Note to self: listening to lots of hardanger fiddle to distract yourself from natural disasters is a bad idea.  It will not cheer you up, because while the music is beautiful, it is not cheery.  It is decidedly un-cheery.  Particularly when you’re thinking about water-related tragedies.  You should know this by now, self.

On Sunday I purposefully took the gorgeously sad Norwegian CDs out of the CD player and selected some significantly cheerier Welsh, Irish, and Appalachian music to listen to.  Because I didn’t want to scare the gals away.  A few of us spun, knitted, wove, sewed, and chatted for a while that afternoon.  Jayme and Jill now believe that Scott exists.  At least I think they do.  And they got to meet Simone and Monika, so at least two of my Wednesday knitting pals will have faces to attach to stories of my spin-weave-knitty-Celty friends, and vice versa.  Jill is busily earning her leather-working merit badge, Jayme has had a chance to wheel-spin for a bit, Monika has most of the work done on a fetching soon-to-be-vest and some pants for a tall friend, and Simone is almost done spinning up the gorgeous variegated green merino for Rowan.  All of my accomplishments were baking and cleaning related, but that’s all good.  Poor Scott had no choice but to eat a lot of Irish Cream Cake and banana bread between stints working on the garage.  The cruelties he endures are legion: countless slices of homemade baked-goods washed down by countless cups of fresh coffee with nothing but Baliey’s for creamer.  I should learn how to hold onto that guy one of these days.

Monday was Mother-Daughter day, and I finally got to collect the lovely presents my folks brought back from Nova Scotia.  The mystery yarn my Mom got me is gorgeous in its blue/silver/pink twisty goodness.  It seems to be a wool-silk blend, and it’s definately hand-spun and hand-dyed.  There may be as much as 200 yards.  I have no idea what to make with it.  And the lovely measuring spoons of leafy-silvery-beauty!  Aiding and abetting the baking–that’s what that is.

Mom and I wandered around Occoquan and did some shopping.  I got a lovely new knitting basket, a spurtle, and a fan-fricking-tastic piece of Lucy pottery.  When I got home, I cast on for the Kimono shawl from Folk Shawls, which I will be making out of two strands Knit Picks Alpaca Cloud in Tide Pool.  I don’t think I have enough yarn to make one as large as the example in the book, but I’ll see if I can score some more in the same dye lot.  If not, then maybe it will grow a contrasting border.  Or it will just be a scarf, darn it.

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