Posting when nothing happens

Not much is happening. The weather outside is getting springy, my children are getting antsy, and I, of course, am still knitty.

If you'd like an updated picture of my shawl, just imagine a purple blob. That's really what it looks like. In some lights it's a red-violet, in other lights, blue-violet. But regardless of the lighting, it's a blob. I'd use some plumber's tape and weed whacker string to de-blob it, but it's just not worth a 30 minute trip into town to get the cord.

I did pretty miserably on my goals this week. No letter written, no books at the end of their editing process, and I have a large chunk of Bible study preparation to do this evening. On the positive side, I did finish off my 7th ball of shawl yarn, and made progress on the headbands. I had to set a gray one aside because there wasn't enough yarn in that shade. There was an *impostor* ball of gray in the bag, but once I started knitting from it, its impostrosity became apparent. I removed the impostor, and placed the headband on waste yarn so it could be finished later when the proper bunny yielded up the proper amount of fur.

My daughter has been knitting. Here's a picture of her first pair of socks. They're not quite identical ... she picked a different heel for the second sock than I had her work for the first and sock #2 has a better foot length. She's not about to frog back sock #1 and add an extra stripe before the toe decrease, though. She's just about finished with her Barbie veil, and has started a scarf out of some stash (working from MY stash?!? Eeeek!) using worsted yarn and size 19 Lincoln logs ... um, needles. Her next official project is a poncho for her cousin. We need to pick a pattern and get some yarn ordered. I'm going to order some Dancing sock yarn, since it's being discontinued and I happen to like it. Machine washable, great feel ... if only it didn't have so much orange and yellow!

Now, *this* week I hope to finish editing a book set. All the finer points have been hashed out, as of late yesterday evening, so it's just me and some files between finishing. I also hope to finish chart three of the shawl - there are 13.5 very long rows to go - and get started on the edging. Will four balls of yarn be enough to do 13 rows and some edging? Time will give the definite answer, but...

I now peer into the future with my Calculator of Yarn Estimation. Careful examination reveals that one ball yields about 11,000 stitches, and I estimate the edging to contain ... 22176 stitches (about 1232 stitches in a row, bound off by knitting edging 12 stitches wide, and four stitches get bound off every 6 rows of edging ... so 1232 divided by 4 yields 308 bind-off groupings, times 6 rows times 12 stitches ) Wow. How's that for close? I only have 16000 or so stitches left in the main body of the shawl, so I think I'll have enough yarn with 4 balls.

I de-blobbed my shawl by draping the center of it on the arm of our couch. You can only see part of chart 1 -- none of the 5 repititions of chart 2 - but it's something!