Bored & Boring

OK, I admit it. I was bored--bored with all the WIPS I was working on (we won't talk about the WIPS I'm not working on LOL). I added a few more repeats to the cuff on the 2nd of Holly's socks, but I haven't fallen in love with knitting patterned socks yet I guess. Or maybe it just takes too long to knit fancy patterns into the socks and I want really fast results. I knit a couple more repeats on the coral lace shawl too, but working with single strand lace weight makes the growing slow and a bit tedious. I need to have several different things going on simultaneously so I can switch out whenever I get bored. People who can pick one project and work it start to finish before starting another project amaze me. How do they do it??? I am so *not* wired that way!

I cast on a new pair of socks yesterday morning using some KnitPicks Dancing from my stash. Now that warmer weather is finally coming I figure its a good time to try knitting a pair of cotton socks. I'm not following a pattern per se, but I'm going for a simple little anklet. I haven't worked with elastic yarn before, but I'm trying to not stretch it as I knit. I kept to the size 1 needles and 64 sts that worked for my Regia socks. So far I've worked 6 rows of 2x2 ribbing & 10 rows of St st. I'm halfway through an eye of partridge heel over 30 sts and it looks pretty good.

Knitting new socks is a good thing, but somehow I was still kinda bored. Maybe I should blame the weather. It was rainy and icky yesterday and my body was super achy, due in part to excessive gardening/yard work activities this week. When I feel really bad I like to make little visits to the Knit n Purl. I have this shawl pattern I want to make, but I needed a size 5 Addi to do it. I didn't have one so I had good excuse to visit the KnP, right? I booped on over and picked up the needles, but then I remembered that I wanted to check out another shawl pattern to go with the new blue Alpaca Cloud in my yarn basket. You know, that luciously soft, yummy new yarn that just arrived in the mail the other day and has been calling my name ever since, that yarn that wants to be a shawl but doesn't know which shawl to be. Yup, that's the stuff! At first I thought I would just knit another FBS with it, but then I would have 2 identical shawls except one would be pink and the other blue. Nah, that would be boring! I don't want to be bored or boring so I can't do another FBS. I had looked at another Evelyn Clark design before, the Leaf Lace Shawl, and liked it. It's worked in a similar manner to Kiri & FBS, which I like, but it would still be a bit different too. This is good, very good. I bought the pattern and went home feeling better already. Yarn shops are wonderful "medicine."

I cast on last night. I'm getting good at Evelyn's provisional cast-on, garter strip start--this one looks much better than the one I knit for Kiri. I chose to work with a double strand of the alpaca cloud as I did for the FBS. I really like the weight double-stranded and let's face it, at a fingering weight it won't take forever to knit. By bedtime I had the 1st chart plus 2 repeats done with ease. I did give in and place a lifeline at the end of the 1st chart. It's a good habit to get into and it will make it easier for me to count the repeats afterwards. The small shawl calls for 12 repeats, but this time I think I'll knit as many repeats as I have yarn for. I did 12 on the FBS, but maybe I'll do14 this time. Maybe that is unless I get so *bored* I can't stand to knit another repeat. LOL!