I didn’t get much sleep to speak of between 2 and 7 this morning. At seven I went back to bed for a little over 2 hours. So I’m groggy and mellow today, listening to Abbey Road, Magical Mystery Tour, and watching the gray sky.

Last night, as usual, was fantastic at Village Yarn and Tea for spinning. It’s a big group smashed into a small space, but it’s fun to hear so many conversations going on in any direction, jumping into any and all of them at some point or another throughout the evening.

Isn’t that a fantastic thing about fiber arts? Getting the opportunity to visit with people from different backgrounds and age groups and having something in common? I love it.

I was telling Pat how bad I am with Alpaca, and that I need to practice. When I spun up the black alpaca roving from Madrona, I felt like a newbie spinner with no control at all. It was awful. She said she has buckets of Alpaca fleece just sitting around that she’s tired of. So it looks like we’re all going over to her house on Sunday evening to see Abner and pick up some Alpaca. The kids will be thrilled, and I’m really looking forward to a good lick in the face and burying my nose in his shoulder to breathe him in like old times. If he’s calm enough, I’d also love to put him and Clark nose to nose. Clark hasn’t seen a dog yet.

I’m almost done plying my three bobbins, which aren’t even close to the same length.

So I’m going to be doctoring them with my remaining fleece, trying to even it out.

I got about 10 more rows done on the shawl

and for variety’s sake, here’s a picture of my favorite violet, just beginning to burst with blooms

I spot some Koigu in the top right corner, behind some leaves.

I dug that skein out because one of Abby’s fingerless mitts were stolen on the playground a month or so ago. She said that they fell out of her shirt when she was on the monkey bars, and as she dropped down to get them, a boy with black hair grabbed one and took off. She couldn’t get a good look at him, so she doesn’t know who it was, but one of her mitts is gone, and it hasn’t turned up.

That really sucks.

So, when the shawl is done, I may make another one for her. Since I was improvising as I went the first time, it’s going to be tricky.

My friend Katie came over today for our monthly dieting check in. Neither one of us had anything great to report (she’s still totally kicking my butt), so instead, we spun and ate lunch.

I finished a couple rows on the faroese shawl, and then spun up the last two rolags on a bobbin of that fleece I’ve been griping about for months. It was the third bobbin, so I got to start plying.

It’s very exciting.

I think I’m about half done with the faroese shawl.

I’m almost through the third skein. I can’t knit more than four rows at a time before needing to take a break, and I usually only get through 2-3. I don’t know if it’s because I’m trying to get it done as fast as possible, or if my eyes are going, but it’s been tough.

Tonight is the spinning group at Village. I’m going to take both projects to try to get as much done as possible. And I’m going to once again fondle the three colors of Koigu that I’ve been wanting. Now that I’ve discovered most of the shawls in the Faroese Shawl book are for fingering weight yarn, I’m wanting six skeins of each, instead of just the two for socks.

Dangit.

Liv’s birthday party was today, although her birthday is next week. We’re on spring break right now, and it seemed like a convenient time for a party. It went very well. Better yet, it’s over, and it’s been a long day.

I’m only another 2 to 2 1/2 inches into the shawl. I’ve been knitting on it a lot but it’s slow going, and every other row jumps up the stitch count. I think I have over half of it done length-wise, but I haven’t knit half the stitches yet because it keeps getting wider, and wider, and wider….

I talked with another neighbor yesterday, and they said that my neighbor with cancer isn’t expected to live out the month.

I’m going to go knit some more.

So, I’m finally knitting out of this glorious book. I’ve wanted to for a long time, but the patterns aren’t straight forward. Well, they kind of are, but the book gives you so many sizing and gauge options… plus there is no yardage given. You get the weight of the shawl in the back of the book, but it isn’t easy to find. Anyway, I’ve been a either too intimidated or too lazy to start one. Until now.

My neighbor is dyeing. She’s been in treatment for cancer for years and has just been released for hospice care. I don’t even know if I’m saying that right. I haven’t met her in the year we’ve lived here. She’s been too sick to be out much, but her husband is out with his dog a lot, and is very friendly. I’m so sad for him.

Anyway, a couple days ago I thought about making her a small shawl to maybe bring her a little bit of joy, which is why I was looking at the Angel Lace shawl by Evelyn Clark. But then I thought that triangular shawls don’t fit well, and if she is bedridden and not feeling well, she isn’t going to want to be fussing with a migrating shawl. (She might not even want to wear a shawl at all, I don’t know). But the Faroese shawls came to mind and I went to the yarn store to find something lovely and soft in blue.

I bought some sport weight Frog Tree Alpaca in a beautiful, mellow blue. I started working on it (and re-started, and re-re-started, and, um, yeah, re-re-re-started… I could keep going) on Saturday afternoon. Finally figuring out what I was supposed to do, I started making a little progress, worked on it a lot yesterday, and much of today, and I’m almost two out of the six skeins into it.

I don’t know how much time she has. I’m hoping I finish it before it’s too late.

Sorry. I’m not discussing my health this week. I’m refiguring, and am not yet at a place of conversation.

I’d love to hear all about how your week went, however. Do tell.

Happy Easter! May you either have the strength to refuse or the ability to guiltlessly enjoy. However you choose to spend your holiday, have a wonderful one.

I’ve been haunting the Fiber Trends site to see when Evelyn Clark’s latest shawl pattern is released, and it’s available now.

I saw the shawl in person at the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat in January, and talked with Evelyn a little about it. It is stunning. Simple, but absolutely beautiful, and she said that it would probably be called the Angel Shawl or something.

Well, the Angel Lace Shawl has been released, and I have to say, the picture is all wrong.

This picture would not entice me to buy or knit this shawl. It doesn’t even look like the shawl that I remember. I will probably buy it anyway, because the shawl I remember is so very pretty. I highly recommend it if it’s the shawl I saw, but really, the picture is so different…

Birthday party #2 went very well, and even better than that, it’s over. I’m going to sleep. Tomorrow, I’m going to clean up the mess that is my house, and I’m going to spin.

I’m still horribly tired. Clark is doing much better, but still isn’t sleeping through the night so aside from fighting my own illness, I’m fighting chronically interrupted sleep as well.

It’s a lovely, sunny day. The birds are very sociable and chittery right out the window, and it’s making me happy.

Last night was fun. We visited with family and Hayden, and Abby felt special. We gave her a ukulele, which she has wanted for a couple months.

I don’t have enough mental energy to focus on and plan her school friend party which is immediately after school tomorrow. Likewise, I am unable to craft a well written post. So my ramblings will be fragmented and dull.

But I wanted to say that considering that I just sat down at my spinning wheel for a little rhythmic relaxation, and rather than spin up my prepared rolags I instead decided to card more rolags… I’m guessing that this fleece really sucks. I need to get it done so I can start spinning something more enjoyable. Because it seems to me that spinning should be preferable to hand carding, any day.

And I’m through the heel flaps and turns on both socks. So they’re ready for picking up stitches and working the gussets. Which is too much effort for my energy level. So I carded rolags which takes less thinking but still gets me touching wool. And that’s a good thing, or would be if it didn’t mean I was ignoring the looming 9 year old birthday party breathing down my neck.

Yesterday was Clark’s birthday. He is still sick, so we didn’t do much in the way of celebrating as we’re doing that tonight anyway. But I felt bad for him. This is the only picture I got of his special day.

And today is Abby’s birthday. I’m not feeling that great, although not completely sick either. But I feel tired with all that lies ahead this month. Multiple birthdays, their respective parties, a baptism, a wedding, a fly-in-and-fly-out visit from my mom and my uncle in the midst of an insane weekend (see “wedding and baptism”), self employment taxes… and I have to be forgetting at least 5 things.

Plus, since the girls didn’t get parties two years ago, I told them they could have a party last year. Which was right when we ended up moving and birthing Clark. So I put it off and put it off until it didn’t happen. So this year, there’s no escaping the party throwing. We usually do the extended family thing on their birthday. Then we’re having a party with school friends. Then we’re having a party with church friends (separate only to keep the number of children in my house at any one time a manageable one). Times two because Liv’s birthday is this month also. Plus, both girls are dying to have sleepovers, so they each get one. Yeah, let that all sink in.

I’M TIRED!!

And the party hasn’t even started yet. We have dates fixed for two of the four promised events, and Liv’s sleepover will probably end up happening in May.

I’ve finished the second leg and have begun the first heel flap. This is the first pattern I’ve made that has you decrease for the heel flap. That’s weird. The socks are already a little snug, but I did it anyway thinking that I’d already intended on making the heel flap longer to give some ease.

And I’ve been cabling without a cable needle for the first time. Too lazy to get up and check online to see how its done, I worked out a method myself. It might be how everyone else does it, I don’t know, but it’s working for me.

I started the Uptown Boot Socks from the Winter 2003 issue of Interweave Knits, and a few things have taken me by surprise.

First of all, am I just a huge ignoramous to not have anticipated my Socks that Rock skein of Foo Foo to self stripe? I had no idea it was a swirly striping yarn. Is all Socks that Rock self striping? Do tell.

Secondly, in all the pictures I’ve seen on the internet and in the pattern itself of these particular socks, nowhere have I seen a predominantly right slant. Sure, the right slant looks a bit stronger than the left slant, but in the pattern, it looks like the cabling makes a sort of criss-cross or honeycomb type texture, not right slanting swirlies. So, I have a sock with a left slanting, self striping color pattern, and a right slanting texture pattern. It’s a bit ridiculous.

Ok, it’s extremely ridiculous.

However, I’ve tried it on, and I think I like it anyway. Dunno. I’ve finished the first leg, and will start the second leg when I knit next.

I’m also thinking that I much prefer the feel of wonderful, soft Koigu to the kind of rough, superwash Socks That Rock. BUT, I’m willing to give them a wear and a wash before completely deciding. I’d love to hear any thoughts you have on the subject.

Clark’s still sick as a dog. He’s had a fever all weekend. I’m taking him into the doctor now, and I’ve been feeling yucky all day. Sinus headache, fatigue, the threatenings of a sore throat.

Great. Just what I need.