Starting now I bat a thousand

Well, it looks like I’m starting to get my mojo back.

I’m sure everybody’s had that phase where all their knitting motivation was being sucked down into a black hole, and where their knitting progress was taking similar dark and dingy roads into nowheresville.

It’s the time where you open your stash cupboards and discover that despite several kilos of yarn lurking behind the harmless wooden façade, you have a big pile of nothing to knit.

Then you look through your pattern books and Ravelry and discover that every pattern in the world is too something: too fussy, too boring, too big, too small, too frumpy, too modern, too intricate, too plain, too triangular, too this-doesn’t-go-with-any-yarn-I-have or worst, too I-have-a-yarn-that-would-go-with-that-but-I-really-don’t-want-to-waste-it-on-that-because-it’s-not-the-perfectest-pattern-I-have-ever-seen-in-my-life.

And so I cast on a sock or two and trudged through my super-secret project – which was technically fun, but to someone who’s usually so meticulous about keeping their Ravelry project page updated, it’s just plain depressing to do so much work without being able to share it. (Because, well, that’s sort of the definition of super-secret.)

But then I finished the SSP on Tuesday morning and went to the pub with Saskia on Tuesday night, and since I didn’t have any pub knitting (because ugggggh, socks), I cast on Multnomah with my ocean-colored handdyed sock yarn. Which was technically not the best idea, because knitting with dark yarn and dark needles in a dark pub produced garter stitch that was positively riddled with mistakes, but on the other hand, I feel like this yarn must have magic properties. No, really.

Magic. I’m almost done with what has to be the most entertaining garter stitch portion of a shawl in the history of the universe – I’m so charmed by the colors emerging and mingling and I know I’m blowing my own horn to the point where everyone around me (including myself) is starting to turn deaf, but, but… it’s just gorgeous. I’m in love. I have no idea how I did it, except that I dumped a lot (and I mean a LOT) of color on that poor skein of sock yarn, and that the amount of time it spent in the microwave would’ve probably roasted a whole turkey. (Well, almost.) And I can barely wait to start the feather-and-fan section.

So here I am, chilling on my floor since the SSP is currently occupying the sunny spot on my bed, ogling my pretty handdyed, and considering reprising this morning’s Best Breakfast Ever.

(SpongeBob Squarepants bowl? check. Delicious oatmeal? check. Enough fruit to cover the whole bowl of delicious oatmeal, plus some chocolate? oh, you bet!)