Back in the Saddle

So, remember that knitting lull I'd been in back in, oh, September or whatever? Well, it kind of lasted... and lasted... and lasted... until I started to wonder if I was ever going to knit something that truly excited me ever again. I kept knitting, but much of it was half-hearted. I did knit some gloves for Joel and a scarf for his mom for Christmas, but that was pretty much it. (I never did fix the botched beret, nor have I finished the seams of the Sunrise Circle Jacket I made last summer.) I kept looking through my books, looking through my magazines. The Winter 2006 Interweave Knits didn't do anything to help. The Winter 2006 Knitty didn't do anything to help. The three books I bought at Christmas (hooray for gift cards!) didn't do anything to help (except to point out that I've been buying the wrong yarn for what I really wanted to knit, and that I'm too poor to buy any more). Even the closing of the most awesome yarn store in Des Moines didn't help me much, because half of the yarn I bought over the phone is still in my parents' house, and I don't really remember what is there.

But! This week, a switch flipped. The Spring 2007 IK arrived in my mailbox this week. Suddenly, I'm sorting through my stash, figuring out what I've got that I can knit right now. I love, like, five of those patterns, and can't wait to start them. But I don't have any of the right yarn. Sooooo, I cast on for the Clapotis I've been meaning to make for a while but just haven't felt 100% thrilled about. But of course, now I do. I'm using a variegated olive-colored merino by Twisted Sisters, and my brand-new Lantern Moon size 8s, and I can't put it down. Thrilled!

Then I went to two different yarn stores yesterday and spent about $140 -- mostly on yarn, but I also bought LaceStyle, which I have been awaiting eagerly for months. (And the women at the LYS said they think I'm the first customer to buy it. An honorable distinction, surely.) Funny enough, I only bought yarn for one of the projects in my new IK -- the Clementine Shawlette. The rest was just random "oooh, I want that" yarn, or stuff for the Labyrinth Rug, which I started six months ago and put down because I was bored (19 and 3/4 yards of the same 22 stitches is a lot of very monotonous knitting). And with the new yarn for the rug comes a new desire for those monotonous 22 stitches.

So, now I'm knitting like a madwoman on my very first Clapotis, ready to jump back into the Labyrinth Rug, and plotting and planning for the Clementine Shawlette and several other projects as well. Oh, and this morning I designed a swing jacket while listening to the sermon, and I've got the yarn all picked out for that, too, I just have to go buy it. Wait wait wait wait. I only have so many hands!

It's good to be back.