Mojo - lost

Well, the title says it all really! Not that much productive knitting going on here at the moment. I spent last weekend in Carbisdale castle doing a tai chi course - we learnt a lot of stuff about meridian theory, some chineese medicine stuff and did loads of push hands. I came back so chilled out that I could barely function - looking out of the window wondering at the beauty of the world and how nice all the leaves looked and didnt the river smell lovely and clean was about the pinnacle of my intellectual capability!

I want to knit, but nothing seems to be working. I am planning 3 things:

Desert sunrise - I have decided that this is going to be a cardigan, a couple of inches rib round the bottom, cute little round neck, a couple of inches ease, fitted, clean lines and nice and simple. The object of the swatching (There has been a lot of swatching, even though all of them were wrong and ended up getting ripped) is to get the colours to look right (background is staying mid -dark brown, with the contrast varying between dark red, burnt orange and into yellow), maintaining the proportions so that I have a chance of using the yarn I have and not having to buy more and still have some sort of flow. I need to rejig my chart to have 3 less rows in it and then I think it will work.

Man jumper - the sweater curse is live and well. Only it doesnt seem to be killing our relationship, just my desire to knit a jumper that is black and in 2x2 rib. I need to think of a way to make it more interesting while maintaining enough simplicity that my husband will actually wear the thing when I am finished.

Green jumper - I have enough skeins of malabrigo worsted weight to make me the desired green jumper. But I have no inspiration as to how it should work. The wool is so lovely and soft, and looks so fantastic that I want it to be just right, so I am almost afraid of starting!

And then I found this post on Brooklyntweed's blog about the koolhaas hat and thought that I just had to make one. Seeing as how no-where had the pattern in Inverness (I am TRYING to convince somewhere to sell in Interweave stuff with no luck) and I dont really like the other stuff in the magazine enough to justify buying it mail order, I just sort of set about copying it. I'm not totally convinced about the yarn I used (some random stuff I have inherited, which is some sort of wool/acrylic blend I think in green/blue) or the decreases, but overall it worked pretty well. I am rather proud of myself, and it will do perfectly fine for my brother's birthday, which is in a couple of weeks time.

On the other hand not having that much time dedicated to knitting, means that I have got my parcel all wrapped and ready for my KTS-4 swap partner, Else, so that can go in the post on Monday. And it means that our new window has had a coat of paint, there are two more curtains in the sitting room (only 2 to go, but I have lost extra red cotton so had to stop), our stag antlers have finally been put on the wall (a "quick job" that took 2 hours) and there has been plenty of exiting and interesting baking this week! Obviously this is what other people do when they dont knit.

Photos another day - the husband is out with the camera!