Hi. Sorry. Yes, still here, just....well, things kind of went all atwitter lately. Richard and I made some big decisions lately which are kind of excting (well, they are exciting for us, at least) and so most of my attention has been really just focused on that. I am still knitting, although mostly on things that do not require a lot of thought. It's good I memorized the cable pattern for the socks I'm working on, because they are taking me forever (cables tend to slow things down. Oh my, do they slow things down), and they basically live in my purse now, so I can pull them out and do a row or two here and there, in between work and choir rehearsals and doctor's appointments (stupid sinuses) and oh yes, the dithering.
I have been in a bit of a knitting slow-down lately. I keep trying to work on a pair of socks but the lace patterns I'm picking don't quite seem to be working out and I suspect I may have to eventually do something drastic and actually do a sock yarn swatch. This fills me with dread only because, while I might be good about swatching for everything else, socks are something for which I usually just dive in head first and accept that a little (or a lot) of ripping out will sometimes occur. I always figure that if I am going to be forced to swatch in the round, I may as well attempt to get an actual sock out of the ordeal.
The yellow sampler afghan for my mom continues, albeit slowly. The current plan is that when I hit 20 squares, I am going to stop and lay them all out on the floor of the library (I suspect this will have to be done with the doors closed because otherwise I am going to be getting a lot of 'help') and see how it looks. I intend to do some kind of border around the whole thing once the squares are seamed together, just to unify it, and I suspect that 20 squares might just be large enough. I also suspect this may be a lot of wishful thinking because this is a lot of yellow yarn, but we will see. To distract myself, I pulled out a bin of some old varigated blue acrylic I bought a few years back, and have been turning it into panels of mitered squares, because really, what better way to distract oneself from making an afghan than by making a second one.
Anyway. One of the main reasons why I've been a bit distracted from knitting lately is that I've been spending my time doing other, non-yarn related things - namely, a lot of singing. Why? Well, If any of you in the Sacramento area are in the mood for a little art and music, you can find out. Vox Musica (the women's ensemble I sing in) will be performing at 8pm this Saturday (March 10th) at Deep Art and Yoga as part of the Second Saturday Art Walk, as a little preview of our full concert later in the month.