Woolfest, Ravelry and Masochistic Knitting

I realised as an obsessively diary-keeping child that there is nothing more boring to read than apologies for not having written in a while, so I won't bother with any of that. I have been spinning my ass off, and the gunmetal grey Gotland I got at Woolfest is looking very much like real yarn, which I am determined to knit rather than add to the pile of little handspun bundles of potential. As Dylan Moran says, stay away from your potential (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439553/).

So, Woolfest! It was thrilling. There were people doing all sorts of things I had only seen on the internet, so I am now at last convinced that there are real fibre people out there and the whole thing isn't an elaborate web-based hoax. Not only were there people, there were animals, including alpacas, the funkiest beasts on the planet. Their disdainful chewing motion was so funny I took loads of video of them. Blogger won't let me post it here, so a couple of randomly placed stills will have to do. Bugger Blogger.

The wonderful people at Ravelry have got through enough of the waiting list to let me in, and it is really impressive. I love being able to search for patterns and see so many finished creations, even though I'm a mostly patternless knitter. Being able to search so much blog material so easily makes a huge difference, and there are far more knitters near me than I thought, which is exciting. I've been very lazy about entering my projects, and I doubt I'll ever get round to them all. The one I've so far put in my notebook shows why - I get carried away when I start explaining why I made something the way I did, because I have my reasons and they are weird. They look even more weird when I write them down, so I need to explain more and more, and end up revealing far more about the workings of my mind than any description of EZ's brilliantly simple Pi shawl should really demand.

The shawl lies in a crumpled heap beside my laptop, being tinked for the millionth and, I vow, the last time. The thing is, I've frogged and tinked and sworn at this thing so many times that some strange part of me has started to enjoy it! I still hate the part when you are working out whether or not you need to rip it back, what you have done wrong and whether you can live with it. Once you've made the decision, though, there's a perverse pleasure in unravelling your mistake, however much time you spent making it, and setting off again towards the perfect completed object. That said, whatever I next cast on will be plain and straightforward. It will probably also bore me so much I never finish it.