A black mood

It's frustrating enough when you don't have time to knit, but lately, when I've made time, I find I can't knit anything. What sort of perverse turn about is this? Beverlee gave me this giant roll of silk laceweight boucle to try and work up swatches for a shawl, but I'm stymied! Since the house is a disaster, I have no craft room and the light in the living room is inadequate, especially when working with thin, black yarn. Also, we're currently preparing to put in wood floors upstairs, which means there's a whole lot of pounding coming from above. Can't see, can't concentrate! After about 20 or so tries at casting on for a lace circular shawl, I was near tears and gave up. I guess I'm just not meant to work with that particular yarn.

So I tried something else... a fat yarn! Surely that will work. I did a gauge swatch and prepared to start the back of Juli's Barter Cardi (Lopi). No dice. My size 9s were already in use on my cabled sweater, and that's exactly what I needed to do the ribbing. Screw it. So what if I have to read a chart! I put a few rows on my cabled sleeve last night and will be taking it with me to knitting tonight. I have to knit something, and reading a chart for cables now seems a breeze compared with casting on for that #!@* circular shawl. Maybe when I have better light I'll try again. I think that black silk would look wonderful as a pi shawl, though creatively speaking, I'm just not up for the task right now. I'm feel very drained, and I hope that tonight will help lift my spirits. Group therapy indeed.