Rolling with the Lack of Mojo

I wrote last week about how I wasn't feeling the usual urge to knit (and then of course I whacked my hand hard enough to not feel able to knit for a few days there). But late last week, thinking about it, I decided that if I wasn't eager to knit anything in particular, there was one thing I might as well turn my attention to.

A couple of months ago, my cousin asked me if I would be willing to knit her a particular shawl. I looked at the pattern, which was for sale on etsy but not listed in Ravelry, and decided that it was within my capabilities, and according to my adopted knitting mantra ("Knitting is like sex: if I love you, it's free, and if not, you can't pay me enough"), that would be a yes. At least, a conditional yes: I couldn't do it to a deadline, I told her, and since the yarn the pattern used is discontinued (because of course it is), I would do my best to find similar, but it might not be identical.

The pattern is a little ... how shall I put this ... light on certain details. It actually provides a link to Ravelry stashes for the yarn, which is nice, but all she says is that she used "blue" and "gray" yarn. In the pattern photos, though,  the blue at least is clearly more than one shade of blue, and in that Rav link, even accounting for variations in people's cameras and lighting, are a variety of colorways in the blue family but clearly not all the same. It's not easy to reverse-engineer, is what I'm saying.

I tried Michaels on Saturday, since that's nearest to me, but they had nothing even close. I was surprised how little yarn they had, actually, at least at that particular store. I had a bunch of other errands to do, so I didn't go farther afield, but on Sunday, I trekked up to Joann's, which had much more yarn, and found something that, although not quite as boucle as the Sensations Rainbow, should look pretty similar to what the pattern used, I hope. 

I cast on last night, and it felt nicely normal to be knitting again (after close to a week without doing it!). It's not exciting, but it looks like it will be satisfying knitting, at least. I'll take that as a win.