A day of cleaning and art and yarn.

Kind of in that order.

I got up and cleaned, mostly shelving ten million knitting books. Those OTHER books I ordered this week? Definitely oozing onto the third shelf. I'm gonna have to clear off the junk on that shelf so there's room for everything. I'm thinking I should hold some kind of contest to give away some books, but darn it... I want them all. We'll see. Maybe I can give away my copy of "The Principles of Knitting."

Haha. Just kidding.

Then I blocked a scarf someone sent me. I got paid for it, so I guess I'm a professional blocker now, but I feel like a fraud. At any rate, I took photos and will do an upcoming tutorial on how to block lace scarves, so we'll all have some benefit. (And, April, the scarf turned out really nice. Good job knitting it... I hope you wanted a sixty-inch scarf, 'cause lace stretches, particularly when knit with wool. Just caught the new by-line on your blog, and am laughing my ass off. Nice new photo, too.)

Then (I know you guys live for these run-downs of my days), I decided it was time The Baby learned about crayons. She's right-handed. The odds were in favor of it.


That's me, leaning over her shoulder. She seems to prefer the flat end of the crayon, because she can get bigger swipes of color that way. It was very interesting; she caught on really fast and was quite deliberate about how and where she put the color. None of that random scribbling you see from most young kids. (I'm sure she'll get to it.) I'd post a photo of her work in it's place of honor on the refrigerator, but the camera batteries are dead. She cried when we put the crayons away. I think we've got a budding artist. When grandma and grandpa get here next week, it's gonna be finger painting.

Anyway. The Elann order came, and it contained the $10 shade card for Highland Wool. I confess I was mildly disgusted by the price - most shade cards run $5 or less, and in this case, they're the only ones selling the yarn so it's assured the shade card will lead to purchase from them so it's almost like advertising. HOWEVER. It's a REALLY nice shade card, worth every penny. Eight-inch samples of each of NINETY-EIGHT COLORS. Eeeeeeee! Ninety-eight freakin' colors!!!! I've found the yarn I need to do several projects I have in the pipe for the Year of Me. It should felt, too, and there are enough colors if I ever have the time and lose my mind and try to knit the Map Coat. Happy happy happy. Should work just fine for any Fassett lunacy, into the bargain.

So, that's my day. Oh, and I wrote a rude review of the Holiday Issue of Vogue Knitting but I can't get asshole Blogger to upload the photos; I'll try that once I post this. (Or not. I just had to go through all sorts of BS to upload the next baby shot.)

And one more baby photo, becase I know that's the only reason any of you really come here. From October of '05, it's another of our favorites. She was two months old.