I've got at least a hundred knitting patterns. For sweaters alone. I think.

It's hard to be sure because they're all over the family room, the library shelves, the pieces of paper jammed into drawers and various parts of the Stash. And I've even gone so far as to order the Baby Surprise Jacket pattern from Schoolhouse Press because it looked so cool when the Yarn Harlot posted about it (I don't remember when, but it was cool) And I don't remember the last time I used a pattern just the way it was meant to be used.

My current knitting/crochet pattern useage is more of a picking through the styles. Find a hem from one, a sleeve from another, a neck that fits the person it's intended for. Tweak the pattern as needed to get a pretty finish. Don't be afraid to start over. Don't be afraid to try something new. Who's going to know when I'm done, after all? Right now I've got a blue sweater on the start. I don't know where it's going, I just know that I wanted to start it so badly that I cast on with only the barest thought of what it's going to end up as.

Like a new adventure. Or going on a roadtrip with only a vague understanding of the detination. I could say the same thing about life. About this pregnancy. About the dreams that I'm starting to delicately hold in my mind for the new baby, his life and prospects and what he's going to become. I ask myself, am I ready for the challenge?

There's no way to be sure of the answer. I have to take this trip, like so many others, on faith. Except I can't rip anything out with life. I have to work my mistakes into the pattern of the greater whole and trust in God that I won't mess anything up too dramatically. I can't go back, I can only go forward. I guess that's one of the biggest leaps of faith ever put on this earth.