Revenant

The word-of-the-day on my desktop today is "revenant." It means, "One who returns after a long absence or death." Since I've been feeling a little guilty for not blogging for more than six weeks, I took this word as a sign.

Yep, I'm a revenant. I'm baaaaack!

Now to get caught up with things!

Like many knitters, I have Startitis Syndrome. The pursuit of the new project is such a thrill. Ravelry, with its search function, is my enabler. For example, let's say I want to knit a cabled scarf. OK. There's 67 pages of patterns for a cabled scarf on Ravelry. But then I can add filters: yarn weight, free or purchased pattern, yardage, fiber. So many different possibilities! Weeks can be spent searching.

I start and, at first, the knitting is tons of fun and I knit, knit, knit that scarf all day, all night. But, before too long, I find myself yet again on Ravelry looking for patterns for a new project. And the cabled scarf gets stuffed into a ziplock and tossed into the UFO pile. Sound familiar?

However, a few weeks ago, I enjoyed the sport of pursuing a new project without having to shout over a yelling conscience. "What?! Are you nuts? You're going to begin something new?!"

In August, the hubster and I visited a BIL and SIL in Vermont. These wonderful folks are going to become first-time grandparents in the winter. My SIL is a knitter and so, of course, she's thinking about knitting twee baby things. AND she didn't know about Ravelry!

Well, I took care of that!

What fun it was to introduce somebody to Ravelry! And it was even more fun to search through the patterns knowing that this project wasn't going to end up in my UFO pile.

She found a pattern. And off we went to the yarn store. Yarn was found. Since lucky SIL had won a gift card for the store, buying was even more fun!





SIL is now more than half done with the blanket and, I'm beginning to favorite patterns that I think she might like to knit. I like this! The pursuit without the ball and chain of Startitis Syndrome.

OH! But that doesn't mean I haven't started anything new. Stay tuned!

Summer Knitting

During the summer, when my mind turns to ricotta cheese, I like to work on something easy-peasy when we go away. When I was knitting the lacy baktus, I kept thinking that I'd like to make a striped baktus during this summer.

Yesterday, I found the perfect yarn for it:



Road to China in the colors Grey Pearl and Light Hematite Baby alpaca, cashmere, camel and silk. Can you imagine the lusciousness of this yarn?!

The original plan was to cast on when we're away in the mountains in August. Summer vacation project. But then I thought that I should start on the 4th of July. However the Summer Solstice is on June 21st--that will the date for casting on. But that's the apex of summer. Summer really begins on Memorial Day. And if the striped baktus is going to be a summer project, I should start it then.

But I do like something big needle/easy to work on when we travel and we'll be on the road in mid-April, I'll get a jump-start on summer knitting by beginning then. Then I thought about the new life symbolism of Easter. New life = starting new knitting project? However, don't we switch to Daylight Saving Time on March 14th? And since that's the time we observe in the summer--perhaps a summer knitting project should be cast on then.

But isn't my imagination larger than my physical state? Can't it be summer in the middle of a snowstorm if I think of the warm sunny days? Right now it's 39 degrees out. But I feel like it's 79.