Aside from plain old being-busyness, I think I have been avoiding my blog because of the Knitting Olympics thing. I am out altogether. I just am. I am such a spectator--never a competitor. Hate competition. Demoralizes me. Makes me queasy. Makes me feel like I'm competing for resources--in this case, time to knit. Don't like it. Therefore, I am out of it.

I am, however, an avid spectator. My two favorite Knitting Olympics projects are a pair of red lace shawls, one of which I had the pleasure of naming and one of which I am just proposing a name for now: Eunny's Fire Flowers shawl, knit from the Frost Flowers pattern in A Gathering Of Lace, and SweetGeorgia's Peacock Feathers shawl, which I rather predictably think of as the Fire Feathers shawl. Phoenix Pheathers? No, Fire Feathers. So I am watching Fire Flowers and Feathers. And enjoying every vicarious post.

There. I have that off my chest. Now I can go back to my Embossed Leaves socks. Phew! I emerged from an unconscious yarn diet this morning, and ordered five skeins of Rowan Soft Lux in Pearl, to knit the little beribboned hat and the little bebeaded scarf from Rowan Classic Woman. I have decided that I only want to wear black, gray, cream, and chocolate brown. What was I thinking with all that colors nonsense? I'm only really happy in dark neutrals, with perhaps some cream accents. So those are the colors I'll be buying in, until a new mood strikes me. I am sort of, kind of, in a fantasizing sort of way, thinking about buying Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk in "chocolate" to knit my second, proper Lara of. I would love that sweater, if I knit it. But damn it would be expensive.