GodDAMmit!

The Anti-Funk cowl did its job, and right after I finished it, I went through my (mental and actual) list of knitting things to do and started attacking those tasks that need to be done before the fun part of knitting them starts. But I swear to the Flying Spaghetti Monster the universe is out to get me. Below, my list of gripes:

1. After many hours of searching through Ravelry, and taking into account the suggestions made by you guys about what to do with that skein of Misti Alpaca variegated laceweight, I found something I thought might work: the Fiddlesticks Peacock Feathers Shawl. It's written as a triangular shawl, but a couple of people on Ravelry have converted it to a rectangular stole. I also saw a few versions made in some subtly variegated yarn (including one from the Harlot herself) that make me think it might just work with my Misti Alpaca. Great! So I set about trying to buy this pattern. First, because I'm all about the instant gratification, I look for a PDF version of this thing. Nope. Only comes in actual paper form (I know! WTF?!). Fine, okay, accept that, move on to UK vendors of the pattern, but find none that take PayPal (my knitting fund is in PayPal form). Of course I could just use a credit card, but now it's layers and layers of inconvenience piled on top of one another, you know?

2. I had a design that I'd thought out, swatched and sketched. All that remained was to scan the swatch and sketch, and write up the design proposal. Great, I did all that while on my Anti-Funk high. While trying to decide where to submit it, I started in on the fun part of knitting myself a version. While working out the math for my size, I realize it will never scale up well. While I can fudge numbers a little and and move a few stitches around to knit my size, the large pattern repeat means that sizes would have to go up by huge increments. Alternatively, I can put in partial repeats, but the pattern is already quite complicated and I'm not sure I can work out how to shift everything around and line everything up properly for seven sizes. And still have a readable pattern, anyway. So, although I've started knitting one for me, this design has to be shifted to the back burner until I can figure out what to do, if anything. It may just be a lost cause.

3. I set forth to work on my only new year's resolution of doing more colourwork. I have something in mind I want to try and went to look up appropriate yarns- a 4-ply or fingering weight yarn, with lots and lots of colour options. I found a few: Brown Sheep Nature Spun, Dale of Norway Baby Ull, Jamieson's 2-ply, Jamieson and Smith 2-ply, a few others. I went looking for places that will sell me colour cards. But I can't find anything! They must sell colour cards of these yarns- does anyone know where I can order some? Or colour cards for similar yarns?

4. From knitting the design in gripe #2, my hand hurts. Lots. I think I'm knitting too tightly, or those k3tog are causing my hand to cramp. It will annoy me no end if it gets so bad that I can't knit, so I'm rationing myself to a few rows a day.