Natalie Knits

Well, I haven't been knitting, but I have been doing other interesting things, like hanging out with sea lions and such:

This last weekend I was in San Diego for a conference, and it was gorgeous there! I had never been to California before, and I think the coolest part was when I went down to the beach and saw sea lions just hanging out. On a rock, right near the beach. Just chillin', you know, like sea lions in their natural habitat. Being a girl of Midwest origins, I see a lot of other animals at home in the out-of-doors, but not the sea-dwelling type. There were also lots of birds, a nice smattering of pelicans and sea gulls.

I was also very taken with the giant ferns growing around the hotel. My favorite had an arm in the process of unfurling:

The conference was great, though I am a bit exhausted today. The traveling all day and the time change has left me a little out of whack. But seeing La Jolla was incredible, and I'm really excited to go back to CA for yet another conference in a couple of weeks. Did I mention how I haven't had much time to knit? I'm hoping that now things are winding down a bit for the summer I'll have some quality knitting time before school kicks back in... though I am already thinking I'll have to scale back the amount of presents that are knitted this year for Christmas. It's going to be a crazy year...
Anywho, here are a few more pics from the trip, just for fun :)

Ok, so I've realized my problem.  I think I'm not meant to knit anything but sweaters.  Anything else is ok for a little while, but it's not holding my attention like a sweater.  I took a bit of a hiatus from knitting (life has been a little imbalanced lately, too much work and not enough knitting (and everything else)), but recently I picked up my cotton yarn and started on a log cabin square for a blanket I have planned in my mind (and own all the yarn for).  Good motivation, right?  But all I got was one lousy square.  And no, I don't mean a log cabin square, I mean one little square-- 20 stitches, 24 rows... then nothing.  But I realized it's not that something is wrong with me, or my knitting-- it just isn't the right project at the moment.  It's because I've fallen head first in love with sweaters. Lucky thing I live in a cold part of the midwest, even though it doesn't feel that way at the moment!  But we'll have our 8 months of winter soon enough, and my sweater love will feel justified, even necessary.  I picked up the left front of kenobi, which had been untouched for a long while, and within the course of 2 days finished it and started on the next piece. My real motivation for working through kenobi (other than it's been a pleasure to knit!) is the slew of amazing sweaters in the latest IK.  I couldn't believe it when I saw the patterns, I feel the need to make them NOW.  So hopefully within the next month or so I'll have some serious finished objects-- even if it is just the kenobi with some other works in progress.

 J and I are off to San Francisco tomorrow morning.  I'm very excited for this trip, though I will feel more at ease once my conference presentation is through! We are planning a few fun activites, and lots of R & R (or R & K, for me).  I'll be taking the trusty laptop along, so I'll try to post some pictures as we go!