the results I get. Mostly, instead of varying the kinds of stitches I do, I vary the colors, textures, and thicknesses of the yarn. That works beautifully for the kind of blankets I make. I mess with different stitches a bit more when I'm making hats, which is a great way to use up smaller amounts of extra yarn, and then I can wear them, give them as gifts, or donate them (my usual choice lately). I've also been known to make legwarmers and wristwarmers. My point is that I feel better about watching a show when I knit, and I feel better about knitting when I watch a show.

As you might imagine, I have watched a lot of shows. I'm often late to the popular ones because I prefer Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to traditional TV. 

For example, I just started Riverdale last week. What a beyond-weird take on the comic books. Those were the only comic books I read in my childhood, btw. I like the show, despite its penchant for Wagnerian theatrics (sorry, has anyone else watched the movie Free Enterprise more times than is recommended by the various psychological organizations worldwide? Because that reference was for me and for you, and I may have just used the singular "you"). I'm just trying to imagine the thought process that led to turning the lightest and fluffiest of all implied-polyamory comics into the grim parents-are-mostly-psychotic dystopia which is the Riverdale I am currently inhaling at the rate of two or more episodes a day.

Moving on... I'm going to do more of an actual list from this point forward, because I would like to bring this post in for a landing before the end of this month. So here are some more shows that I've enjoyed enough to binge and type the titles of, including last year and probably the one before that.  Who doesn't want a list of recommendations from a person who knits AND can throw around both Beastie Boys and Free Enterprise references in a single blog post? Shh, that wasn't a real question. 

Here. Have that list I mentioned sometime in the distant past. It will be in no particular order, for your convenience. These are all on Netflix now. I've only seen the seasons available on Netflix, in all cases. Do we still have to beg for spoiler avoidance in 2018? Let's assume we do. NO SPOILERS PLEASE.

• The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
• Orange Is the New Black
• iZombie
• Stranger Things
• The West Wing
• The Magicians
• Better Call Saul
• Penny Dreadful
• Travelers
• Colony
• Weeds
• Santa Clarita Diet
• Ozark
• Limitless
• Disenchantment
• The Rain
• Sense8
• Breaking Bad
• Cleverman
• The Haunting of Hill House
• Shameless
• Mad Men
• The Good Place
• Glitch

Wow. Aren't you glad we both know this about me now? o.O

In case you, like many normal active people, did not read my blog posts over the weekend, here they are:

All the Qualities I Love about Being Human - A Thumb-Haver's Objective List

A Good Weekend for Art in Madison, WI

...and that is all for today. Stay safe! 

Serial Hobbyizing and Bingeing

...Binge-WATCHING, that is. As in TV shows.

Last year, in the fall, I learned how to knit hats on round knitting looms. I made many, many hats. During that time, I realized that just the knitting alone wasn't enough for me to feel entertained, so I started to binge-watch TV at a level that I'd previously never achieved. I watched all four seasons of House of Cards in a month or so, because when I do a new hobby, I for sure and completely do it. I have to contain "hobby time" to my evenings, because if I just went with my impulses I would simply hobby out 24/7 until the point of collapse. That's my idea of self-discipline. Finding a way to avoid killing myself by obsessively hobbying.

Also, when I'm done with a hobby, it's full-on OVER. I may be in the middle of a project. I simply stop. I'm sure this is related to overdoing it in the first place. Sometimes I'm done forever. Other times, I return to the activity later. That's been the way with knitting, this year. As the summer started to shut down, I found that I had many new knitting ideas. Bigger projects, using long knitting looms and an ingenious S-shaped afghan loom. People of the Internet, since the end of August of THIS YEAR, I have knitted:

• Three rugs
• Four hats
• And two blankets large enough to cover a full bed (one of which I just finished yesterday, and I'm actually psyched up to start another because I AM A FREAK.

...and mind you, this has taken place just during my evenings! 

As you might suspect, I've been watching a LOT of TV while all that knitting was going on. There are eleven seasons of Supernatural on Netflix. Watched 'em. I've also watched six seasons of Shameless, and I'm two-thirds of the way through Penny Dreadful. I almost want to be done with this round of knitting just to reclaim my hobby time for something else, like more reading than I've been doing, or, say, Creative Dog Grooming, because why NOT dive deep into making a dog look like the cast of The Muppets or a whimsical snail in a flower garden? Click through for pictures because I am not making this up. I am, however, making up the likelihood of me doing that hobby. I don't even have a dog, for one thing.