This weekend we had some fabulous “knitting lace on the deck” weather. And I certainly did so! This piece is Corinne Ouillon’s Limonade (a free download on Ravelry) worked in Prism’s Delicato (hand-dyed Tencel yarn) which I had bought at Madrona for Stephen West’s Tripartite, but found not quite string-y enough for that piece. It is perfect for Limonade!
Today is a gray cold day more suited to Blankety knitting — which is probably just as well as I would really like to get those blankets done! (Tho truth to tell, it will have to be a horribly drizzly May and June for me to get those blankets done any time soon!)

Totally unrelated (altho still about knitting, so not totally irrelevant), is a slight rant about people who find it necessary to explain to me at length why they do not knit. (I probably have ranted about this before, but it continues to be a painful issue in my life!) The scene invariably plays out when I am quietly knitting in a public place not bothering anybody, not loudly criticizing those in the vicinity who are not knitting, not proselytizing at crocheters. Someone (usually a woman) asks me what I am knitting — and then launches into a seemingly well-rehearsed speech about why she does not knit. All while I am sitting there knitting!
If you walked into Starbucks and saw a man wearing a polo shirt, would you walk up to him and tell him all the reasons why you don’t wear polo shirts? Would you say “I find them uncomfortable and they make my neck look fat and I always associate them with this guy I hated in high school”? Or if the man was eating a ham sandwich would you say “You know, I tried eating a ham sandwich once but it took a lot of chewing and I really don’t have the patience for that”?
It boggles my mind that so many women feel the need to justify to me their not knitting! And even if they do, by their own admission, knit that they feel obligated to confess that they do not knit what I happen to be knitting at the moment — and they are compelled to list the reasons why they do not knit lace shawls (or cables or socks or baby sweaters or whatever is hanging off my idle needles while I politely listen to the reasons it is impossible for them to knit what I am knitting).
The really awkward part is that the woman seems to think she has struck up a conversation with me about knitting. Whereas I am left with absolutely nothing conversational to say. I cannot exactly just agree with her that she is incapable of knitting what I knit — not with any degree of courtesy (“Yes, I can see that you have neither the intelligence nor the attention span to follow a knitting pattern.”) Nor can I assure her that there is no conceivable reason why she should be able to knit whatever it is that I am knitting — without being either condescending or mystical. That leaves me with murmuring something vague and somewhat apologetic about how “Well, I knit a lot so…” and I trail off and resume knitting with a fierce attention that, hopefully, makes me seem unable to understand anything that anyone says to me. Making me appear to be the socially awkward one in the room.

Okay, rant complete. Thank you for listening. Enjoy the photo of Limonade in process!