Ah, that's better!

As they say, "This too shall pass", and they did.  Ah, so much better now!

The new baby next door made her grand entrance on Friday morning, right on schedule.  We got just a short glimpse of her today when they came home from a short outing.  We delivered the Moderne Baby Blanket and admired her. She was sleeping and mom was pretty tired so no pictures taken yet.

I've been working on a Pi Shawl, in honor of Elizabeth Zimmerman's 100th birthday. 

After that acrylic garter-stitch blankie, it is such a pleasure to knit with nice, fine weight wool on little needles!   EZ's formula for the round shawl is sheer genius; there are no more than 5 or 6 increase rows, no matter how large (or small) you make your shawl.  Basically, you double the number of stitches every time the number of rows double.  That leaves lots of space for whatever lace pattern you want.  Or not.  As EZ would say, "Knitter's choice".  I'm doing an eyelet row on every 6th, so the increases hide nicely in all those concentric rings.  I'm about 1/3 of the way through the 576-stitch rows so starting to contemplate what edging I'll use on this.  I think a nice sideways garter edge would be nice, or maybe a little pointed edge?  Definitely nothing too fancy; I think it would detract from the simplicity of the shawl itself.

Also done is the spinning of the heathered merino.

The picture doesn't really do this justice; the color is much rosier than what it appears.  The terra cotta walls in the family room give everything an orange cast without natural sunlight.  Now that this is done, I'll be moving on to the coral to ply with this.  I wasn't  able to spin early this year and had forgotten how relaxing and gratifying it is.  I've been going to The Knitting Bee for their monthly spinning day; it's nice to be back in a spinner's circle again!

After this month's spinning bee, a few of us went to Goodwill looking for sweaters to unravel for the yarn.  I got a pretty cabled merino/angora with a single gold thread plied in; it should make a nice winter shawl or maybe a lacy cardigan.  I also brought home a great tea thermos; very sleek stainless steel with a glass insulated liner.  While we were pawing through the sweaters, Tami found a "knitting sweater" in my size so of course it landed in the cart as well.  And since everything was marked with the color for half-price that day, the entire shopping spree cost less than $10.  SCORE!  I forgot to take pictures of this stuff and it's too dark now, so maybe next time.

Last weekend, the girls at Frog Creek Fibers had a garage sale of their yarns.  One of them is moving, so they're clearing out.  I got 4 skeins of sock yarn (like I need more of THAT); three in wool/bamboo in "manly" colors which are intended for ToolMan and one in cashmere/silk in soft pastels.  I don't have anything specific in mind for it, but Mom did ask for another pair of socks so it might be hers.  I forgot to take pictures of this, too, so you'll just have to wait until later.