Knitting as My Constant

It's been an odd week. Rainbow was off from school on Monday, then we were all off yesterday for Yom Kippur, nad then today my office was involved in the president's visit to town. The schedule has been unusual enough that I've been struggling to remember what day it is and who is supposed to be where on what day.

Fortunately, I've had my knitting to keep me sane. It's nice to know that any time I'm feeling out of whack, a few stitches can soothe me.

I finished up the colorful shawl on Monday evening (it took pretty much all night to finish up the picot bind off) and blocked it after services yesterday.

Because the shawl was my lunchtime knitting, that meant I needed a new project, so I grabbed what was left of my third skein of yarn from my Evenlight sweater (most of a skein of BMFA Targhee Worsted) for some holiday mittens. I'm going to use it for a pair of Waiting for Winter Mittens and (if there's enough yardage left) a coordinating hat for my father-in-law for the holidays. After only two lunchtime sessions, I've already made good progress -- one of the reasons mittens make such good projects for gift knitting.

I've also returned to work on Rainbow's Gramps, and I'm only about a quarter of an inch away from starting the neckline shaping on the body.

I'm debating about starting a sweater for me soon or focusing on gift knitting for a while (the holidays are coming up, plus I have a baby gift to knit). Now that it's really starting to be sweater weather, I am feeling the urge to cast on something new, but at the same time I feel like I should get obligation knitting out of the way early so I can focus on knitting for me toward the end of the year. In any case, it feels good to hold my needles again after all the time spent spinning last week.