Random Thursday...

Everyone else in blogland is doing it, so I present to you Random Thursday.

More specifically, this post is going to be random-Austrian-photo Thursday.

1) A peacock butt. Kind of makes me want to knit Peacock Feathers


I have determined that peacocks are evil creatures. They live outside lovely Austrian castles, and make hideously loud noises to scare away the tourists.




2) The insides of a Stachelbeeren (Gooseberry). Man, is that tasty stuff. I love the purple layer around the seeds. Yep, it makes me want to dye yarn in this colourway... yarn like Koigu. Mmmm, Gooseberry Koigu!





3) A typical Austrian folk-costume: (I've actually seen ladies in the street wearing similar garb)

On inspiration...

Inspiration is a funny thing.

I am definitely inspired by being here in Graz, Austria. This is one of many little courtyards, off the main square downtown. You can just walk through any of the lovely archways here, and find something so perfect tucked away inside. It's not knitting inspiration, but it's good for the soul.

Also good for my soul, has been coming back to the Land of the Knitting Blog. As I was away from it for almost half a year, I managed to gain a new perspective of all this Knit Blog stuff.

I am loving the exchange of ideas that is happening so quickly online. It also speeds up my inspiration process: I see something someone has knit (or even is knitting), and I want to knit it too. Two blogs later, I see something else I'm dying to knit. And, oh! That Peacock Feathers Shawl, those socks, the Finnish mittens!

Besides the new projects that I see, I also get reinspired to work on projects that have been lingering in the planning stages for a while. I have some gorgeous yarn at home, and I would love nothing more than to turn it into something perfect. Of course, the new projects I'm inspired to knit, and the yarn I'm inspired to knit up don't exactly match up.

The problem with this frenzy of inspiration, is that my WIPs get a little neglected. It's more fun for me right now to be looking at all the pretty fibre, than to work on my Icarus. Of course, I'm knitting my Icarus out of alpaca, and I'm in the middle of a ridiculous European heatwave... so maybe it's not all lack of inspiration. Next time I'll be sure to pack summer knitting!

How do you all stay focused? I feel like the internet and all these blogs (and I'm sure once I'm on Ravelry) are almost giving me a bit of Knitter ADD. And, I love it!

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.