I'm baaaack

Hello, knitters!
And greetings from Graz, Austria! I'm here doing a singing program for the summer, and it's divine in every way (except maybe the lack of vegetarian or low-salt options!). I thought you might like a little shot of the Rathaus (City Hall), to get a feel for where I am.

I'm doing so much singing here, and I'm surrounded by music almost every minute of the day. It's important to keep balance in one's life, especially as a singer. One's performances are most influenced by your interpretation; in order to have a personal interpretation, one must live life and be inspired! Knitting definitely inspires me, so I have a good excuse to have some "me-time" while I'm here. Besides, I just don't feel like me if I don't get to knit!

I have returned from the land of "grad-school = no-knitting", and have even restarted my Icarus Shawl! Of course, as it is unblocked lace, it has the distinct quality of looking like "cat barf". Bear with me, it definitely is growing, even though it is mainly stockinette. I have just officially determined that I'm at 20% complete. How fantastic!!

The pattern itself is very interesting: it's mainly stockinette, but every 7 stitches there's a little k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk thing going on. This means that it's interesting enough to keep it from being mindless (TV) knitting, but it's not quite interesting enough to feel like much other than stockinette. And of course, it's in ever-increasing rows, so I'm trying not to be defeated by it.

As I don't think it's going to be particularly good Blog Fodder for a while (unless you enjoy watching paint dry), I've brought another treat with me to Graz. This is the lovely koigu KPPPM, that I bought with my dear knitty friend, Lisa at her fabulous LYS, Cloth and Clay, in Waterloo. I've called it my "Sunshiney Koigu," because the colourway is just so sunny and makes me smile. It's destined to be socks, (I miss knitting socks!), but I think I need to do some swatching to decide which socks. I really prefer koigu variegated yarns in plain stockinette, but I think I might need some Jaywalkers, knit toe up for myself!!!

As you may know, since Linzknits has been on hiatus, Blogger has added labels (like "tags" in LiveJournal) to their system, so I'm going to be deciding about going through and labeling old posts, and then getting rid of my seventy-five-million journal system. Or I might start over. We shall see.

It's good to be back, not just writing my own posts, but reading all my favourite blogs. It feels like I've come back to old friends. And I know I've come back to lots more inspiration. I love it.