Ex-Incommunicado

I don't feel at a loss for words very often, yet here I am. So many sketchy posts in a row make me feel incredibly out of step. The equation is supposed to be: knitting+life=posting. There's supposed to be a balance, isn't there? Instead life kind of took over and while knitting has been happening -- I have, after all, come pretty clean on the "Yes, I'm still knitting and yes, I'm still screwing it up" bit (which is, you must admit, rather the theme of this blog) -- I haven't done a very good job of checking in with anything substantive, have I?

Well. Time to re-connect. What would you like, life or knitting? Yeah. I thought so.

I think this latest batch of knitting can be traced back to the Red Shawl. No. I take it back. It goes back to Stitch-A-Palooza 2008, where we saw all those knitters swanking about in shawls made out of fabulous yarns and where my terribly smart and generous knitting sister got me my shawl kit. (Note to self - ask for another copy of pattern to replace copy apparently filed away too thoroughly). I do have shawls to show you; just not that one.

Fenna. I am deeply and irrevocably in love with Fenna and by extension Myrna Stahman.

My infatuation remains staunch and abiding, both for it and Fleece Artist Blue Face Leicester. I think I may need to make another with this color-way. I'll convince myself that it's not greed, it's stash-busting.

The Not Quite Tweedy Ruffle/Not Exactly the Wool Peddler's Shawl is All Better.

Everything is lining up and the knitting is proceeding with a straight spine (the shawl) and a happy face (me). I still haven't decided on what color to make the border/ruffle. I had been thinking brown/neutral (Cascade 220 in Pumpkin Spice comes to mind). Clare suggested pink? I am, shall we say, open to other ideas.

It occurred to me, however, that what I have to show you is, well, not to put too fine a point on it, garter stitch. Can I hope to woo you back with garter stitch? Even with fabulous yarn and knitting idiot stories? I fear not. I've pattern-hunted and stash-tossed and come up with (drum roll and trumpet blast) another shawl: Ilga Leja's Lake in the Woods capelet.

Since I don't live in the Canadian woods, I chose a yarn to march my lake. My lake is moody. It glimmers silver. Glowers thunderhead gray. Gleams deep cadet blue. It doesn't glow in the vivid and lighthearted blue expressed by the colorway the pattern features. My lake is best reflected in this.

Handmaiden Lady Godiva in Stardust, purchased during a love-at-first-sight moment from Eat.Sleep.Knit.

Is this the point where I mention that my other knitting is all stockinette all the time? Maybe not. That will give you hope that I have something else to write about. It would seem word-less-ness, for me, is a transient condition.

So. Didja miss me?