Rut

I've been in a bit of a knitting rut recently. I have a few projects on the needles that aren't making me excited and no thoughts on what I want to knit next. Of course, I have a variety of patterns on the shelves, but a lot of them are sweaters and with spring coming I don't feel inspired to start a heavy sweater. My usual go-to is lace, but I already have two lace shawls going so I should really focus on those. This morning I picked up Arwen again to keep plowing through the sleeve, but I tire of the loooooong rows making up the front and sleeve. In the meantime I've been keeping my hands busy with cross-stitch.

The other morning while brushing my teeth I was consumed with excitement over a potential use for the linen I bought a few weeks ago. I've been seeing links to this zakka pouch tutorial all over the place. What better for the base than lovely linen? So I wound the yarn before going to work, despite the fact that my morning schedule does not allow for such diversions and I was left running through the neighborhood for the train.

I swatched all week on the train and am currently working on this swatch in linen stitch (well-matched for linen, no?). It's creating almost a woven fabric, which I love. Unfortunately, though, it is hard work on the old hands - there's no give in the linen and it is rough and twiney and I can only bear a few rows at a time. Making an entire bag base like this will be time consuming. Maybe I'll just make some swatches and sew them into things. Or maybe I'll weave some on my handy Weavette and see where that goes...

In other news, I saw adorable Baby B yesterday and the not-so adorable state of his earflap hat! It got tossed in the washer and dryer accidentally and wound up a little felted and shrunken. It also had a little run-in with some velcro. Ouch. I think it could have been worse - the yarn is Karabella 8, which is purportedly washable, but I would not recommend putting it in warm wash and dry.

Problem solved - he'll just wear the hat inside out now. I almost like it better like this. However, now he'll need a new hat for next year because all that growing room has been shrunken right out.