Snap back to reality

Oh there goes gravity
-Eminem

The last few weeks have been quite an adjustment for me. Now I know why people go on honeymoons right after they get married. It sort of postpones the inevitable return to earth after so much time spent focusing on your family and friends and minute details of event planning. We aren't able to go on a honeymoon for another couple of months, so the aftermath of the wedding has been a sort of general sagging feeling. Now what?

We're happy and everything, that's not it - it's just that the whole consuming focus of your life is over and you have to take some time to re-balance. So that's what I've been up to. One thing I'm planning is to get trained to be a literacy volunteer. Also, I (hopefully) will be selected to serve on the board of a nonprofit I'm really excited about. Basically, I'm trying to get off the couch and rejoin the human community, where everything is not about me and what color napkins I want. (grin)

That said - the Green Gable, she is almost finished:



She needs a new name since she is SO not green! I won't quite make the April P.S. deadline - but I'm close. Hopefully I can finish this week. For next month - I actually broke down and ordered some yarn from MamaE! But I justified it because I started the second sock for a pair I started last winter. After carrying the sock around in my briefcase for the last week, I gained new appreciation for the easy portability of a sock project. So, we'll see if I finish in the month of May! It will be a challenge not to be distracted by summer knitting projects.

Well, that's it for now. Hope all is well in blogland...

Hey from Dallas

Hi all,

I'm writing tonight from a hotel room near the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. Yee-hah! I'm at a conference, and we had a banquet tonight at the Historic Stockyards in Fort Worth. Of course, I didn't take my camera! So I'll have to regale you with some funny signs I saw along the roads of DFW:

• TCU: Horned Frogs Explore


• Lt. Ralph Swearingin for Justice of the Peace, Tarrant County


• Bud Sellers (what do they sell exactly? it looked like used cars, but who can be sure?)


• Awesome Transportation (across the road from Bud's, which might explain the *awesome* name of this limo service)

I guess that's enough giggles for one night. Of course, air travel and hotel rooms mean only one thing: copious knitting time! I am working on the Green Gable top from Zephyr Style. After a few false starts (those pesky YOs!), it is swimming along:




I love this yarn! It is sooo bright - I even toned down the color a bit before posting this photo, so as not to blind you all! I think I bought way more than I need for this project, so hopefully I can exchange the remainder for a different color of this yarn to make another cute spring/summer top. On second thought - I should probably see how it wears first.

Anyway, not too much else to report here. Hope you are all enjoying the spring which has come your way, whether a lot or a little!

I figured it out

"I figured it out...with a pencil and a pad, I figured it out"
-The Pajama Game

Lately I have been seized with the desire to buy more and more yarn. You already saw the orange stuff - but if internet LYS-surfing is any indicator of desire, I’ve wanted to buy a LOT more than that. My yarn lust ebbs and flows, but I’ve never understood what brings it on or why it goes away.

I think I've figured it out: I want to buy yarn when I feel like I don't have enough time to knit, or when my current projects are failing. Somehow buying and stashing yarns for future projects feels like progress when I can't "knit" progress.

This makes sense in a way, but is ultimately unhealthy. For instance, I have been seized with the desire to buy sock yarn (is it just me, or is cool hand-dyed sock yarn multiplying like bunnies?!). However, I've only made 1 1/2 pairs of socks in about 10 years of knitting. So there should be no reason to think that buying more sock yarn puts me any closer to having a completed pair of socks. Also, having more yarn (and thus more potential projects) actually works against knitting progress rather than facilitating it. If you only had one project with you on a desert island, don't you think you'd finish it out of sheer boredom, even if you hated it? And for a person like myself who is scatterbrained/always-multitasking/probably-borderline ADD - more stuff, more projects, more details, etc. can quickly add up to no progress at all.

So what’s a knitting girl to do? Just resist the urge to buy. Sounds simple, but maybe writing it here for all you knitter-friends to see will help me actually do it. I do have some lovely cotton yarns marinating in the stash…maybe if I feature them on the blog, I will get the inspiration to DO something with them. Stay tuned for a spring mini stash flash...

P.S.

Hi y'all! Thanks so much for the good wishes and congratulations, not to mention the compliments! In spite of the craziness, things turned out pretty great. I don't know how to get in touch with all of you (I've got to get HaloScan or switch to Typepad or something), but I really appreciate your notes. If you visit again, leave your url or something - I'd love to visit your home on the web!

Meanwhile, I've been working on a wool sweater, which now seems pretty moot. The spring-summer switch has been flung and today Chicago is supposed to hit 77 degrees.

So, what to knit now? Well, despite my lack of pink/red FOs last month, I am a Project Spectrum participant. Combine that with a sale at my favorite LYS, and you get


BAM!
Some spunky orange cotton-silk. This is a new yarn: Lang Lyra. I’m hoping it will "sing" on my needles! I was thinking about making the Picovoli, or maybe another Soleil tank. Any other ideas for a bright slice of orange?

Last night I worked on a swatch, and aside from a little snagging, it knits up beautifully. It's one of those yarns where, even if your stitches aren't perfect (and whose are), once you've done a few rows, the yarn makes them look perfect. Which makes me think: there must be engineers involved making this yarn. It's like designing a building for a quake zone, or maybe a bridge - you can't prevent the forces that would pull the structure apart, but you can account for them and use design to neutralize them. I know there must be textile engineers, or something...I wonder if they are knitters? Or do they just like physics?

Got Hitched

I know this is a 'before' photo, but trust me: I got married on Saturday!


Me and my dad.

It was a wonderful weekend, nothing went wrong, everything was fun and laid-back. We laughed, cried, danced, hugged and celebrated with our friends and family. I can hardly believe how great it was, and that it's over. But I'm also relieved. More photos and details when we dig out of thank-you notes and laundry.

If I didn't appreciate this before, I do now: I live a charmed life. Hugs to all of you!