knitting blahs

I'm in a knitting rut. And a knitting slump

I think it started with the ill fated skirt. Then it moved onto a pair of socks that I was knitting that seem a bit snug. Then I thought why am I always knitting socks?

Well, I can save you many days of soul searching and tell you that I am always knitting socks for these reasons:
1) I wear socks almost every day
2) I have a ton of sock yarn
3) socks are portable
4) I have a ton of sock yarn
5) Socks are easy to do while watching TV
6) I have a ton of sock yarn.

You get the picture.
Seriously I spent 2 days trying to figure out something non-sock to knit. And I realized, I don't wear that many scarves or shawls, and I can't knit lace or anything complicated while I watch TV (looking at you dollar and a half cardigan). I don't have a lot of yarn for mid-sized projects--either socks or one-skein things or sweaters.

I have three balls of Muench Touch me, and toyed with a velvety scarf. And I could not for the life of me think about where I might wear such a thing in MAY. And of course I *could* save it for winter, but please, I want something I can appreciate NOW, not 5 months from now (oy, really 5 months from now I'll be wearing a scarf--yeah probably). I also have some leftover yarn--Briar rose Sonoma I think--that I have mittens and scarf from, but was thinking I had enough for some sort of hat-like thing. Again, 5 months.

Then it hit me. I have 2 skeins of Malbrigio silky wool In a beautiful purple. Surely I could get a small shrug out of it and certainly it would match the bits of purple flowers in the dress I bought to replace the ill-fated skirt. Well, yes and no. Yes, I probably had enough to make a small shrug. Like the small one in Lace Style which is not pictured in that link... But the purple wasn't quite the right purple. The purple bits in the dress are more red. And if I could tell that before I pulled the dress out of the bedroom (and into the sunny living room) then you know it was off. But I also noticed that there was some olive green in it too (and black and white--mostly black and white with a few purple flowers with olive leaves) and I have some olive yarn.

The yarn is Elle Aran gold and it is acrylic. I've knit with it before though and find it to be a lot sproingyier than most acrylics. In fact I made a whole sweater from it, which I actually still like and wear on a regular basis (wore it this week even). Of course it was a dead match for the olive in the dress, how could it not be. How could my expensive really want to create something lovely from it yarn be so far off as to be funny, and my cheap (purchased at a LYS closeout sale) acrylic match perfect? Well that's the way of things. Plus I had enough for the retro redux shrug pictured in the link above.

I was intrigued. I was interested. I swatched. I started dreaming of how I would look the NEXT time I wore that dress (which is in 10 days most likely). And I cast on, more excited about this project than I have been since I messed up the toe on that last sock and it the wall with my sewing.

Although, if anyone has a non scarf option for the lovely purple Malbrigio silky wool--I have 2 skeins which makes about 300 yards (274m) of a dk weight yarn, leave it in the comments. Oh heck, if you have a scarf pattern that I can wear in early fall--say September let me know about that too.