reprieve

took a little break from knitting the last couple weeks because Wes switched to day shift and he's been home every night. yay! also, Tia and I have ramped up our running program in preparation for the Santa Ynez Wine Country half-marathon on May 12 and by the time I get home from running most nights I just want to eat and then pass out. Blogging has also been on hold because work has been totally insane ... However, I have a couple of projects still going and this weekend when Wes and I flew to Arizona for Taylor's adoption party I got back on track and work today is slow, so I'm playing catch-up on lots of things!
Mom came up to visit a couple weeks ago after we went to see Wicked at the Pantages Theatre in LA. She'd been talking about wanting a shawl for a while, so I took her with me to AFY to pick out the yarn herself. I am glad I did because I never would have picked out what she picked (Louisa Harding: Impressions. click here to see Mom's color choice - it's #1), but it has been really fun to work with and I think it will be gorgeous and go with lots of items she already has in her closet. No real pattern for a shawl (sort of patterned after this one but with different yarn, larger needles and no buttons); I did a swatch to figure out how many stitches I would get per inch and figured out the cast-on from there. Now I just have to knit (in moss stitch on 10.5 needles) until it is long enough. Hopefully we have enough yarn already - it was kind of pricey!
I am also working on finishing up my first two pairs of socks. I got some more navy yarn to finish up Wes' socks when Mom and I made our AFY trek and in the interim I have been working on the great bittersweet socks for Grandma, although I've only been getting in a few rows at a time on lunch breaks lately. Hope to finish them soon because it's starting to warm up around here and the need for socks to wear to bed won't be as urgent.
On Friday I joined a KAL (knit-a-long) with the Sexy Knitters Club to motivate me to cast on for Sahara. I've had the yarn for this since the Super Bowl Sunday sale at AFY, but I am a little intimidated by the crochet cast-on and mostly haven't had the time. the KAL officially starts April 1, so I'm going to try and finish up the socks before then, but no promises since we're packing packing packing to move to a more affordable apartment next week (yay for saving money for a real house!). Knitting has always been more of a leisurely, relaxing project for me, so I am not going to kill myself trying to get projects finished instead of packing, but I do need a break from boxes and sorting every once in a while.
p.s. after the party on Saturday I had my first attempt at teaching when Renee asked me to help her get started on a scarf. Her girls came to her asking if they could all knit together, which is awesome, except first Renee has to learn how! She was a fast learner, I just had to help with the cast-on mostly! I love new knitters :)