Happy birthday, C-Monkey!

There hasn't been much progress on the shawl front, but I have a good excuse....

We had a fabulous time Saturday celebrating my middle child's second year of life! Almost my entire family was in attendance, and great fun (as well as burgers, cake and ice cream) was had by all.

Now that the madness of party planning has ended, it's back to the frantic struggle to finish the Mystery Shawl in time for my cousin's wedding at the end of May. 34 days sounds like a long time, but I also have to allow at least 8 hours for blocking. It may come down to pinning this shawl out on one of the hotel beds the Friday night before the big day.

I should probably go ahead and add "blocking pins" to my packing list for that weekend...

Current WIP

That's Work In Progress, for you non-crafty folk. This actually is not my only current WIP--as a knitter, having only one project on the needles at a time breaks some unwritten yarny rule. This is also the case with quilting, spinning, stitching....basically any form of handwork. We are a fickle, fickle group.

But I digress.

This is a portion of the "In Dreams" mystery shawl that I'm knitting with the Lord of the Rings Knit-along group on Ravelry . This particular pattern is based on Galadriel's crown, and is designed by Susan Pandorf. (If you're a knitter who enjoys knitting lace, look her up on Ravelry. Her designs are beautiful.) A mystery shawl is exactly what it sounds like--the designer sends out the pattern in sections (called "clues") over a predetermined period of time. After completing all the clues, you have a finished project, in this case a shawl. Part of what I love so much about the "mystery shawl" concept is that you have no idea what the finished product will look like once it's done. Very exciting.

I'm about 1/3 of the way through Clue 4, and Clue 6 will be released this Friday. Yes, I'm behind, but as my 3 children still expect to be fed and cared for during the day this can't be helped. Truth be told, I'm actually not as far behind as I expected to be at this point, but the state of my house might be a clue as to why...

I'm truly loving this pattern. The lace is gorgeous and the color is perfect for a spring/summer shawl. Coincidentally, it also perfectly matches the dress I'm wearing to my cousin's wedding next month. If I can manage to finish it, (fingers crossed, everyone) it will be the perfect accessory.

Let's try this again, shall we?

This is my second attempt at keeping an up-to-date blog, and I'm really going to make more of an effort this time. I'm going to focus this go around on my crafting endeavors since, as much as I love my children, I enjoy talking about something other than the contents of a diaper every once in a while.

Therefore, I hope to be able to share and discuss my yarny, lace-y and fabric-y exploits here. However, since many of my creations end up (intentionally or not) in their possession, my offspring will undoubtedly make an appearance here from time to time.

Now I just need to warp the space-time continuum so I can find time to add blogging to my daily schedule...