Knitting fears and wimpiness, plus world troubles and a sign of spring

Since I am soooo close to finishing Project A at the moment, I am looking forward to the next project (yeah, forget about B, C, D and E languishing in the corner). (And the exact meaning of "soooo close" is open to discussion!)

I like this. And this. I have yarn that could make either of them. But I don't like the sleeves on Ghiberti nor the huge shoulders on Bellini. I could fudge... Also, look at all those ends to sew in and hide nicely! Also, I am not a two-handed strander. I would have to knit brown, put down brown & pick up red, knit red, put down red & pick up brown... all across the row, and this would get tedious and frustrating and my gauge would get wonky and .... is it worth it?

I also love the look of this. But no-way-Jose am I knitting a giant crazy rose into anything! Could I make this pretty shape, with that wonderful edge, and somehow colour-block in a better way? Better for me, the stranding wimp, that is! I could stick a big hunk of colour in the middle of the back... even a complicated shape, but just one colour at a time!

Oh, who knows...

I also was looking through the old VK magazines. Oh, my, some lovely stuff there! Much of which I have wanted to make for 10 or 20 years!

This vest -- simple, multicoloured, the right gauge, knit side to side so the vertical stripes are actually knit horizontally. Major wimp-out, but I'd end up with something nice!

This is made with slipped stitches. Gauge and yarn and size are all completely useless, so I'd have to make up numbers and shape armholes and so on, but I like the colour pattern.





Here we have a cardigan with another slip-stitch pattern. It helps if you use Noro yarn for one of the colours! Unfortunately I have a sweater remarkably like this already!






Barbara Walker has some wild mosaic patterns -- with them I would also have to design from the beginning, which of course has its pros and cons.

I have noticed that I am much less bold in what I take on to knit now. When I was first getting into this knitting lark, I'd look at Glorious Knitting and just make up anything!

And now just two little tidbits: a picture of a sign of spring;

This pansy survived the winter on my porch!

and a link.

I don't usually follow Twitter at all. I don't have an account, and I don't have anyone whose feed I read on a regular basis. But many bloggers have a little Twitter bit in their sidebar, and a girl can get distracted! So I found myself wandering about in the Yarn Harlot's tweets and found this.

Then I noticed that there was a movement among bloggers to be silent today (yeah, sure...), encouraging people to donate to a group that will provide emergency shelter supplies to Japan. I say (for what it's worth) donate to any worthy group you like, but don't earmark the money! Let the people on the ground determine the best way to spend the money, and if they decide that Japan's economy and industry and educated population can take care of Japan, then let them give the money to people more needy.

It's all very shocking, but there are lots of terrible things going on all over the place, where people don't have cell phone cameras and YouTube access. (Medecins sans Frontiers lists today on their news page Japan, Ivory Coast, Libya, Southern Sudan, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Somalia, Haiti, Liberia and Mid East and North Africa.)