Time flies...

Yep, Egg and I are looking at five years of wedded bliss. We tied the knot on the deck of a beachfront house on Abaco, one of the Out Islands of the Bahamas, after almost ten years of unwedded bliss. (Damn, we've been together a long time!) His mother had gotten tired of waiting for us to get married and had begun lobbying for grandchildren several years before, which we still haven't produced, but I digress...

So, we're off the the island again soon, and dear sweet "C" gave me this to protect my pastey-white, sun-deprived face from a wicked sunburn. She crocheted it in my favorite color, so sweet and thoughtful. Pardon the dorky, take-a-picture-of-myself-in-the-bathroom-mirror photo; I cropped it, but perhaps not enough. Isn't the hat just wonderful?!!?

Now, decision time: to bring knitting or not? Our original plan was going sailing with Captain Stepdad, which would have been not conducive to knitting. I'm prone to seasickness as it is - and no, I can't knit in the car either - so concentrated fiddling with sock yarn and size 1 needles would equal instant heaves. But plans have suddenly changed (too much backstory to go into why), we're going to be mostly shore-based, and I'm weighing how much of a nuisance it will be to shake sand out of anything I might bring. What impact does saltwater have on sock yarn? Oh, I know what I should bring: that lace shawl/stole I started back in 2001 (!!!), oddly enough with the intention of it being my "something blue", whenever we were to marry. Well, obviously I didn't finish it in time for that, but how about five years later? Hmm... Actually, it's just as well that I didn't finish it for the wedding, because I didn't even wear shoes, and an elegant lacy shawl would have looked out of place, and been hot as hell.

I finally got over myself and made the i-cord straps for the entrelac bag. Like most things that I procrastinate, it really didn't take THAT long... Into the washing machine with the bag and the straps tomorrow, and maybe I'll schlep it all damp to Knit Nite, unless the felting is a complete disaster.

Fiber dry spell

A combination of a wicked stomach flu and spring fever - mostly the flu - has severely limited my enthusiasm for yarn, or much of anything for that matter. I'll omit most of the scary details of the stomach virus, other than that I think I caught it from a dear old friend's one year old and that it knocked the hell out of me for longer than expected. (Could this little sweetie be the face of a germ carrier?!!?) Egg deserves kudos for being a kind, supportive husband during the first night and day of drama and the subsequent five days of whiny exhaustion.

The main current WIP is a shop model for the LYS, but progress is slow. Despite there being an abundance of stockinette stitch in it, my concentration just hasn't been sufficient for working on it for any length of time. I have started on the miles of i-cord handles (yawn) for the soon-to-be-felted entrelac bag; again, progress is slow. That one I really need to light a fire under, because the bag is supposed to go to Maryland Sheep and Wool with "T" and me in May. Come to think of it, if this fiber ennui keeps up, I will not have to worry about busting the budget there - good for Egg, bad for me.

Maybe a little informal knitting meet-up will get me back in the mood....

Serendipity

Egg linked me to an article about how it has been scientifically proven that men just don't get or utterly misinterpret non-verbal flirty signals from women. Does that really surprise anyone? Anyone female, that is? Then within an hour I stumbled across this delightful reply. (found on a random blog, originally from the PostSecret project)

I'm just not feeling very yarny the last few days since finishing the wavy socks. I ripped out the toe-up Monkey socks in the loud colorway of Wildfoote last night - the pattern completely disappeared into the riot of competing colors in the yarn. Anything beyond a simple rib is wasted there.

So, it's Knit Nite in a few hours at my LYS, and I have nothing on the needles. All my projects of late have been accessories or other little things (OK, so the entrelac bag isn't little), and I'm jonesing to do a garment again, just can't seem to find the right pattern. Sigh... Spring fever sucks.