Not that I need another hobby......

I wanted to have a hobby that we could do as a family. My attempts to teach my daughter to knit have failed miserably. No one else except the baby is interested.

So - I picked up a new challenge for us to do as a family. Cleared off the dining room table - which was horribly cluttered (another sad matter). And setup something for us to work on together.

Except guess who has spent the most time there :) I can tell right now this is going to drive me crazy until it's "done". When complete we will have a huge map of the world - I'm thinking about framing it for the play room. Especially if I can tempt the rest of the family to join it.



600+ pieces, so we will be working on it for a while. If you stop by my house - you MUST help us out!

Also - I started another Pi on 3/14, Pi Day. Thanks to Dani and Allison at Knit Night, I had no idea about Pi day - but I had always wanted to take another stab at a Pi shawl. My first mini-Pi was a dissappointment. I thought I would make a plain Pi, but I was sooooooo bored by it I ended it early. It's a great stroller blanket for Jada though.



I made this with Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport - the yarn is perfect for it. I still have over 1/2 the cone left and will use it gain. I just can't get enough of this yarn - such a great basic, work horse yarn - great for lace, garments, color work, socks - anything. And such a great color range.

My current Pi is made out of the softest alpaca you can imagine or atleast that I have in my stash. DK weight and not dyed, just a pure creamy color. I picked this up at Weaving Works i n Seattle where they have generous hanks for 600+ yards for a reasonable $14-15. I picked up 2 hanks of this for a triangle shawl, but I think the Pi will be nicer. I think this will be my home office shawl. For my shoulders or lap and so soft. I want to try to finish it and the Hemlock around the same time - working a little on both of then when the other one get's boring. I'm using the instructions in the Knitter's Almanac and the Charts in Shawls and Scarves.



Hemlock is also growing, I'm in the growing feather and fan section - nice and peaceful knitting. I can take this along with me when I'm outside watching Jada learning about bikes, balls, slides, and spring time. Watching a 15 month old discover the wide world is so much fun. I'm enjoying it so much more this 3rd time, maybe because I know for sure it's the last. THE LAST.

The color on my Blackberry is sucking all the life out of this yarn - it's really a dusky purple, but looks washed out in these photos.





Poor Mr. Greenjeans and Mystery Shawl have been on hold this past week. I have to get back to them. I'm at the sleeves section on Mr. Greenjeans, and just love, love the yarn but I needed to wind a few more hanks and stalled b/c I've been too busy taking care of Colin and Jason to get upstairs to wind more. Yes - my boys have the flu so our house has been a zoo the past week and I can only handle the most mindless of my WIPs.

So the Mystery Shawl was definately out - couldn't handle the counting each and every row right now. If Colin gets well by Friday we are hoping to make a quick trip to the beach and I will get to make some progress on both of these on the trip down. I'll miss another Charlotte Purls field trip!!! It is just not been my luck to make any of these since I have been in the CPs. I'm on a yarn diet - so it's probably for the best.