Knotty Knickers

45 R.P.M.

Because I know cool people, I will assume that those reading this have an idea what the image above is of.

It belongs to Alex.  He and a mate got three or so jukeboxes to fix up for a friend's 18th and each kept one.

But it's not just any ol' jukebox.  No.  Looksy here -

Not long ago Sophie's husband told me that I might be mistaken about being the cradle robber of the relationship since Alex's penchant for Jimmy Barnes showed him out as a 40-something old man.  That he has a jukebox that plays 45 rpm records might be another reason to ponder if our age difference isn't reversed.  (We can take into consideration my level of immaturity and that all one requires to reduce me to crying fits of laughter is the single word 'dookie', but let's not just now.)

But Alex having a jukebox is not even the story I want to share today.

The story is that we've had two small boxes packed to capacity with extra records and a heap of things on the jukebox that neither of us cared overly for.

A couple weeks back on a particulary homey weekend I said we should organize the records and replace the ones we never listened to with ones we actually would.  The jukebox is old and often pulls the wrong number after you punch one in, but I'm okay with that.  Long as it pulls randomly from stuff I like.

In an act of organizational chaos our lounge soon looked like this:

With little piles cropping up like so.

Not everything was singles.  Or anything we recognized.  There were many duplicats of Bros, for instance.  I don't know who they are, and we didn't play a record by them.  Their blond visages sorta wigged me out.  Now that I know, thanks to the wonders of wikipedia, that they were managed by a guy who had managed Pet Shop Boys, I might not have minded them it turns out.

I was amused that Cordelia was so keen to protect some of the records.

She had every reason to though.  Hidden deep at the bottom of Alex's second hand 45rpm stash was this shining beauty, representative of all my hippie childhood of the 1980s could possibly offer of goodness:

And that, my friends, is the story I wanted to share with you. 

How I came to own a read along copy of The Dark Crystal on 45rpm record.

 

I Say THANK YOU

After a slow meander through the market for groceries and the annual used book sale that supports Founders Park, we returned home and I had a package waiting.  A GOOD package.  A beautiful, kind, generous package from indigodragonfly - the clever Joss Whedon-loving handdyeing company.

I'm told it was all down to Otis, but I suspect that Kim and Ron had a good deal to do with it as well.

Apparently there was a first plan to send over some mini sock skeins alone.

Two Merino Sock, one Merino Silk Sock, and one MCN Sock mini skeins - just perfect for working into the sock blanket.  I'm excited to try the three bases one after the other and report on my findings.  I'm getting more into learning about the different bases and sussing what they are good for.

Happily, for these four plane-phobic travellers, they, like Diane Court, had the handsome and attentive Lloyd Dobler to keep them calm for the journey.

See:

hehehehehehe - that makes me smile to no end!  

What doesn't make me smile is that the wonderfulness that is Say Anything doesn't seem to have filtered here to NZ.  The...not heathens, I like them...but something like that.  Philistines!  That's right.  (You can't put a check next to a word you look up in an online dictionary, sad.)

This FULL SKEIN of gifted fantasticness is a MCN Lace - that's 526m/575yd of delight.  Truly.  How did Otis know that I'm enjoying my first true lace project and looking forward to doing another?  Or that I've several patterns that I make mean eyes at because I want them but haven't the meterage to do them?  

Tonight will include pattern shuffling for sure.  I want this on the needles as soon as the Fleece Artist Suri Blue (sadly discontinued) Ishbel is off.  (That's going well, by the way.)

Okay, one more photo and then we must be off to help the family.  

Admission: I may try for a indigodragonfly club slot next year.  They have things like this: AWESOME!

Still A Film Geek

Okay, so last night I woke up at 3am with a migraine.  I went to the bathroom, took some drugs, and thankfully fell back asleep.  Alarm when off before 7am and I still had a massive issue with my head.  It felt like instead of the usual steel rods that are inserted to create the migraine, steel sheets had been forced into my skull.  I stumbled to the lounge for four bottles of water, nearly passing out from the effort, and went back to bed.  11am, woke up, felt hungry, though the head still hurt.  Had breakfast and was reminded at what a wonderful place I'm staying (I ate the entire basket of strawberries and they asked if I wanted more!) while thankfully getting to chat on FB with Big Spoon.  When I fell back to sleep instead of going to school I had dreamt he came and nursed me a bit...I hate being alone with migraines somedays more than others - today I was not happy about it at all.  

At any rate, Big Spoon had to go to sleep and get ready for another day of work, 6 hours ahead of me as he, leaving me in front of the computer to surf.  Can't knit on lace with a headache, even one that is subsiding, it's a recipe for frogging.  Instead, on one the knitting groups I got put through to a link to Buffy: 7 Seasons in Under 4 Minutes.  Funny stuff that.  (I'm on two Whedon related knitting groups - go on, laugh.)  Made me miss my dvds something awful.  In the comments regarding the fun of the Buffy montage there was mention of Edward Cullen Stalks Buffy...that sounded interesting.

I followed it through to watch it.  I cannot express enough how happy this made me.  People - this is BRILLIANT.  It showed that my film geek heart beats strong still.  I can't believe I didn't catch this sooner.  Really - I love vampires and werewolves and the stories they are in partly because of how in making humans not human we can dissect and discuss human behaviour.  Faerie tales, folk tales, mythology, all these serve, or can, or should, to highlight our own realities.  The strengths and weaknesses, to way things are and ways that they could be, both positive and negative.  

It's been a long time since I watched something and everything lit up inside me from recognition.  This clip did it.  The storytelling as well as the way it's done.  There were a few people who complained about the colours not synching up between the two source materials, and the answer given for this is exactly what I got from watching it.  It serves to make an observation based on juxtaposition, and it is done very skillfully.  

I know that it will lighten the hearts of some of you similarly.  That others of you will not be amused.  I know that I think you should all watch it.  That's why I've figured out how to embed it!  Look, below!

Read the article by the creator too.  Along with the comments.  Go here for that.  Please.  Do go.  Then come back - and tell me what you thought.

Berrylicious

I have a major love for berries.  Raspberries most especially.  With the painful bloating they cause me, and their multitude of infinitesimal seeds that lodge cruelly between teeth and can't be removed save with heading inducing gymnastics of the tongue, strawberries can't dare compare to the smaller, quilted and silky skinned raspberries.  

When I hear the word 'berries' I immediately conjure the voice and inflection of Sarah Patterson's Rosaleen saying it excitedly and shooting off the path in The Company of Wolves, Neil Jordan's 1984 direction of the short story by Angela Carter.  For that action she gets a swift remand from her Gran, Angela Lansbury, and the three rules of life for young women in faerie tale land are explained: 'Don't stray from the path, don't eat a windfall apple, and never trust a man who's eyebrows meet in the middle.'  

Though Little Red Riding Hood is my most deeply beloved faerie tale heroine (and in the early, oral versions and newer feminist ones there is no doubt of her intelligence, bravery, and heroism), and though I find red quite a stimulating and tantalizing colour on film (with the exception of Speilberg's use of it in Schindler's List where I thought it was outrageously manipulative and absurdly cliche), in my own real life embodiment of this archetype I employ raspberry.  It's slightly softer than red, but deeper as well.  It's has a freshness that is almost alarming, and unbalancing.  

Raspberry exists somewhere between the girlish inanity of pink and the forced reclamation of womanly power of red.  I think, in short, that it's the sort of shade that would please a goddess.  Which is why I am forever drawn to cosmetic counters, with their rows and rows of variations on a theme, none ever quite meeting my expectations of shade and texture nearly as well as an actual raspberry, plucked off the bush and eaten immediately, or admired on the plant and moistened by a good watering (better yet - rain!), or even the flash frozen bagged ones whirled into an afternoon smoothie.

Additional: in looking up The Company of Wolves on wikipedia I've just discovered there is a limited edition dvd with director's commentary - WANT, WANT, WANT!  Off now to FIND!

Trilogy Trail Three

I needed something to do today. Something air related. (Head is all thinky thinky and I want to go up into air, go figure.) Truthfully, I wanted something to do yesterday but it was available until today. Despite doing it today and therefore pushing back dyeing and spinning wool until tomorrow, I am glad as all get out I went nerd and spent the day with Trilogy Trails. They run tours to Lord of the Rings filming sites. When I told Leonesse she responded with an appropriately long bout of laughter. If you read that and had to stifle your own snort, don't bother. I snorted at myself for even considering it.

The highlight of the Trail Three option I picked: being in a iddle biddle plane.

Being the single person on tour with only a honeymooning couple along for the ride made it clear I got the front single seat, which was spectacularly gratifying. Hard to see a bit, as I'm not so very tall, but overall that is no reason to have been upset. It rocked hard core to be shotgun!

Was picked up at 8:30am and arrived back before 4pm. Long day, with 5 take offs and landings, lots of wind, much sheep shit and tussock grass, wonderful looking mountain ranges from far and near, shades of water from opaque turquoise to royal blue to greenstone green, and more images of yt in lipstick with a headset on. Lots of wandering about the Plains of Rohan too. I could even have put my ear where Viggo Mortensen put his listening for the Urakai who'd captured Merry and Pippin. I didn't. Wasn't tempted. Just liked being far away from people and feeling the wind and listening to birds while looking at the world.

Before I booked my tickets, during a drive on I-5 when in one of those not unrare but still breath taking moments Mt. Rainier loomed large and clear, her mountainous single breast glowing with snow and sunlight, I asked if it was alright for me to leave home. Mount Rainier has been my instinctual symbol of the Divine Feminine as a force in this world to be reckoned with. In the distance, which would not be distant enough should she let loose her internal fires, she patiently looked down upon my life in the Pacific Northwest and waited for the day when I looked back. I mean really looked back. The way I know I saw Mount Rainier that day: I cried for the rest of the daylight hours in wonder that breath entered me so effortlessly and without asking anything of me, in amazement that without my intending to the breath I sent out supported other beings with what they needed. I bawled for the fragility of my own tender flesh and the other bodies I had known kindness from: my parents, my ancestors, friends, lovers, pets, flowers, grass, and water in more shapes than I have ever known how to count. Before the day when I asked my mountain mother if I could leave I didn't realize I even needed permission. Certainly there was arranging to be done with my human mother for furry babies and belongings. Yet this was my soul seeking reassurance that I would be a firmly supported abroad as I felt myself to be at home. Not by people, though that need was present enough in its way. I needed affirmation that no matter where on the Earth I might travel I would be able to keep the wholeness I felt to be true uppermost in heart. That I wouldn't falter and think one speck of dirt separate from any other. I could tell you how that promise was made and has been kept yet I won't. All that is needed to know is that Mount Rainier said yes to me; that Mount Cook sends love back. Because all earth is connected, though huge oceans, nationalism, and our forgetful human minds might tell us otherwise.

Karl Urban Said Ciao To Me

I'm in Kiwi land and met a Kiwi actor from my most cherished show (even I snigger at it sometimes, so don't be shy) - how does that not require a blog post?

If you don't know who Karl Urban is, I feel sorry for you. It means you are uninitiated into the wonder that is Xena: Warrior Princess, that you haven't drooled over the blonde human in Lord of the Rings, seen him try to wipe the floor with Matt Damon's ass in The Bourne Supremecy, or speak Norse and be bloody bad in Pathfinder. I pity you. (I only pity myself for having issues trying to find the New Zealand films he and other Xena alum have been in. In fact, I've been considering if a video store membership is available to me while here so I can find some of the titles I want to watch.)

I've read mention of the celebrity hold Auckland has over New Zealand. Forget the fact that Weta is based in Wellington and created the many rich effects that gave the LotR triology such depth and believability, the Kiwis don't seem bothered by that. (Weta created the real looking fire effects part way through filming, it was revolutionary.) Ponsonby, where I have been staying is touted as the place to find them. This suburb (2km west of the CBD and not a bad walk, rolling hills rather than Seattle's kamakazi grades), as I explained to Leonesse, is a Wallingford/Belltown mix. Upscale shops, swish eateries and bars, heritage houses that are on wee little lots and sell for way massive lots. It seems fitting then, that walking down the main street (Ponsonby Street, dig?) on my way to post a box of NZ goodies I should walk past Karl Urban outside a realtors window, pointing out a house to a gent that was his father.

I kept walking, but I slowed.

Not two cars length on I pivoted around and strolled back.

Now I have a photo to commemorate this little surprise event in my life. Not just paper and pen scrounged up, for y.t., which I really wouldn't need to have done anyway - I have a signed image of this guy as Cupid I bought off ebay, after all, so meeting him could have been the completion of the admiration loop....

I have only been meeting Yoga celebs for the past few years. The majority are sweet, humble, humans. They cuss, they eat meat, they are lively women (with the odd male thrown in the mix). My actor encounters are impressive beyond the scope of the Yoga world though, and a thing of interest to me - how I keep the memory, when and how I share it, the response garnered, all very intriguing. Some of the names are immediately fawned over by critics and average film-goer alike. I might have recycled my autograph book but I still recall who I met and how they struck me. Honestly, I can't remember if the thing did get put out of the house, but I know I thought about it, as a final act of freeing myself from the idea of being in the film industry, caring overly about it even as a lay celluloid fan, and, mainly, in revolt to the cult of celebrity that exists worldwide and the random, careless hoarding that we are all far too susceptible to. However, once in a while even I am slightly taken aback at the talented folk I got to meet.

Today had a overlay of delight, not just respect, with it. Not awe, just pure pleasure. A good last day in Auckland occurrence.

While meeting folks should be enough, and has been generally the case for me, getting the digicam to capture it has a glory unique at present. My own memory is what is affected by these instances, and I myself am the one most pleased. You can see that in the photo, yes? That's the beauty of image, rather than a ink scrawl - it shows interaction of a different sort. And, while I can recall it for however long my brain cells keep functioning in a manner helpful to the act, now it's also visible to the circle that is my extended family, my friends, who are in a way an extension of my self, and for whom I've taken on the blog in service of.

Vanity in Trees, B&W, and Naked

AC028: Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War

Release Date: September 25, 2007

For a limited time, Stars’ new album, In Our Bedroom After The War, will be packaged as a double-disc featuring a DVD (no additional cost). The bonus DVD, entitled “Are We Here Now?” is a 55-minute documentary of Stars’ live performances and interviews while touring their last album, Set Yourself on Fire. Watch the first single's video here and follow the link to see a clip of the documentary.

“In Our Bedroom is Rent as written by the Smiths, earnest and theatrical, full of characters desperate for love and some sense in the world.” – Village Voice

I am simply certain that one of my dear friends wishes to buy this for me and keep it safe and sound from it's release date, when I'll be...in Rotorua, North Island, NZ, until the time I return stateside- April 25th. You do, don't you? Maybe you do not realize how much you want to satiate my love for Stars. Trust me though, it's there! I mean - documentary DVD with the album! How could you not enable my continued love-sick state for this band!

Perhaps it would be noble and virtuous to confess that I've already bought this album off iTunes where it's been for sale for a while. Brilliant marketing, that. Sell it on iTunes, all legal and the like, a couple months before the release. And, despite my insistent urge to buy a solid copy when it comes out, make it absolutely essential by pulling this docutmentary 2 disc stuff on me. It's Fitzgerald smart! I MUST HAVE IT!

There is almost a smiling theme to these photos. Except for the ones in which I pull that face which has gotten me described as a scary bitch since I was 12 years old. I also notice that I seem to have two decades of looks to reference: 30s depression face, and 40s brunette war glamour. There is that 50s bad horror films sort of camp as well, but it crops up with much less frequency than the other two. Which would makes sense as Gene Tierney is my eyebrow Goddess. She rocked. And Dana Andrews was hot. I'm glad they hook up at the end of Laura.

Everyone in Seattle on November 16th should definitely go see Stars at the Showbox. It would make me spin with glee. I'll be...on the Queen Charlotte Coastal Track outside of Picton, South Island, NZ. Being in a foreign country is my only excusable reason for not being at the show myself. That being so, it is only right and proper and godly that my friends should go in my stead. You could throw yourselves a 'We Miss Jesse Party' and go!

There is also a mystery song now on their MySpace page now that I'm drooling over: The Golden Chain. You can play it on the site but I've seen no way to purchase it - as of yet! In time I will though. I swear it, on all my old 80s teen flick soundtrack cassette tapes, mouldering away where ever they might be.

And with that, my dears, I sign off for nearly a week. I'm into Seattle for Granma visiting, REI shopping, birthday outings with lionnesses I love, and, most importantly, to push further West to the Olympic peninsula for camping. It will be my forced backpack trial.

If you can believe it, I've pared my hiking backpack and supplies to 30 pounds. Which gives me plenty of food room. The green Patagonia backpack I love and carry all around will also accompany me on the Grand Tour. In fact, it is going to be very leisure class journey cool and get shipped on ahead of me when I tackle the wild and wooly portions of my trip(though I think the actual sheep encounters really won't be wild at all and will mostly be in yarn shops).

All this minutia of luggage has created a terrible lust for this. It comes in green. It looks fantastic in green. A perfect combination of stylish and solidly rugged. I saw it first in Outdoor's Gear of the Year issue. I wouldn't get upset about having this or this or this either.

I will probably be a very bad ducky and order the green one before I even leave for New Zealand though. Because I'm that way. And I'm almost sad to be planning to travel through Australia by rail and not have decent luggage to play out my 40s brunette war glamour fantasies with.

YarnMama's Birthday

Got in yesterday evening to attend YarnMama's bday dinner. It was Village Volunteers benefit night at Canyon's in Montlake Terrace where we had it so that rocked - food, friends, do-gooding all rolled together.

I didn't get that many good photos actually, but here is a selection of the better ones I managed to squeeze off.

Afterwards Leonesse and I drove back to her house, played with Poopy in the backyard for a bit, and then walked up to the Crest. Saw Hot Fuzz (trailer here) and it was HYSTERICAL! I wasn't sure I'd like the two main actors outside of the brilliant Shaun of the Dead, but I thoroughly enjoyed them. The soundtrack was great, the blood and gore was funny, the suspense was silly and done well, and of course - it's British comedy, so how could it rate anything but well with me?

Fauns in the Wood

Went to see Pan's Labyrinth last night with friends and family. Mr. Couv - thanks for the early reccomendation, it was quite good! However, and some of you have already been subjected to this view: it is a fantasy not a fairy tale. I like the spelling this way more, just so you know: faerie.

Had tea at Remedy Tea (my second visit of the day, the hunt for species of the opposite sex having been rather productive there earlier). DDoll and I are camera lovers. Kari is as well, but not nearly to the same degree. L&P is not so pleased with the set up. She thinks she takes bad photos. I've told her she just doesn't take enough photos and that by extraordinary increase in the number taken the odds that a stunner will be found, or a good number of very decent ones at the least. But she resists. I mean, look at her flipping me off! That's not very love or peace like now is it! Still, with three loved ones around her we wittled down her defenses. Of course, then we had her laughing so hard at the idea that she was nearly crying from it and could not remain still for the shots. All said and tallied: 78 pictures were snapped and remained on the camera. Some were immediately deleted from existence. Others are here, filling the world with deleriously navel gazing beauty.

What else, eh? Well - the tea date went well. And by well I mean to say that there was a concerted effort to reclaim Volunteer Park bushes for the heterosexually inclined. Don't be like that! Nothing went in any place! I'm a little past that on a first encounter. But just. It was just a spot of playful heavy petting. Perfectly fine. Good kisser managed to not even once catch my labret or mash teeth. Didn't reduce me to giggles when touring around my neck. If his back was not healing I'm certain I would have been hoisted (much to my delight) up. Maybe that can come later... Snow White did make allusions earlier today to my goal of being picked up and had against a wall, this guy does fit the bill to do it, and happily so. Circus has a partner and is only out for extracurricular friends. Which is what I'm made for at the moment. I have a terrible case of 'short timers' due to the world travelling. So we had fun and are talking of future outdoorsy misbehaviour. My favourite bit was when he emailed me a thank you (he texted last night) and told me that his partner loved hearing about it and liked the sound of me already. I think that's very civilized. I possibly was a Roman orgy freak though.

Aside from a good, dirty make out, we spent some while laughing and trying to deflect the park's wandering homos from our little area. I wondered if we needed to pay rent for our space as it seemed to be a highly sought after locale. I got the sense from their buttoned flannels and tidy pant, from the glasses and decent cars, that these men have in very little way integrated, incorporated, or at all embrassed their sexual proclivities. And that is saddening to me. If I sensed that they were slimy little park wankers, no empathy would have arisen. That not being the case, let us all hope that in the future days people will be free and courageous to follow their own instincts (only so far of course as those instincts are harmful to no one, there are acts I think should be dissuaded from, disapproved of, and disemboweled for).

Miss Ivy L. would like to say that she may have been misquoted and actually used the word 'insane' rather than 'idiot.' Let's read it: She's not a not insane. OR She's not a not idiot. Either way works. And my little cheek muscles quiver and beg respite when I think on the sentence structure. Really, for sarmt smart girls we do amuse ourselves with bad English sometimes.

Here a last picture from the night that gets the posting go ahead - me and Pappy. He's a good guy. He and Mummy are on again. They are weird, not at all conventional, and very strongly represent one portion of my ethical, philosophical, and spiritual world views. Add Elfquest to boot, and you've pretty well got me!

Keanu, Hugh, Vince, & Yarn

D UPDATE:
The Foreigner has been advised to go to our bank and sign to have himself removed from the joint account. It's the simplest thing to do to make it mine and not be shuffling money into a new account with a number I don't have memorized. Also, I'm told that when he and I go to file for divorce it'll cut down on one of us having to be served the papers (because we'll both be there) and that I can change my name at that time (it's considered part of the process apparently). After that, it's 90 days waiting. To your right you'll see the main way I'm dealing with the whole situation and it's resulting migraine agitation, as well as the sly way Mr. Moo attempts to move in on my brown sugar butter cream frosting.

* * * * *
Spent last night at L&P's. Didn't go to the gym - both of us are having fussy bellies, and it makes no sense to output energy before you've input any. So we had lots of tea and mock chicken at Saigon Pearl and went to her house to do some work. That amounted to her reading the little blurb I hastily sent our Chakra Vinyasa peeps last week.

In a brilliant move of high intensity work ethic, I brought along with me Feeling Minnesota which I rented for us - it has her Keanu Reeves, and my Vincent D'Onfrio, and save for them, was utter crap. No wonder I never watched it when it came out. It reeks of main stream striving for indie status that the 90's were full of. Cameron Diaz's character was an awful bratty slut, and a very pale, disjointed, heartless shadow of Patrica Arquette's brilliant turn as Alabama in True Romance. Vince was great (of course! My dad would have liked his oddness lots.) and Keanu was plump and sweet (very groomed hair, that was a little weird.) so the eye candy at least served us well. Definitely should have broken out the sake and had ourselves a good time with liquid assistance. As it was, eye candy fuelled a very in depth discussion of sex toys.

Went to bed after midnight and kicked it to the gym by 8:30 (after having very odd dreams about people I went to high school with and being in a sauna/hot tub with them fully clothed). Brought our own handy wipes, got some cardio in, actually did a few arm exercises on the machines, swam briefly, sat in the hot tub with some Noah and the Ark lady, and then were on the receiving end of TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE. We only have four days of our passes left, but I'm not sure we'll even step foot on premise again. It was astoundingly insulting, presumptious, and rude. And let's leave it at that, shall we?

On the knitting front: I had to rip Isobel back yesterday. Something in the armholes length and the bust increases was displeasing. I actually hadn't worked on it since Knit Night at Village Yarn. Got the thing back on, cable cast on included, with little trouble. But now I'm a little leary of it and will have to wait until I am with kind-spirited knitters who can keep me calm. I am concerned that having measured myself 4 times before starting I still cast on too small. Very rarely will you hear me bemoan my bust, but making clothing to fit such ampleness nicely is difficult.

There is supposed to be a going away knitting dinner at the Houseboat tonight - full of lovely, compassionate, experienced knitters who fit the bill above. (Wondering if Miss Ivy L. will be there. I'm assuming she's been bewitched by the aura of Peru as I haven't heard from her in ages and she should be home by now.) If tonight doesn't happen, I'm waiting to hear about whether or not I'm to hang with YarnMama this Sunday; she is good, even tempered encouragement about these things. Honest as all get out too - if it looks bad and she doesn't see blocking as helping it in the long run, I'll start again.

Worked for a little on the round Rick Rack poncho I've had on needles for about 5 months. Didn't get far as I was watching Jeeves and Wooster a second time through and still had to drool at Hugh Laurie in his youth, as well as the delightful dialogue everyone was spouting forth. Rather alarmed that Stephen Fry is appealing in that. Is it odd? Am I the only one? He's dasteredly tall which gets me quickly. Apparently the two men were introduced to each other back at Cambridge by Emma Thompson and have been best friends for ages - fabulously cool, yes?

Oh, yeah, knitting: I should force myself back onto my Granma's Goldilocks shawl - if for no other reason than I have more of that yarn on hold at Village Yarn that I'm to go buy today (most delish shade of deep pink!) and I need to prove to myself I can do it! As irritatingly simple as the shawl is I am buying the skein for myself because I think that would be a good project to fly to New Zealand with - simple, light weight, pretty and not too space hogging when made up, also - something I would wear.

Or I could get the fingerless gloves from One Skein rolling along once more. I'm on the second one, not even past the extra wraps yet. The simplicity of garter stitch combined with the wee US 1 needles and three threads of lace weight alpaca is lovely, but requires some attention. As does Granma's shawl - I mean, mohair loop, it is one bizarre texture to have between the fingers, not to mention how often I grab a fiber loop not a stitch loop. So, where will I focus my attention?