Instant Gratification

So I was working away on my Flower Basket Shawl, and as I worked, my ball of yarn slowly, slowly, became smaller and smaller. As the ball got smaller and smaller I began to think that sometime, someday, I would have to wind the second ball of yarn. By hand. This thought made me want to cry a little and then hide the unfinished shawl away in the farthest corner of my closet.

Then the day came when I finally used up the last of the ball of yarn. That day was yesterday. When I came to that juncture I found that I had three options: wind the second ball of shimmer for the shawl and continue working on it, wind the skein of Lorna’s Laces that I showed you all a couple of days ago and knit baby socks, or wind both balls of yarn and then figure out which to knit first. Ultimately, I decided to wind the ball of Lorna’s Laces and make the cable rib socks for Marshall and Yoko’s baby boy, Seiya. I’m glad I did. It was instant gratification of the best kind. It was a fast, pretty project that kept my interest. And I fulfilled my obligation to knit up a little giftie for the baby.

Then today, I wound up the second ball of shimmer and am back working on the shawl. I am halfway through with the fourteenth repeat and am considering starting on the border when I’m done with it. We shall see. I want the top edge of the shawl to be at least sixty inches so I’m going to have to stretch and measure when I’m done with the repeat. If it’s not big enough yet, I’ll do sixteen repeats. I’m really loving the shawl these days and getting a little impatient for it to be done. I’m very excited about it and constantly think of times and places when it would come in handy.

Speaking of which, we had a spectacular electrical storm here on Friday. From my office window I spied several lightning strikes touch down and I heard later that a couple thousand homes were without power. It was freaky.