It's Flooding in Boston, but I Hear Hell May Have Frozen Over

My knitter's block has not really not wanted to un-block. I made several attempts at casting on only to rip everything out. Nothing was working. I had to try a new tact.

Did you ever see that Seinfeld episode where George decides to do the exact opposite of what his natural instincts tell him to do? I decided to give that a whirl. So what is the item I never, ever,ever knit? That I have stubbornly refused to knit.   Altogether now boys and girl- SOCKS! 

Yes, I decided to knit socks. (Somewhere in San Francisco, Ariel is cheering). I went to my LYS and I scanned their wide selection of sock yarns.  My instincts pulled me to my familiar favoite colorways, blues, blue and green, blue and purple, do you see a trend? And it struck me again - opposite! No blues, no quiet, muted nature or jewel tones. I had to go for loud and bright to break me from this block.

So I picked this skein I would normally never buy.  Look it has orange and a bits of pink! I don't wear/knit orange or light pink.

I have cast on the plain old sock recipe in The Yarn Harlot's Knitting Rules.  Well actually I cast on and frogged and cast on again, and then knit a whole bunch and ripped back to the ribbing and changed needles sizes. First they were going to be too big, then too small, then too big again, and I mutter about my fat calves and freakishly wide feet but I kept knitting. I was determined and it helped that I was like a small child and really wanted to see what happened next with the self-striping yarn. 

Here's a pic of where I am so far.  I just finished turning the heel which was far less stressful than I anticipated.

Fiber-y Videos

Okay, just cause I haven't been knitting recently does not mean I have shunned all things sheepy and wool related.  Here are a few of my favorite videos of late.

 

Carve Me out a Bit of Inspiration

For some reason February is never a good month for me. It is the New England winter without the holidays of December or the optimistic brand new year-ness of January. And this year was no exception. While we didn't get hit with the snow that the mid-Atlantic did, the bitter cold seemed to freeze any creative inspiration I had. I couldn't figure out what to knit for the Knitting Olympics and while I watched my fair share of aerials and speed skating and I did not once pick up a pair of knitting needles.

Last week March finally arrived and with it came temperatures in the 40's and my niece's birthday. I always try to make at least a portion of her gift.  She is still into fairies and since I already knit her little fairies last year so I had to come up with something else this year. I figured some rubber stamps in the fairy motif would add to her drawings. 

Hopefully, this will re-spark my creativity and get me back to stitching or knitting or what have you,