Gearing back up

In many ways, I'm not what you'd call a particularly adventurous person. I have no burning desire to go hang gliding, base jumping, or to get a bunch of tattoos and swallow swords. I do, however, have an adventurous streak when it comes to eating; I will try almost anything once (as was proven on our trip to China). And, apparently, this wild streak of abandon also extends to knitting. With next-to-no experience, I'm making plans for lace, dyeing (more on that later) and yes, spinning. I'm convinced I can teach myself how to do all of this.

Now, there's been a bit of an illness-induced knitting drought around here for the last week or so, but I broke it this evening by casting on for, yes, another baby hat. Once I get this one done I will be caught up for the time being on things owed and might celebrate by taking a wild girlish fling at something for myself. The adventuresome part, though? This is my first project in fingering yarn, which is also my first project in self-striping yarn and the smallest needles I've used to date (2.5 mm, size 3 for you US-sies). The going has been a bit fiddly to start, but I'm quickly getting up to speed. So far, so good. The WIP name for this little hat is "Blueberry Pie," because that's just what the yarn reminds me of (also reminds me of a fairly hideous painting I did in art school, but I won't dwell on that here). I'm really curious how the color is going to work out on this. Variegated yarns fascinate me - how they're dyed, how they knit up... The math involved in creating the repeats really appeals to my geeky side. I find myself getting very interested in learning to do some dyeing of my own.

Knitting's not the only thing that's coming back to life around here... I didn't do this myself, but I can brag on my husband for making incredible tomato egg soup the other night. This is Chinese home cooking comfort food; my sister-in-law taught us how to make it recently. He also churned out some wicked righteous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies made from organic oats. It's nice to have the house humming again with the little buzz of stuff being made. Oh yeah, and I have a bathtub full of beer, also hubby's project. It's supposed to be "resting" in the bottles for a while, but ssssssh - we sampled some. A nice, bitter little ale. More to come on that.

I'll post a picture of the hat when there's a little more to see. No pics of the food - we ate it all (sorry).