Yarn Along, and how to get more yarn in my life

Thanks to all who commented last week recommending repositioning the buttons on my Shalom sweater and re-blocking it!  I still need to follow through on the suggestion but have a feeling that is exactly what needs to happen.  I have a few projects that need to be finished off with blocking (and reblocking) and buttons and such...

Each week I visit blogs of ladies who have more than one knitting project on the needles and every week I remember that in the past I never did well at managing more than one project since I never could quite choose which to work on at any given time and then felt guilty for abandoning one or another project (yes... guilty.  Feel free to psychoanalyze me now). After reading Steph's post last week that included how she has a different project for different audiobooks or situations she is in, I realized that would be a way I could squeeze a little more knitting time in each day.  So this week I cast on a pair of brilliant yellow socks in KnitPicks Stroll (I can't put bright yellow anywhere near my face so it will go on my feet as a change!) to keep handy in the kitchen.  Voila!  When I'm sitting at the table waiting for the girls to finish eating lunch or when I'm waiting for something to boil on the stove I can knit a whole row or two and find that the few minutes of something I like to do resets my mind.  It has been a few years since I knit my first two pairs of socks, so I decided to start with a very basic pattern although I do think I will make them more like ankle socks this time around since that's what I often prefer to wear around the house.  I also placed an in-process dishcloth in the car for easy access when Jesse's driving us all somewhere.

Three years ago I started a shawl in Cascade Alpaca Lace Paints but I really had no idea what I was doing in choosing the pattern.  I decided a couple weeks ago that I would rip out the shawl and I'd have yarn to start a shawl that I actually wanted to knit.  This week I took the plunge and pulled out all those tiny lace-weight loops that had been so painstakingly (and too often mistakenly) knit and purled.  I started Helen Stewart's Radiance Shawl and those first fifty rows I've completed have been excellent evening knitting once the kids are down and the house is picked up.  

As far as books go, I have been absorbed in The Woman in White, which I listen to whenever the house is quiet.  I am still so thankful I found CraftLit because I can enjoy and even plow through books that I would never be likely to pick up and read at this point in my life.  I feel like this literature I get to enjoy through my ears is rounding me out and making me a more interesting person... Granted, only more interesting to those who want to discuss classic literature so I guess the jury's out on whether that's actually true or not. I am also still slowly reading North! Or Be Eaten by Andrew Peterson.

Joining up with Ginny.