Still Knitting

I'm taking another watercolor class this spring but for some reason I'm feeling really stifled this time around - it's just almost overwhelming to even start something. It feels a lot like writer's block - is there a painter's block? Guess it's sort of the same thing. Anyway, we've had 2 weeks between classes and I started a couple of things that I'm actually happy with so far so maybe that's a breakthrough. Of course, I never did like to do things that I wasn't pretty good with from the beginning but I'm hanging in there with this because I really love watercolor painting and I really do want to get better. Ain't gonna happen without some practice though, that's for sure.

I was going to start the Balmoral Thistle Dinner Cloth with the size 30 thread this weekend but I decided to work a little more on the size 10 just to give it a fair chance. I’m just getting the head of the thistle and am only about 20 rows from the “Coffee Cloth” size. I really don’t think I’ll go further than that with the size 10 but at least it will give me something to show for my effort. Actually, now that it’s big enough to put on the circular needle, it’s been a lot easier to work, although it still looks too chunky to me. I also realized that, for some reason, I was working it really tightly on the double points (not like me at all) so I calmed down, loosened up and now it’s going a lot better. You can see the thistle leaves and the head beginning to develop here.



I’ve also made it almost to the end of the black/grey Dalek and I’m totally digging the color combination. It was an absolutely gorgeous day on Saturday so I spent quite a lot of it sitting on my porch knitting and listening to the birds. One of the cardinals was getting really brave, hopping around and shouting just about 4 feet from me. Mighty fine. Didn’t even dampen my spirits to see rain all Saturday night and all day on Sunday.

Of course, we’re counting our blessings seeing what so many others went through this weekend – between tornados and earthquakes. So heartbreaking to hear about all the people, mainly children, who were lost in the earthquake and right on the back of the disaster in Burma.