Friday, April 28, 2006

What's getting in the way of my knitting?

I feel like I haven't been getting much knitting done lately. I'm not quite sure why. Last week I felt like I was making tons of progress. The left side of my Sunrise Circle Jacket is done. The first Fields of Gold sock is done. And my Orange Reverse-Bloom Washcloth is more than half finished. But for the past of couple days . . . . nothing. No knitting progress to report or show. I think I go through Knitting Dry Spells. Small chunks of time when none of my projects seem interesting and nothing seems to get done. Why is that? Is it just me, or do you go through this too? How do you end the Dry Spell?? I fear the easiest fix is to find a great new pattern that excites me and cast on for it. I really don't want to resort to that. I want to finish what I have on the sticks because I really like these projects and can't wait to wear or use them.

I have been fiddling around with my template quite a bit lately, so I know that's part of what's been keeping me from knitting. I was able to find PSP9 at a great price on E-bay, so I've been playing around with that quite a bit. I also spent a whole day trying to figure out how to put a drop-down menu in my side-bar. I managed to get it built, but I've noticed unless my blog loads completely in my browser the menu doesn't work correctly. What I mean is, I have to see the word "Done" in the lower left status bar . . . if it says "Opening page http://k.knit.blogspot.com . . . " it will not work. I have to hit the refresh button until the page loads completely. Do any of you want to take a look and tell me your thoughts? Look over in the sidebar way down in the KAL section. Under my Show Your FO button are two links - "23 FOs Done" and "KALs Past". If you hold your mouse over them (but don't click!!), a menu should pop out to the right. Does it work for you? Anyone use a Mac, and does it work there? Anyone have web-building and/or Suckerfish Drop Down experience and know something I've done wrong to cause this blip? Or is it just my browser (Internet Explorer)? Any thoughts or suggestions (or even gentle criticisms) would be greatly appreciated.

On to Project Spectrum. I can't believe we only have three days left in the Yellow / Orange month. I've loved seeing these bright cheery colors all over everyone's blogs, and I think this will be my favorite of all the months. For my contribution today, we need to go back a couple of years. Pea and I were engaged and it was time to think about registering. I knew I didn't want "good china", but I was anxious to pick out our "every day" dishes. I'd never really liked Pfaltzgraff that much, until I saw this and immediately fell in love. So, I present to you, my entire umm, most of my Pistoulet collection. Yikes, I didn't realize I had so much of this!!!

Pfaltzgraff Pistoulet

  1. Spoon rest, soup tureen, salad servers
  2. Small pitcher, large salad bowl, oval bowl
  3. Soup bowl, dinner plate, sandwich plate
  4. Nesting mixing bowls, HUGE platter, cereal bowls, coffee mug
  5. Big sunflower platter
  6. Chip and dip set
  7. Oil & vinegar cruets, olive dish
  8. Butter dish, vase, cake platter, teapot
I thought I had gotten pictures of everything, but now I'm remembering more!!! Placemats, another platter, a serving plate, a cutting board, a roasting pan and a pie plate. It was all either received as gifts or bought at outlet stores. I'm in big trouble if I ever get sick of this pattern, but since the pieces vary somewhat in color and design, I don't think I will!

9 comments:

Lynda said...

Your Pistoulet collection is beautiful!!

Jillio said...

woooow...your house is has little bursts of color everywhere! looks so cozy :) how about that...that's a lot of dishes! i think my mom had a lot of matching dishes, but unfortunately, my brothers and i accidentally dropped a lot of them :(
don't worry about your knitting dry spells. i get that a lot, and i always resort to casting on for something else. hahaha...you are much more disciplined than i am :)
every time i come to your page, i have noticed it's got subtle changes every time. the drop down menu thingy doesn't work when i do it, btw. i have IE, too. hope you figure it out!
have a great weekend, karen!

Ragan said...

I think that IS the cure for the knitting dry spell, much to my dismay! Start a new pattern and wait for that "dry" one to call you back. That seems to work for me even though I hate having all of those unfinished works around calling me!
:)
I hope that your dry spell clears up soon!
I love all the yellow you have a your house!!!

Anonymous said...

Dry spells? I think we all get them. Sometimes creativity needs some down time to be reinspired! Don't worry!

Cathy said...

Hey there - the dishes are great and I have dry spells all the time! I wish I didn't have such a short attention span, but I seem to lately.

The drop down menu doesn't work for me either :( I'll see what I can figure out for you too :)

Anonymous said...

Hm - the Drop Down Menu doesn't work for me either - I tried it in IE and in Firefox, but unfortunately nothing happened. You know what - if you want, just send me the code you've been using, I studied WebDesign so I should find out why it's not working - and if I don't have a clue, then there's still good ol' PC-guru CM. We'd be glad to help you out!
Gosh, I love your dishes, they're gorgeous - such cheerful colors, it must be mere joy eating from them!

Sonya said...

I have those little dry spells too. Especially this time of year. Right now all I have to work on is a pair of Jaywalkers that aren't too inspiring. I'd like to finish them this weekend, but I don't think I'll make it. I love your colorful dishes! Hope you get your drop down menu to work. I've always admired your scrolling blogroll.

kathy b said...

Karen

I have little spells where I just want items finished, but I don't want to finish them. I recommend Jury Duty. Good luck to Pea on Monday!

Nathalie said...

I have a Mac - in relation to your question, I get a drop down menu for "23 FOs done", and clicking on one of the itens takes me to a new window, and the main page of the linked blog (I chose Annie)

hovering the curser over "KALs past" brings up the buttons and I tried to clickk on the SP6 and it also took me to that site

hope that helps!

Cheers
nat

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