It's not about that, is it; it's about you and me

I'm not particularly happy about anything right now, which is a dreary state to be in at the start of what's left of the summer. But I suppose I--and many people--hit this point at some time during whatever season they find most promising. To me, late spring and early summer hold great promise, the promise of long days to come, of productivity and fun with friends. And it's not that I've done nothing this summer. I've done a great deal of things that have been a lot of fun. I just haven't done as much as I was hoping, and that always leaves me feeling somewhat depressed.

My knitting hasn't been at all cooperative or helpful on this front.



This will be the back of A Cardigan For Arwen. It's perfect mindless knitting for watching movies, knitting by the light of the monitor while RPing, or reading long books, but as a "sit down and knit happily away" project, this part is lacking.

As for the North Star scarf...



I'm rather tempted to dub it an impolite seven-letter word with the way it's been going. It was moving right along for a while at a pace I was happy with, and that was reasonable for the amount of concentration it takes. Now suddenly, as I'm approaching the halfway point, it has decided to rebel on me. Things aren't lining up, stitches are disappearing, and I often wind up undoing most of the progress I've made, trying to find where things went wrong. I'm beginning to doubt my decision to knit lots and lots of lace in the coming months.

These circumstances have conspired to start up the startitis again, and even as I knit these things, my mind is casting about for what to cast on next. I have some sock yarn that I bought at Knitting Needles in Newport last week, but that needs to be saved for the big awesome concert I'm going to on the 17th. (After much deliberation, I decided that, yes, the best thing to knit while basking in the awesome that is The Swell Season is, indeed, socks.)

Another unfortunate aspect of my current discontent is health. Mine isn't necessarily bad, more that I'm rather bad at managing it. I have trouble sticking to an exercise plan, because I just plain don't like structured exercise. I find it boring. And I love food. This, as you can imagine, leads to arguments with the scale over what it should say I weigh vs. what it actually says, which never end well. So it's back on the diet and exercise train for me, a train that I always wind up getting off of before my scheduled stop. Maybe it's time to start considering knitting as therapy?

Music: They Might Be Giants - Contrecoup
Mood: blah

Moving right along

After being kept up until 4:30 in the morning by an RP thread that was far too interesting to abandon, today has been a decidedly lazy day. Pretty much all I've done is eat, poke around on the internet, and read through another life of Captain Bluebear. Knitting will no doubt figure into the day somewhere, but silly me, being away from home this week, only brought lace. Nothing mindless at all. Which means I watched a great deal of Teen Titans yesterday without having anything for my hands to do. A dangerous endeavor, indeed!

Remember how I said that I needed to have a talk with the stash? Well, that's begun.



The stash used to have a free reign of the closet, and of the corner of my bedroom that houses my book collection (which is another growing "stash" in and of itself). This was unacceptable, especially since the closet stash was beginning to cause my laundry hamper to launch itself out of the closet whenever the door got opened.

So the stash and I had a little chat, as part of my ongoing summer project to tame the mess in my bedroom.

Yep, this is the same stash. Same stash, same yarn, tamed and organized into a lot of Ziploc bags, grocery bags, and two clear plastic storage tubs, which are now stored in the closet and have made stash diving a whole lot easier.

The circus sweater is in there, too, albeit no longer as a sweater. I was finally forced to admit to myself that I couldn't live with finishing it, and into the frog pond it went. Which leaves me with a lot of dark blue DK weight and several single skeins in very, er, vivid colors. Kaffe Fasset, anyone?

In addition to taming the stash, I've done something that it seems most knitters vow to do, but never quite get around to: I've begun knitting from it. Well over a year ago, I started knitting Jarrett with some Schachenmayr nomotta Extra that I'd gotten on sale at Wool 'n' Word. Problem being, I didn't think hard enough on the fact that changing the gauge would also change the amount of yarn I would need for the project.

Feel free to laugh.

...

Okay, you can stop now.

Anyway, that sat and sat and sat, unfinished, one lonely skein in the bag with the project, waiting for partners to finish the sweater with. Partners I could never find, at least not in the color I needed. So Jarrett, too, eventually hit the frog pond.

Then I discovered A Cardigan For Arwen. Again, not something that's supposed to be knit in sport weight, but I have a couple plans for modifying the pattern which ought to mean I'll wind up having enough yarn to finish. Until I get to the bits with cables, this will be my mindless knitting. 18.75" of stockinette for the back! That'll get me through a lot of summer DVDs (Monk, anyone?) and summer reading! I'm sure it'll also prove extremely useful when my mom and I go on vacation next week. Yey oceanside knitting!

Off I go to track down some food and read more about the lives of Captain Bluebear. If you're looking for some interesting summer reading, Walter Moers rocks!

Mood: hungry
Music: Almost Awake - Third Street